Month: August 2023

Place and Space in the Early Modern World Workshop, 10 May 2023 – Early Modern Studies Research Group

Posted on by George Thomas

By Dr Sebastiaan Verweij, Senior Lecturer in Late Medieval and Early Modern Literature, and Amy Smith, PhD History candidate

To continue our Faculty Research Centre and Group catch-ups, Dr Sebastiaan Verweij and PhD History candidate Amy Smith tell us about the highly innovative and interdisciplinary May workshop put on by the Early Modern Studies research group.

On 10 May, the Early Modern Studies (EMS) research group ran a workshop: ‘Place and Space in the Early Modern World’. Place and Space studies, including attention to landscape and environment, cuts through the research activities of EMS members in many different disciplines (including English, History, History of Art, Modern Languages, Theatre, Philosophy, Archaeology), and the workshop was organised as a way to share research methods, materials, and findings. Among our c. 40 delegates were also five colleagues from the Universities of Exeter and Cardiff, in part because EMS is keen to develop research collaboration with members of GW4, a research alliance group made up of the universities of Bristol, Bath, Cardiff and Exeter. We were also joined by PhD students in the Faculty currently on the South, West and Wales Doctoral Training Partnership (SWWDTP) scholarships (with thanks for some additional funding from SWWDTP!).

Dr Sebastiaan Verweij opens the ‘Place and Space in the Early Modern World’ workshop

Most of the workshop took the form of five-minute flashpapers, delivered by 17 colleagues in short panels. For any academic researcher to stop talking at the five-minute mark is no easy feat. However, all speakers deliver punchy, thought-provoking, and cutting-edge papers on diverse topics that felt nonetheless connected and in immediate conversation with others on the day. Topics included sea board spaces, Arthurian landscapes, castle gardens as women’s spaces, portable places and soil in cemeteries, British cathedral precincts, recreating the perambulation of Bristol’s city boundaries, flood lands, Italian urban space, dramatic space in the early modern theatre, the spaces of city comedy, urban space in Manilla, the philosophical precepts of space in time from Aristotle to Newton, the space of tragedy, and what urban planners refer to as ‘Space Left Over After Planning’. The day was concluded with an interdisciplinary and wide-ranging keynote address by Professor Nicola Whyte, a social and landscape historian at Exeter, on ‘Sacred landscapes and the subterranean imagination’, which took in Renaissance Italian painting, contemporary art, the seventeenth-century travel journals of Celia Fiennes, and heritage studies, as a way to understand premodern and contemporary response and approach to the landscapes that lie beneath our feet.

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The workshop left us feeling like there was a great deal more to discuss, and so EMS has resolved to work out a way in which conversations can continue: perhaps in the form of future meetings, and through exploration of funding opportunities such as those offered by GW4, in order to organise more ambitious events (conferences, symposia, or collaborations beyond the university).  

The PGR perspective by Amy Smith, PhD History candidate

PGR students (postgraduate research students) often chat about how ‘at home’ we feel in the School of Humanities. Whether we’ve been kicking around Bristol for years or only just joined, we all feel welcome at higher level academic events across the department. The Place and Space workshop on May 10th was no different. With so many stimulating topics, we joined in lively Q&A sessions and indulged in the sacred landscapes explored in Nicola Whyte’s keynote. 

It was especially inspiring to see recently graduated doctoral students speaking alongside academics with a long publishing record. With several of us in the latter stages of our doctorates, it was a comforting glimpse into a potential future. Next time, I wouldn’t be surprised if we see a number of PGR faces on the panels as we start to develop our scholarly profiles within the University and beyond. 

The workshop was made possible by Faculty of Arts research group core funding, some additional funds from the Faculty, and a travel subvention for SWWDTP students.  

The Early Modern Studies Research Group aspires to generate a sense of community for scholars from across the faculty (and beyond) who work on some aspect of the period from c.1400 to c.1800. To find out more about the Group’s activities, research and to join the mailing list, please contact s.verweij@bristol.ac.uk or richard.stone@bristol.ac.uk.

New Directions in Black Humanities Conference, 18 April 2023 – Centre for Black Humanities

Posted on by George Thomas

By Dr Saima Nasar, Senior Lecturer in the History of Africa and its Diasporas, School of Humanities

With the advent of a new academic year fast approaching, we caught up with some of our Faculty Research Centres and Groups to see what they got up to last term. Here, Dr Saima Nasar tells us about the Centre for Black Humanities’s highly successful April conference.

The aim of this conference was to bring together researchers to reflect on ‘New Directions in the Black Humanities’. It sought to showcase the exciting research that is being carried out by a dynamic, interdisciplinary group of early career researchers. In doing so, one of the key ambitions of the conference was to support community building. 

This was an in-person conference, hosted at the University of Bristol by the Centre for Black Humanities. Thanks to generous funding from The Social History Society’s BME Small Grants Scheme and the University of Bristol’s Faculty of Arts Fund, we were able to offer travel bursaries for our conference delegates who joined us from Royal Holloway, the University of Oxford, the University of West London, the University of Bristol, QMUL, the University of Birmingham, SOAS, and the University of Leicester.  

Dr Amber Lascelles opens the conference with reflections on Black Humanities

We began the conference with an introductory talk by Dr Amber Lascelles (RHUL), who reflected on how it might be possible to create a critical mass of Black Humanities scholars in Britain. Lascelles posed the questions: how do we work with and expand the often US-centric scholarship in Black Studies? And how do we network and build, both as practice and method? In so doing, Lascelles stressed the need for community building and mentorship.  

Our first panel on ‘Literatures’ started with University of Bristol MA Black Humanities student, Kennedy Marie Crowder. Crowder’s paper (‘Fabulation, Physics and Racial Horror: The Non-local Unreality of Black Literature’) probed what ‘reality’ to a Black person is. She explored how speculative fiction by Black authors represents racialised geographies. Her paper was followed by Andrea Bullard (doctoral researcher, University of Bristol) who presented on romance representation in media and Black historical fiction. The panel concluded with Tony Jackson’s (MA Black Humanities, University of Bristol) paper on ‘The Thin Line Between Love and Obsession’. 

MA Black Humanities student, Kennedy Marie Crowder, delivers her paper
PhD Creative Writing candidate, Andrea Bullard, presents her paper

Our second panel was on the theme ‘Black Lives and Activism’. Sascha-DaCosta Hinds (doctoral researcher, University of Oxford) chaired the session. Wasuk Godwin Sule-Pearce (doctoral researcher, University of West London) started the panel with a comparative study of ‘quadruple consciousness’. Sule-Pearce examined the transatlantic experiences of Black LGBTQ+ students in Higher Education institutes in the UK, US and South Africa. Caine Tayo-Lewin Turner (doctoral researcher, University of Oxford) followed with an illuminating paper on Black anarchism and the ‘anarcho turn’ of Black British protest and thought. He argued that the Black rebellions of the 1980s was the logical conclusion of over a decade of dissident norms established by Black radicals. Dr Melsia Tomlin-Kräftner (Lecturer in Qualitative Research, University of Bristol) then presented her research on migrations of British colonial Caribbean people.  

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The first afternoon session focused on ‘African Studies’. We had four brilliant papers by Celine Henry (doctoral researcher, University of Birmingham), Henry Brefo (doctoral researcher, University of Birmingham), Danny Thompson (doctoral researcher, University of Chichester) and Helina Shebeshe (doctoral researcher, SOAS). The papers covered histories of Asantehene Prempeh I, educational scholarships and development bureaucracy in Ghana, and Ethiopian migrants in the United Kingdom and their understanding and experiences of belonging. The panel was chaired by Dr Saima Nasar (Senior Lecturer in the History of Africa and its Diasporas, University of Bristol).  

Celine Henry-Agyemang, University of Birmingham, delivers her paper

Our final panel on ‘Fashioning Selves’ was chaired by Ross Goodman-Brown (doctoral researcher, University of Bristol). The panellists included: Natasha Henry (doctoral researcher, University of Leicester), Claudia Jones (MA Black Humanities student, University of Bristol) and Olivia Wyatt (doctoral researcher, QMUL). Each paper examined race and racialisation. Wyatt, for instance, interrogated the ambivalent attitudes towards Black mixed-heritage children between the 1920s and the early 1950s.  

Olivia Wyatt, Queen Mary University of London, presents her paper

We were hugely honoured to then be joined by our keynote speaker: author, feminist and academic researcher, Lola Olufemi. Olufemi’s paper ‘Only the Promise of Liberation’ examined the purpose, utility and function of the imagination in the work of anti-racist and feminist grassroots political mobilisations in the UK.  

Feedback from the day was overwhelmingly positive: 

‘New Directions brought together some of the most talented emerging scholars working in Black Humanities in Britain. I thought the quality of the research on offer and the generosity of the questions and discussion made for a very warm and supportive environment. For some it was their first time giving a paper in person, and many shared with me that the collegiality in the room made this a much less daunting experience. The event made me excited and hopeful for the future of Black Humanities.’ Dr Amber Lascelles (RHUL).  

‘The conference was a fantastic opportunity to bring together different voices — from around the world — working within the field of Black humanities. Not only did it provide us with refreshingly alternative concepts and methodologies, the conference also functioned as a safe space for upcoming researchers from ethnically-marginalised backgrounds navigating workplaces that are overwhelmingly White. The love, care and support that emerged within these sessions fill me with hope and excitement for the future of Black humanities in Britain.’ Olivia Wyatt (QMUL).

Olivia Wyatt, Wasuk Godwin Sule-Pearce, Caine Tayo-Lewin Turner, and Sascha DaCosta-Hinds in discussion

‘New Directions provided an encouraging and welcoming space, bringing together a diverse set of researchers united by the concern for the future of black studies. The range of focus and disciplinary methods (without the pretence of uniform expertise) made participation both rewarding and generative. Distinct ideological undercurrents did not serve to divide but rather inform a dialogue on the political dimensions of black humanities as a discourse; I gained clarity on my position as well as the field in general. I look forward to the Centre’s future events and conferences.’ Caine Tayo Lewin-Turner (University of Oxford).  

‘I thoroughly enjoyed New Directions in Black Humanities at Bristol. As an Africanist it is often difficult to see how my work falls into conversations on black humanities, however the breadth of research made me feel at ease while at the programme. I heard many amazing discussions as well as questions and contributions which I will be exploring in my methodology for my own research. The key thing I am taking away from the programme is the rich network of researchers that I met and hope to keep in touch with throughout my research career. I hope this programme is organised again next year.’ Celine Henry (University of Birmingham).   

Many thanks to everyone who participated in and supported the conference!  

The Centre for Black Humanities is an international interdisciplinary hub for Black Humanities research in the heart of Bristol. To find out more about the Centre’s activities, research and to join the mailing list, please contact cbh-publicity@bristol.ac.uk. You can also stay up to date through the Centre’s Twitter account.

How a PGR Internship Prepared Me for Publishing a Co-Authored Article

Posted on by George Thomas

By Alice Kinghorn, PhD History candidate, School of Humanities

As PhD History candidate Alice Kinghorn’s co-authored article with Professor Hilary Carey appears in the latest edition of the Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History, we caught up with Alice to find out how her experience as a postgraduate research (PGR) intern prepared her for publishing in an academic journal.

I undertook a PGR internship under the supervision of Professor Hilary Carey in June/July 2022. We worked together over the course of five weeks to co-author an article on the slave-owning missionary, James Curtin. Curtin is a figure that incorporated both of our scholarly interests, as a Catholic convert who travelled to Antigua as a Protestant missionary in the early nineteenth century.    

After creating an initial plan together, we each set off on our own research tasks. I visited Lambeth Palace Archives, where I had the opportunity to carry out investigative research that has been restricted during the period of the pandemic. Following our individual research, we shared notes and drew up a plan. Using a shared document and with regular meetings, we took to writing up the article.    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of the biggest challenges during my internship has been to keep a narrow enough focus when researching and writing collaboratively. Our individual research disclosed many interesting accounts, and our initial draft ending up being over twice the journal’s word limit. Consequently, the editing process was challenging. Nonetheless, after lengthy edits, I believe I have improved my ability to write clearly and concisely for an academic audience. Together we co-wrote and co-edited the article, and submitted for publication to the Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History, which the article on James Curtin features in. 

The opportunity to write a jointly authored article with Professor Carey has supported me immensely as a postgraduate researcher. I have gained valuable experience in the academic publication process, including selecting an appropriate journal and writing a concise piece that whilst related to my thesis, is separate to my main research. I feel more confident going into the publication process in the future following this internship, and I am grateful to have had the opportunity to explore this with the support of my supervisor.  This internship engendered success through its published research output, which is my first published article in an academic journal.

 

Alice Kinghorn is a PhD History candidate with research interests in Anglican missionary societies and transatlantic slavery. Alice’s co-authored article, ‘The History of James Curtin: Catholic Priest, Protestant Missionary, and Pariah of British Proslavery, 1765-1845’, can be read in the Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History, vol. 24, no.2, Summer 2023.

Introducing the ‘Remaking Britain’ project in South Asian Heritage Month

Posted on by George Thomas

By Professor Sumita Mukherjee, Dr Florian Stadtler, Dr Aleena Din, Dr Rehana Ahmed and Dr Maya Parmar

We’re excited to launch the new project Remaking Britain: South Asian Connections and Networks, 1830s to the present. Remaking Britain is an AHRC-funded research project led by the University of Bristol (Sumita Mukherjee, PI and Florian Stadtler, Co-I) and Queen Mary University of London (Rehana Ahmed, Co-I) in partnership with the British Library. Aleena Din (Bristol) and Maya Parmar (QMUL) are researchers on the project. 

Remaking Britain will reveal the significance of South Asian people and communities as agents of change to Britain’s cultural, economic, political and social life from the period of empire in the 1830s to the present. Through the exploration of archival records and the capturing of oral histories, the project will produce a free, interactive and widely accessible digital resource with accompanying learning materials and oral history interviews, designed for researchers of all types from academics to community and family historians, to interested members of the public.  

We are working closely with the Bristol Research IT team, led by Tessa Alexander, with Mike Jones, as well as user experience consultant Stu Church and web designer Tom Waterhouse. This resource, with roughly 750 entries, will be launched in the summer of 2025. 

To mark South Asian Heritage Month, which takes place between 18th July-17th August, we have spotlighted five individuals, events and organisations which will feature in our digital resource.  

Atiya Fyzee (1877-1967), author, social reformer and arts patron

Image of Atiya Fyzee wearing a head-covering light-colored veil with a pearl ornament, and an embroidered/jeweled bodice.
Atiya Fyzee. Source: Basanta Koomar Roy, “Picturesque India”, The Mentor vol. 9 (May 1, 1921).

As a youth, Atiya was involved in women’s organisations and made contributions to reformist journals for Muslim women, including Tahzib un-niswan (Lahore) and Khatun (Aligarh). She was sent to London by her parents for an education and undertook a teaching qualification at Maria Grey Training College. While in London, Atiya wrote a travel diary which documented her networks and connections in Britain. This was later published as Zamana–i-tahsil (A Time of Education) in 1921.  

During her short time in Britain, she became part of influential social networks, travelled across Europe and made significant cultural contributions through her groundbreaking observations of life as a Muslim woman in early 20th century Britain.  

 

Amrit Kaur (1889-1964), activist and politician

Image of Rajkumari Amrit Kaur, from a 1936 issue of ''The Indian Listener''. Amrit has her head covered with a shawl and is sat down looking towards the camera.
Amrit Kaur. Source: “Rajkumari Amrit Kaur”, The Indian Listener (November 7, 1936): 1096.

Rajkumari Amrit Kaur was a leading member of the Indian suffrage movement in the 1920s and 1930s, visiting London numerous times to campaign for Indian women’s rights, and went on to become Independent India’s first female cabinet minister.

Amrit Kaur was the first Indian to study at Sherborne School for Girls in Dorset. She joined the school in 1902, following the coronation of Edward VII, and left in 1906 as Head Girl and Captain of Games. Amrit Kaur also served as one of Mahatma Gandhi’s private secretaries for 16 years and was an active member of the non-cooperation movement. In 1950, her suffrage campaigning saw success as the new constitution of India enfranchised all adult men and women over the age of 21. 

 

 

Chuni Lal Katial (1898-1978), doctor and politician 

Chuni Lal Katial graduated with a degree in medicine from Lahore University, and then continued his studies in Liverpool in public health and tropical medicine in 1927. After moving to London, he initially worked as a doctor in Canning Town, and later set up a surgery in Finsbury, attending mainly to working class communities. He was elected as a councillor for the Labour Party in 1934, and in 1938 he became the first South Asian mayor in the UK. He was a driving force as Chairman of the Public Health Committee in the setting up of the pioneering Finsbury Health Centre, which offered a range of health facilities all in one location, including a tuberculosis clinic, dentist and women’s clinic. During the Second World War, Katial was a civil defence medical officer. 

Katial was also heavily involved with the campaigning pressure group the India League. During the Second Round Table Conference in 1931, he became Gandhi’s chaperone in London, and a famous meeting between Gandhi and Charlie Chaplin took place at his house.  

Embed from Getty Images

M K Gandhi meeting actor, Charlie Chaplin, in London’s East End. Also in the picture from left to right are: Dr Katial and the poet, Sarojini Naidu, 22nd September 1931 (Photo by Popperfoto via Getty Images/Getty Images) 

 

Indian Writing (1940-45) 

South Asian writers played a significant part in London’s literary and political life in the early twentieth century. One node of a substantial network which connected South Asian, British and other anti-colonial writers, intellectuals and activists was the magazine Indian Writing (1940-45), edited by Iqbal Singh, Ahmed Ali, Krishnarao Shelvankar and Alagu Subramaniam. Run from Sasadhar Sinha’s Bibliophile Bookshop, located just a stone’s throw from the British Museum at 16 Little Russell Street, the magazine published short fiction, non-fiction and book reviews. On the cusp of Indian independence, it brought together fierce political critique and literary talent at the heart of the imperial metropolis. 

Image of an advertisement for Indian Writing magazine. The advertisement reads: 'Indian Writing: A New Quarterly. The spring number contains stories, articles, and reviews by Mulk Raj Anand, Iqbal Singh, K. S. Shelvankar, Raja Rao, Ahmed Ali, Sarat Chandra Chatterjee, A. Subramaniam, Cedric Dover, and others.'
Advertisement for Indian Writing, published in the magazine, Life and Letters and the London Mercury and Bookman [Shelfmark: P.P.5939.bgf.; Courtesy of the British Library]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

South Asians and the NHS

The NHS as we know it today has been built – and continues to be sustained – by migrant contributions. South Asians have played a major role in this. But we can place South Asians in the medical profession in Britain, long before the NHS was formed. Bari Chohan, who shared his family history for the Millenium Memory Bank (MMB), described how his family arrived in England in the 1870s, having practiced homeopathy and opthalmics on the subcontinent. They then opened medical clinics all over England. Bari’s great uncle Dr Chirag Din Chohan, who was a hakim (practitioner of alternative medicine) and an eye specialist, opened his first practice in Harrogate in the early 1920s. He later moved to his wife Florence’s hometown of Middlesbrough in 1925 where, in 1933, he opened a practice on Kensington Road. In 1937, Dr Chohan opened a second practice on nearby Linthorpe Road.  

Embed from Getty Images

An Indian doctor examines a patient, UK, October 1955. Original publication: Picture Post – 8572 – Indians in London – unpub. (Photo by Thurston Hopkins/Picture Post/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)] 

The team chose to spotlight these lives and organisations as they showcase the wide range of interests of the project including gender, literary and cultural life, political activism and campaigning, religion, as well as workers’ experiences.   

Contact us

We’d love to hear from anyone with project queries, expressions of interest in oral history participation, or any information relating to the rich history of South Asians in Britain from the 1830s to the present. 

To contact the project team, please email remaking-britain-project@bristol.ac.uk.

You can find more information on how to contact us on our website, including our Facebook and Twitter pages.