by the Past & Present editorial team Our publisher Oxford University Press Academic has released a free to read collection of articles about the history of illness, disease and pandemics entitled “History of Outbreaks”. All articles in the series are free to read until 31/03/2020. Oxford University Press Academic introduce the collection by saying that: “When a disease occurs in greater numbers than expected in a community, region, or season, it is considered an outbreak. In addition to human suffering, outbreaks create panic, disrupt the social and economic structure, and can impede development in the affected communities. While we cannot predict exactly when or where the next epidemic or pandemic will begin, we can explore and learn from outbreaks of the past.” There are four Past & Present articles, drawn from issues released in recent years as well as one which is still forthcoming. Please find them listed below: *‘Loving Capitalism Disease’: Aids and Ideology in the People’s Republic of China, 1984–2000, Julian Gewirtz *The Path to Pistoia: Urban Hygiene Before the Black Death, G. Geltner *Rejecting Catastrophe: The Case of the Justinianic Plague, Lee Mordechai and Merle Eisenberg *The Antonine Plague, Climate Change and Local Violence in Roman Egypt, […]

by Dr. Tyler Parry (University of Nevada, Las Vegas) & Dr. Chaz Yingling (University of Louisville) In accordance with testimonies from many runaways, ex-slave David Holmes from Mecklenberg County, Virginia detailed his own harrowing escape from slavery, recalling how environmental knowledge aided him in successfully evading the bloodhounds used to track him. British journalist L.A. Chamerovzow, who interviewed Holmes in 1852, recorded that such knowledge was “secret” and not “known generally” to protect strategies from prying slaveowners. He thus omitted the type of substance that Holmes used to confuse the bloodhound’s sensory power, saying that it “must remain an editorial secret” and that he would “not betray it, for the benefit of the planters; but it is at the service of friends.” Such covert archives, transmitted through quiet conversations among the enslaved, enabled many across the Caribbean and North America in escaping bondage. Though not all slaves were so secretive in interviews and memoirs, the ubiquity of slave hounds in the rise of slavery and fall through abolition has remained obscured. Holmes’ reference does offer useful insights into how slaves curated knowledge and guarded it from masters. Collectively, the primary sources that remain reveal the terror of slave hounds as […]

by Dr. Dan Callwood, Dr. Craig Griffiths (Manchester Metropolitan University), Dr. Rebecca Jennings (University College London)   Held on 6 December 2019, “Stonewall 50 years on: gay liberation and lesbian feminism in its European context” at Manchester Metropolitan University, attracted scholars from around the UK, Europe and the US, mixing with a large audience of researchers, students, activists and members of Manchester’s queer community. Online discussion around this event has been collated and can be viewed here. June 2019 marked the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots in New York City, often credited as the spark that set gay liberation alight, not just in the U.S., but around the Western world. The organisers of this one day conference saw the 50th anniversary as an opportunity to rethink the various gay liberation and lesbian feminist movements that the events at Stonewall supposedly spawned in Europe, asking to what extent they were influenced by their own national events, ideologies and imaginaries, as well as interacting with each other in a network of action and ideas. The conference consisted of four panels. The first, on ‘Protest Repertoires,’ considered some of the ways in which LGBT communities have mobilised political protest in the 1970s to […]

by the Past & Present editorial team Dr. Shamima Akhtar (IHR, London) was interviewed about her work as the Royal Historical Society’s Race, Ethnicity, and Equality in History Fellow, by The Guardian. Interviewed for an article entitled “‘I’m used to being the only brown person in the room’: why the humanities have a diversity problem” Akhtar reflected that: “[‘She’s used to being the only brown person in the room,’ [says Akhtar] a post-doctoral fellow working with the Royal Historical Society, whose race, ethnicity and equality report found history is one of the least diverse subjects in the UK – black historians make up less than 1% of university history staff. Akhtar believes the problem in her subject starts in schools, where the history taught is predominantly white and Eurocentric, and is the start of an enduring and implicit bias against history from the perspective of those who are not white. ‘If students never see anyone who looks like them in textbooks, they’ll think the subject’s not for them. They won’t feel welcome. By the time students graduate from a history degree, they may have studied Nazi Germany three or four times,’ she says.” The article in which her comments appear […]

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 […]

by the Past & Present editorial team

Received from Dr. Craig Griffiths (Manchester Metropolitan University) June 2019 marked the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots in New York City, often credited as the spark that set gay liberation alight, not just in the U.S., but around the Western world. However, rather than a one-way flow from across the Atlantic, the European gay liberation and lesbian feminist movements that sprang up in the early 1970s were also influenced by national events, ideologies and imaginaries. They interacted with each other in a network of action and ideas. With this conference, we want to rethink the movements that Stonewall supposedly spawned in Europe. Join us at Manchester Metropolitan University on 6th December to explore the national, European and transnational factors that gave rise to gay liberation. Registration is free: please book via Eventbrite by 1 December. A vegetarian lunch is provided; please let us know if you have any further dietary or access requirements. Event Details: Date/Time; 9:00-18:45, 6th December 2019 Location; Room JD T0.03, John Dalton Building, Chester Street, Manchester M1 5GD A full-programme can be found here.