Month: September 2025

Autumn Term Research Seminar Schedule

Published on by CIGH Exeter

Centre for Imperial and Global History

Research Seminars

~ Autumn 2025 ~

All seminars take place on Wednesdays 3.30pm-5.00pm in person in Amory B310 unless otherwise noted, with the option to join remotely. Reminders, links, and abstracts will be sent a week in advance of each seminar to the CIGH mailing list. To be added, please email Chris and Beccy at c.w.sandal-wilson@exeter.ac.uk and r.williams2@exeter.ac.uk.

WEDNESDAY 1 OCTOBER [Week 2]                Welcome (Back) Social

Join us in the Amory Senior Common Room for an informal gathering to mark the start of the academic year, welcome new researchers, and catch up with old friends.

WEDNESDAY 8 OCTOBER [Week 3]                Parting Gifts of Empire: Book Talk

Join us for a talk by Esmat Elhalby (Toronto) around his forthcoming book, Parting Gifts of Empire: Palestine and India at the Dawn of Decolonisation. This event is co-hosted with South Asia Centre and the European Centre for Palestine Studies. NB: This event will take place 2.30-4.30pm in Lecture Theatre B, Streatham Court.

WEDNESDAY 22 OCTOBER [Week 5]              Legacies of Devon Slavery Connections

At this event, members of the Legacies of Devon Slavery Connections Group will be sharing the work that they have been doing to explore Devon’s local connections to slavery, and their insights into sources and archives for doing this kind of research.

            WEDNESDAY 5 NOVEMBER [Week 7]             Meet our visiting researchers!

Join us to learn more about the exciting research our visiting doctoral and post-doctoral research colleagues are doing here at Exeter. Saloni Verma and Nazlı Songulen will present on their ongoing projects.

            WEDNESDAY 3 DECEMBER [Week 11]           The Bonds of Freedom: Book Talk

Join us to hear Jake Subryan Richards (LSE) speak about his new book, The Bonds of Freedom, which tells the forgotten story of people seized from slave ships by maritime patrols, “liberated”, then forced into bonded labour between 1807 and 1880. NB: This event will take place in Amory C417.

WEDNESDAY 10 DECEMBER [Week 12]         Postgraduate Research Symposium

As always, we’ll see out the term on a high note: join us as post-graduate researchers working on Imperial and Global History at Exeter share their work in progress.

Signs of Resistance: Linguistic Landscapes and Urban Tensions in Santa Marta, Venice

Published on by CIGH Exeter

Berizzi Mariachiara[1], Boam Olivia[2], Fourie Nicholas Charles[3], Pizarro Jacinto Laura[4], Yücel Dinç Fatma[5]

 ‘Linguistic Landscapes‘, Venice International University Summer School 2025

Faculty: Kurt Feyaerts, KU Leuven (Coordinator); Richard Toye, University of Exeter (Coordinator); Matteo Basso, Iuav University of Venice; Geert Brône, KU Leuven; Claire Holleran, University of Exeter; Eliana Maestri, University of Exeter; Michela Maguolo, Iuav, University of Venice; Paul Sambre, KU Leuven

In Santa Marta, a quiet Venetian district, the city itself becomes a text: walls, streets, and public spaces speak through signs, graffiti, and infrastructures that reveal five interwoven themes: Anti-tourism, Transport & Mobility, Multilingualism & Symbolic Resistance, Government & Authority, and Prison as an Edge. From anti-tourism sentiments to the symbolic tensions of incarceration, our investigation examines how language, infrastructure, and public space interact to shape meaning and mobility. As shown in Figure 1, which provides a satellite view of Venice highlighting key landmarks and mobility nodes, our study is grounded in the spatial reality of the city. We begin by analysing local resistance to mass tourism, then move through the spatial logic of transport hubs like Piazzale Roma. We further consider multilingualism and graffiti as forms of symbolic resistance, explore the role of governance in shaping visibility and authority, and finally, interpret the Santa Maria Maggiore prison as both a physical and discursive edge.

Satellite view of Venice highlighting key landmarks and mobility nodes, including Santa Marta and Piazzale Roma. (Snapshot by Boam Olivia Boam, 3 July 2025)
Continue reading “Signs of Resistance: Linguistic Landscapes and Urban Tensions in Santa Marta, Venice” →

‘This country had a great empire’: The Nuances and Limits of the Rhetorical Premiership in Using the Imperial Past

Published on by CIGH Exeter
Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher posing with President Ronald Reagan in front of a portrait of Winston Churchill at 10 Downing Street, 9 June 1982 (Wikimedia Commons).

Shagnick Bhattacharya
University of Exeter

This article proposes that there were nuances and limits to Cold War-era British Prime Ministers’ use and abuse of the country’s imperial past to influence policy, shape national identity, and navigate international relations. That Prime Ministers’ use of public speeches to further their political agendas should receive greater academic attention was first proposed by Richard Toye[1] over a decade ago, and has currently taken the shape of an active research project[2] focussing specifically upon imperial rhetoric (titled ‘Talking Empire’—not to be confused with the CIGH’s podcast series!) led by Christian Damm Pedersen at the Syddansk Universitet, having recently received funding from the Carlsberg foundation.

Using contemporary newspaper reports from across Britain as sources, my intervention here will be on two counts: firstly, by showing how Margaret Thatcher used the legacy and memory of Churchill in her rhetoric as a surrogate for referring to the imperial past (rather than directly mentioning the Empire in the first place) in order to publicly talk about her desired economic policies; secondly, by noting how any rhetorical premiership’s reliance on the imperial past could also be turned against the premier by their political opposition (and not even necessarily by anti-imperialists) in an attempt to strip it of its usefulness as a political resource for the former.

Continue reading “‘This country had a great empire’: The Nuances and Limits of the Rhetorical Premiership in Using the Imperial Past” →

Striking a balance between residents and tourists? The Linguistic Landscape of Santa Maria Formos

Published on by CIGH Exeter

Beatrice Gervasi, Katarzyna Jonkisz, Meng Hao, Sabeth Malfliet, and George Ellis

Students of ‘Linguistic Landscapes‘, Venice International University Summer School 2025

Faculty: Kurt Feyaerts, KU Leuven (Coordinator); Richard Toye, University of Exeter (Coordinator); Matteo Basso, Iuav University of Venice; Geert Brône, KU Leuven; Claire Holleran, University of Exeter; Eliana Maestri, University of Exeter; Michela Maguolo, Iuav, University of Venice; Paul Sambre, KU Leuven

Our case study of Venice for the ‘Linguistic landscapes: signs and symbols’ summer school was centred around the storied neighbourhood of Santa Maria Formosa. This area boasts a historic Basilica, the Fondazione Querini Stampalia library and a new art installation of 2 lions and 2 lionesses which is intended to promote public interaction with art and celebrate Venetian pride. In short, this area offers a lot culturally and historically. This is strongly evident when walking down the side streets. During our first excursion, our group got the immediate sense that this was a residential area that had developed a strong tourist population due to its historical significance and geographic location (en route to the Rialta bridge).

We were fortunate in the sense that this region of Venice was not a particularly large one, being measured at 0.0072km^2. However, this did not mean that our investigations were without challenge. The geography of this area (a seeming thoroughfare for tourist populations) led to difficulties in photo collation. This combined with the high-content-per-area (a total of 73 relevant primary photos) and the labyrinthine streets led to our group having an abundance of data and difficulties delimiting our data set and research question. To overcome this, we adopted a thematic approach which split our data set into three relevant points for discussion: action flows, multilingualism and polyfunctionality. We then used relevant semiotic and anthropological studies (for example Landry and Bourhis 1997, Scollon and Scollon, 2003) to dissect the data set and apply a linguistic landscapes lens with the end goal of finding out whether Santa Maria Formosa is a healthily functioning neighbourhood or another victim of the increasing globalization faced all over the western world.

Continue reading “Striking a balance between residents and tourists? The Linguistic Landscape of Santa Maria Formos” →

Venice in absentia: A linguistic landscape of San Francesco della Vigna

Published on by CIGH Exeter
Campo San Francesco, San Francesco della Vigna

Hualing Zhai[1], Quinten Heymans[2], Bartolomeo Perazzoli[3], Sophie Paynter[4], Alice Wadsworth[5]

Students of ‘Linguistic Landscapes‘, Venice International University Summer School 2025

Faculty: Kurt Feyaerts, KU Leuven (Coordinator); Richard Toye, University of Exeter (Coordinator); Matteo Basso, Iuav University of Venice; Geert Brône, KU Leuven; Claire Holleran, University of Exeter; Eliana Maestri, University of Exeter; Michela Maguolo, Iuav, University of Venice; Paul Sambre, KU Leuven

Introducing San Francesco della Vigna

San Francesco della Vigna (later also SFdV), located on the northeastern edge of Venice, presents a sharp contrast to the city’s typical romantic image. The area may feel, in some ways, stuck in time, with the campo (the Venetian equivalent of a piazza) overlooked by a large gasholder (image 3) on one side, and the beautiful if somewhat imperious 16th-century church of San Francesco della Vigna (image 4). Our group, as part of the 2025 VIU Linguistic Landscapes summer school, explored this working-class neighbourhood focusing on the themes of presence and absence. At first, the area seems quiet and almost forgotten, with few signs of life such as shops, cafés, or passersby. However, through exploring the linguistic and semiotic landscapes and the soundscape of the area, we found a quietly strong local identity to be bubbling away beneath the seemingly barren surface.

Map of San Francesco della Vigna (Alice Wadsworth)
Campo San Francesco
Church of San Francesco della Vigna

We were lucky enough to explore every inch of the isola, and the walls were deep in conversation with the neighbourhood and with each other. So perhaps this work, and any work of mapping out a linguistic landscape, can be considered a kind of ethical ‘eavesdropping’. We observed- and listened- from outside but we were also able to conduct a few interviews as part of our research. Interviews with residents highlighted ongoing gentrification and local feelings of resistance. One construction worker noted that scaffolding usually indicates Airbnb renovations, reflecting economic and demographic changes.

Continue reading “Venice in absentia: A linguistic landscape of San Francesco della Vigna” →