by the Past & Present editorial team Past & Present was delighted to hear that Jonathan Connolly (University of Illinois at Chicago) has been awarded this year’s Walter D. Love Prize, by the North American Conference on British Studies (NACBS); for his article “Indentured Labour Migration and the Meaning of Emancipation: Free Trade, Race, and Labour in British Public Debate, 1838–1860” which appeared in Issue 238. Thanks to our publisher Oxford University Press the article has been made free to read for a limited time period so that a greater and wider range of people can read his award winning scholarship. The Walter D. Love Prize is awarded annually by NACBS for the best article or paper of similar length or scope by a North American scholar in the field of British history. In “Indentured Labour Migration and the Meaning of Emancipation: Free Trade, Race, and Labour in British Public Debate, 1838–1860” Connolly: “…reinterprets the political and cultural underpinnings of post-slavery indentured labour migration in the British empire. Focusing on the early period of emancipation, it explains how and why indenture transformed in public debates from an unnatural scandal into a legitimate form of free labor. It argues that new […]

by the Past & Present editorial team

Received from Dr. Simon John (Swansea University) This event, organised by Swansea University’s Conflict, Reconstruction and Memory research group (to be held at Taliesin Create, Swansea University, 29-30 June 2020), will explore debates surrounding the cultural and political uses of monuments, and reflect upon their role in the memorialisation and imagining of the past. For the purposes of the proceedings, we will take a broad view of ‘monuments’, considering artefacts such as war memorials, cenotaphs and public statuary as well as urban sites damaged through war, or locations hallowed through their connection to pivotal events in the past. The focus of the workshop draws inspiration from contemporary debates energised by movements such as the ‘Rhodes Must Fall’ protests, Decolonising the University, and activist campaigns to remove statues commemorating confederate participants in the US Civil War. These developments have prompted academics to pose a number of linked questions about the role of public statuary. What socio-political motives underpin cultural responses to monuments? How have monuments shaped how people understand the past? How do monuments interact with the urban setting in which they stand? How do the meanings of monuments develop over time and how are they mediated? What is the future […]

by Dr. Owen Barden (Liverpool Hope University) Past & Present were pleased to support Antonia’s Story: A Secret History as part of the recent Being Human Festival. Jointly organised by The British Academy, The School of Advanced Studies at the University of London, and the Arts and Humanities Research Council, Being Human is a nationwide festival celebrating and sharing the latest research and discoveries in the humanities. This year, the festival theme was Discoveries and Secrets. Antonia’s Story invited people to discover the history of a lady called Antonia Grandoni, which a team of researchers had found in the newly-digitised United Kingdom Medical Heritage Library. Antonia became the subject of unique participatory research project, whereby co-researchers with learning disabilities worked alongside academics to investigate and analyse Antonia’s story. The twin aims were to examine historical attitudes towards what we now call learning disability, and to use Antonia’s story to help make sense of the experience of living with a learning disability today. We found Antonia’s story in a book called On Idiocy and Imbecility, written by Dr. William Ireland and published in 1877. What made her story so compelling was that Dr. Ireland’s account included two pencil portraits as well […]