Tag: AHRC

Teaching and Learning War

Published on by CIGH Exeter2 Comments

History studies at primary school Pupils studying Second World War by reading old newspaper UK

Catriona Pennell
University of Exeter

The AHRC has recently funded the Teaching and Learning War research network, which brings together EU and international researchers and educationalists, from a range of academic disciplines and professional backgrounds (including schools, museums, archives and heritage organisations), to explore young people’s engagement with and receptivity to the cultural memory messages of the two world wars from an international comparative perspective. At the centenary of WW1 in the UK, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand young people find themselves front and centre of both state-sponsored and community-level commemorations. As the two world wars fade from living memory, young people across the Commonwealth have been singled out as those who will be carrying the memory of the war forward. Early indications suggest similar emphasis will be placed on young people in the 80th and 90thanniversaries of WW2. Continue reading “Teaching and Learning War” →

Call for Applications – Beaming the British Empire: the Imperial Wireless Chain, c. 1900-1940: AHRC-funded Collaborative Doctoral Award

Published on by CIGH Exeter4 Comments

exeter logo

AHRC-funded Collaborative Doctoral Award with the University of Exeter and BT Archives

Beaming the British empire: the Imperial Wireless Chain, circa 1900-1940

Ref: 2583

About the award

Applications are invited for an AHRC-funded Collaborative Doctoral Award with the University of Exeter and BT Archives to research and study the origins, development and impact of the Imperial Wireless Chain, the global network of shortwave radio stations that reputedly played a critical role in British colonial integrity from the 1920s to the 1940s.

This project focuses on one of the most extraordinary milestones in the history of global telecommunications and represents an exciting opportunity for students with backgrounds in the history of science, technology, and modern British and imperial history.  First conceived by Guglielmo Marconi in 1906 to use long-wave transmitters, the Imperial Wireless Chain (IWC) was postponed following a political scandal and the outbreak of the First World War.    In the early 1920s, and at some financial risk, the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company developed its innovative ‘beam’ short-wave system and this was eventually adopted by the British government for the IWC.  The first pair of ‘beam’ stations opened in Britain and Canada in 1927 and within a few years similar stations followed in Australia, India, New Zealand, South Africa and South America.  It soon became one of the most widely used forms of long distance communication in the British empire and posed such a threat to the ageing submarine cable business that had constituted the ‘nervous system’ of the British empire that the British government was eventually forced to amalgamate the newer and older forms of telegraphy into one of the largest telecommunication firms of the 1930s: Cable and Wireless.  Despite its importance, the history of the Imperial Wireless Chain has not been the subjects of systematic scholarly study.

Continue reading “Call for Applications – Beaming the British Empire: the Imperial Wireless Chain, c. 1900-1940: AHRC-funded Collaborative Doctoral Award” →

Centre Director Andrew Thompson to lead the Arts and Humanities Research Council

Published on by CIGH Exeter2 Comments

Andrew Thompson_1000785_0 (1)

Cross-posted from University of Exeter Research News

Professor Andrew Thompson, Director of the Centre for Imperial & Global History at the University of Exeter, has been appointed as interim Chief Executive of the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC).

Professor Thompson’s research interests focus on the relationship between British, imperial and global histories and the effects of empire on British private and public life during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

The AHRC is a national funding agency supporting arts and humanities research and study in the UK. It funds world-class, independent researchers in a wide range of subjects: ancient history, modern dance, archaeology, digital content, philosophy, English literature, design and the creative and performing arts. Continue reading “Centre Director Andrew Thompson to lead the Arts and Humanities Research Council” →

Imagining Markets workshop Report, Exeter, April 2015

Published on by CIGH Exeter

Reed Hall1

David Thackeray
University of Exeter

Cross-Posted from Imagining Markets

A chilly start at Reed Hall, Exeter!

We were delighted to welcome Imagining Markets network participants to Exeter for our first event last week. This is the first of a series of three academic workshops, with subsequent events to be held in London and Cambridge over the next year, exploring various facets of Britain’s economic culture and its relationship with key markets.

Paul Young opened proceedings with a paper exploring how the growth of the refrigerated meat and beef stock industries led to new understandings of the South American environment in Victorian literature such as the eco-romance The Purple Land and in advertising, where the Uruguay-based Leibig’s company had to compete with the imperial populism of Bovril.

Alan Booth introduced a new project exploring the development of the Rowntree business lectures, which emerged after World War I in a context of growing global economic competition to British business, and interest in new American methods of industrial psychology and management consultancy.
Continue reading “Imagining Markets workshop Report, Exeter, April 2015” →

Up to 52 fully-funded PhD Studentships in the Arts and Humanities Available for Sept. 2015

Published on by CIGH Exeter

ExeterInterested in pursuing a PhD in imperial and global history at the University of Exeter? Consider applying through the SWW Doctoral Training Partnership.

Cross-posted from South, West & Wales Doctoral Training Partnership

The South, West & Wales Doctoral Training Partnership (SWW DTP) is a collaboration of eight leading research universities and partners representing the arts, heritage, media and government sectors, working together to develop a new generation of arts and humanities researchers.

We are offering up to 52 fully-funded PhD studentships for entry in September 2015.

The SWW DTP is designed to lead a new generation of researchers into productive careers whether in academia or professional practice. We provide bespoke support and training tailored to your project and your career aspirations, enriched by the world-class expertise and state-of-the-art resources offered through the partnership. DTP students have unrivalled access to prestige organisations such as BBC Drama (Cardiff), BBC Factual (Bristol), English Heritage, the National Library of Wales, the National Trust and the Welsh National Opera, among others. Our students benefit from the Professional Arts and Humanities Researcher skills training programme, developing essential research and transferable skills linked to academic progression, personal and professional development. Continue reading “Up to 52 fully-funded PhD Studentships in the Arts and Humanities Available for Sept. 2015” →

At the ‘Crossroads of Empire’

Published on by CIGH Exeter

JCPC exhibition context

Piers Ford

Cross-posted from the Arts & Humanities Research Council.

The London exhibit on law and the British Empire, spearheaded by the Centre’s own Dr. Nandini Chatterjee, has had more than 25,000 visitors so far, and is open to the public until September 26th.

[…] The exhibition – A Court at the Crossroads of Empire: Stories from the JCPC – opened for a two-month run at the beginning of August 2014. Curated by a team of academics related to the “Subjects of Law” network, led by Charlotte, Nandini, and Dr Stacey Hynd (also from the University of Exeter), it traced the JCPC’s evolution from its foundation in 1833 to the emergence of the Commonwealth in the 1950s, largely through the stories of individuals whose cases often had a direct impact on commerce and legal practice, as well as the appellant’s own future – for better or, as it occasionally turned out, worse. Continue reading “At the ‘Crossroads of Empire’” →

Socialism Goes Global: Cold War Connections Between the ‘Second’ and ‘Third Worlds’ 1945-1991

Published on by CIGH Exeter

Global-South-America-Brazil-and-Argentina

James Mark
History Department, University of Exeter

The University of Exeter, in collaboration with the Universities of Oxford, Columbia, Leipzig and Belgrade, the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and University College London, has recently been awarded a major Arts and Humanities Research Council Grant (2014-18) to address the relationship between what were once called the ‘Second World’ (from the Soviet Union to the GDR) and the ‘Third World’ (from Latin America to Africa to Asia).

In the post-war period, as both decolonization and new forms of globalisation accelerated, new linkages opened up, and existing ties were remade, between these ‘worlds’. Contacts multiplied through, for instance, the development of political bonds; economic development and aid; health and cultural and academic projects; as well as military interventions.

Yet these important encounters, and their impacts on national, regional and global histories, have hitherto only played a marginal role in accounts of late 20th century globalization, which have mainly focused on links between the West and former colonies, or between the countries of the ‘Global South’. Continue reading “Socialism Goes Global: Cold War Connections Between the ‘Second’ and ‘Third Worlds’ 1945-1991” →

Imagining Britain’s Global Markets

Published on by CIGH Exeter3 Comments
A 1927 pictoral map with all the dominions and trade routes. British Empire Marketing Board. (Library and Archives Canada, Acc. No. 1983-27-382 Copyright expired.)
A 1927 pictoral map with all the dominions and trade routes. British Empire Marketing Board.
Library and Archives Canada, Acc. No. 1983-27-382 Copyright expired.

The History Department at the University of Exeter has recently received funding from the AHRC to support an international research network: ‘Imagining Markets: Conceptions of Empire/Commonwealth, Europe and China in Britain’s economic future since the 1870s’. The network led by David Thackeray, Richard Toye and Andrew Thompson aims to provide a bridge between historical and contemporary ways of thinking about Britain’s future global economic orientation, bringing together scholars working in the fields of Imperial, European and Asian studies, and scholars from cultural studies and economic studies, which have become increasingly separated branches of enquiry calling for reintegration.

Continue reading “Imagining Britain’s Global Markets” →