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Conferences and seminars

Conferences and seminars arising out of the research interests of individual staff and groups occupy a central position in History's research culture. Conference and seminar papers delivered in both the UK and overseas enable staff to report on work in progress or recently completed.

Seminars

Kingston's History Research Group, though also linking up with the Social Science Research Seminars, has its own seminar programme run by research centres. Seminars have played a key role in initiating, progressing and completing research projects. For example, Dr. David Kynaston developed much of the concept and structure of his 1945-1979 New Jerusalem project (of which Austerity Britain, 1945-51 was the first volume) through a series of research seminars conducted with History and other faculty staff. These seminars are continuing in 2007-8 to inform future volumes in the series.

Conferences

Conferences organised by History staff and research groups are marked by their collaborative character. External co-organisers have included the University of Virginia; University of Siena; University of Brighton; Centre for Federal Studies, University of Kent; Centre for Metropolitan History, University of London; CORAL (Conference of Regional and Local Historians in Tertiary Education); Workers' Educational Association; The Institute of Contemporary History and Wiener Library.

Conferences organised by history staff and groups since 2001 (only selected external speakers are listed):

  • Why Economic Growth? (2001): Nick Crafts (LSE); David Dollar (World Bank); Andrew Oswald (Warwick); Bob Sutcliffe (Bilbao); Terisa Turner (Guelph);
  • Changing Minds: the politics of influence, the influence of politics, with University of Virginia (2002): Gerard Alexander (Virginia), Lawrence Black (Durham), Christopher Duggan (Reading), Amy Fried (Maine); David Nash (Oxford Brookes), Mike Rustin (East London/Tavistock Clinic); Henk te Velde (Groningen);
  • Remaking Londoners: models of a healthy society in the nation's capital, 1918-1939, with the University of Brighton & Centre for Metropolitan History, University of London (2002): Elizabeth Darling (Brighton); Meredith Price (Cambridge); John Stewart (Oxford Brookes);
  • The Local History of Kingston and Teddington, with Workers' Educational Association (2003): Ken Howe (local historian);
  • "The Good Life" Conference on Suburbia, with Kingston's Centre for Suburban Studies (2004): Mark Clapson (Westminster); Hugh Freeman (Oxford); David Gilbert (Royal Holloway); Finn Jensen (Liverpool John Moores); Laura Vaughan (UCL);
  • Issues of community in the 19th. and 20th. centuries, with CORAL (Conference of Regional and Local Historians in Tertiary Education) (2005): Nigel Goose (Hertfordshire); Ross Hamilton (Durham); Evelyn Lord (Cambridge); John Seed (Roehampton);
  • Commemorative landscapes of the First World War Seminar, with the Interwar Rural History Research Group (2005): Catherine Moriarty (Brighton);
  • Learning from Precedent: the prospects for democratic consolidation in Iraq, with Labour Friends of Iraq, the UK Iraqi Community Association, and the Centre for Federal Studies, University of Kent (2006): Gerard Alexander (Virginia); Michael Burgess (Kent); Joan Maholloy (LSE); Abdullah Muhsin (Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions);
  • Researching and Teaching Mass Murder, with The Wiener Library & The Institute of Contemporary History, the University of Siena, and Kingston's Helen Bamber Centre for the Study of Rights and Conflict (2006): Andrea Bartoli (Center for International Conflict Resolution, Columbia); Marcello Flores (Siena); Norman Geras (Manchester); Robert Gellately (Florida State); Mark Levene (Southampton); Laurence Rees (producer of The Nazis - A Warning from History and Auschwitz); Jacques Semelin (CERI/CNRS, France);
  • New Labour in Power: Ten years on (2006): Vernon Bogdanor (Oxford); Sarah Childs (Bristol); Clare Short, MP.; David Walker (The Guardian);
  • The Spirit of the Age: debating the past, present and future of Life Writing, with Kingston's Centre for Life Narratives (2007): Neil Ascherson; David Blunkett, MP.; Hanif Kureishi; Claire Tomalin.
Photograph of a historical scene