Deconstructing Empire: Co-Producing with Young People
In this latest post for the ‘Writing Race’ series, Sarisha Kumar, Head of Talent at Poet in the City, describes recent projects that engage with the legacies Britain’s colonial past. Sarisha works with culture and heritage organisations across the UK to reveal the hidden stories of museum objects, as well as the lived experiences of British people, whose cultural identities have been shaped by colonialism.
Royal Historical Society Prizes & Awards, 2022
The Society’s annual Prizes and Awards were announced on Friday 22 July. This post provides details of winners and runners-up for 2022, including the Society’s Gladstone and Whitfield Prizes for first monographs, as well as other awards for research, publishing and teaching. The awards also include the Society’s four Centenary and Marshall Fellows who’ll be completing their PhDs in 2022-23 at the Institute of Historical Research.
What is History For? 4: Afterlives and Memory
Dr Thomas Brodie considers afterlives, with reference to a post-war group of Jewish scholars – ‘Oneg Shabbat’ – and its archival work to memorialise the experiences of Holocaust victims. As Thomas argues, history serves a purpose beyond scholarship. For many it is a moral duty to document the lived experiences of the past and present: in order that its legacies are grounded in knowledge and truth.
George W. Prothero: life and legacy, 1922-2022
10 July 2022 marks the centenary of the death of George W. Prothero, historian, editor and President of the Society between 1901 and 1905. A prominent member of the RHS in its formative years—and especially the early twentieth century move to professionalisation within the discipline—Prothero’s presence and influence endures, not least with the Society’s annual Prothero Lecture delivered each July.
What is History For? 3: Revolutions and Crises
In this third post of the ‘What is History for?’ series, Dr Lucie Ryzova explores how the Covid pandemic has shaped our understanding of crisis, how it relates to crises of the past, and how these events mark significant transitory moments in history. What does historical understanding reveal about the structure and development of crises such as revolution or pandemic? How original are our own ‘unprecedented times’?
What is History For? 2: activism and historical imagination
What is History For? is a short series of articles in which historians explore the purpose and value of their research and craft. In this second post, Tionne Parris considers the example set by mid-20th-century Black radical women in their struggle for change. What might historical study of their approach to, and framing of, activism teach us about engaging with present-day challenges, of which the climate emergency looms largest? A version of Tionne’s article was first presented at the ‘What is History For?’ conference held at the University of Birmingham, in May 2022.
A (Dis)entangled History of Early Modern Cannibalism: Theory and Practice in Global History
In their new article, now published in ‘Transactions of the Royal Historical Society’, Stuart McManus and Michael T. Tworek offer a new approach to early modern global history. What they dub ‘(dis)entangled history’ is a way to combine the conventional focus on the history of connections with a necessary appreciation of the elements of disconnection and disintegration. By tracing how discourses on cannibalism did and did not travel around the globe, they offer a theoretical statement and a concrete approach to writing about intermittent connectedness in the period 1500–1800.
Rethinking Anglo-Papal Relations: Royal Reactions to the Receipt of Papal Letters
Each year, the Society awards four Fellowships to students enabling them to complete a History PhD. The RHS Centenary and Marshall Fellows for 2022/23 will shortly be appointed. Here Dan Armstrong, one of current Centenary Fellows, reflects on his research in 2021/2. Dan’s study is of Anglo-Papal relations between the reigns of William the Conqueror and Henry I. In this post he considers how a single source — a letter sent to Archbishop Lanfranc from Pope Calixtus II — frames and informs his thesis.
What is History For? 1. Openings
‘What is History For?’ is a new series of posts in which historians reflect on the value, purpose and potential of their craft. Each of the contributors took part in a day-conference — What is History For?’ — held at the University of Birmingham in May. The series begins with presentations from two of the day’s speakers. Tom Cutterham points to tensions in the purposes of historical study, making the case for vision over fragmentation. We begin with conference organiser, Professor Karen Harvey, on why ‘What is History For?’, and why now.
RHS Elections 2022: Insights into the Society’s Council and the role of Councillors
Each year the Royal Historical Society holds elections to appoint three current Fellows as new members to its Council. The Council is the Society’s governing body, with responsibility for the objectives and work of the RHS. If you’re a Fellows, and interested in standing for election, this brief commentary offers an insight into the Council, and the activities and experiences of current Councillors.
RHS Alexander Prize – the 2022 Shortlist
The Society’s annual Alexander Prize is awarded for a journal article or book chapter written by an early career historian, and published in 2021. The 2022 Alexander Shortlist of ten articles is published on Tuesday 7 June. The shortlists for the Society’s two annual book awards – the Gladstone and Whitfield Prizes – are also now available. The winners of all three prizes will be announced on Friday 22 July.
The ‘Endz’ of Black British History: Recovering the Unrecoverable
In the latest post in our ‘Writing Race, 2’ series, Warren A. Stanislaus considers the potentiality of Black British History: one more porous and expansive than is currently imagined. In doing so, Warren engages with extra-territorial zones that don’t comfortably fit with an establish framework of the Empire Windrush and its Atlantic voyage.