News Archives 2009

We have launched an exciting new MA in World History & Cultures which will start in September 2010. Applications are now being accepted.

On 20 May Dr Lucy Kostyanovsky spoke at the British Library in a round table conversation with historians John Guy, Steven Gunn and Susan Brigden on the subject of 'Henry VIII: An Absolute Monarch?'. This event marked the opening of the exhibition 'Henry VIII: Man and Monarch' at the library.
 
David Carpenter, Professor of Medieval History in the department, was a guest on BBC Radio 4's 'In Our Time' discussing the Magna Carta, which has been cited ever since its issue in 1215 as a foundation stone of English liberties. 
 
Dawn Dodds, a teaching assistant in the history department during 2008/9, received a 'Teaching excellence' award' from the college. One award is given per school and is voted for by the students in that school. Dawn jointly received the prize for the Arts and Humanities along with members of the German and English department.

From the 14th-19th April, Professor Arthur Burns was part of a delegation of British Historians, led by the Institute of Historical Research, which attended the Beijing conference on Anglo-Chinese history. The conference was hosted by Professor Qian Chengdan of Peking University (PKU), one of the foremost historians of Britain in China, President of the China British History Association, and a Corresponding Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and featured ten different historical topics in British history since the middle ages, each being examined from the perspectives of Chinese and British historiography.
The British and Chinese governments have in recent years embarked on a series of co-operative ventures in higher education, designed to develop collaboration between scholars in the two countries, and also create sustainable programmes for new research initiatives and junior academics. These initiatives have mainly been in the sciences, but there have been recent moves in the humanities as well. The British Academy hosts a China Scholarship scheme, and the China Scholarship Council is now subsidizing many PhD students who wish to study history in the UK. To prepare for the visit the IHR delegation worked closely with the RCUK (Research Councils UK) Beijing Office, the British Council, the British Academy, the British Library and the AHRC in its preparations. Financial support for the UK participants was provided by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Universities’ China Committee in London and the IHR Trust.

Ian McBride, lecturer in the History department, spoke with Melvyn Bragg on BBC Radio 4’s In Our Time. Dr McBride discussed Jonathan Swift's infamous Modest Proposal, recommending state-sponsored cannibalism as a solution to Ireland’s economic crisis, in relation to the famine of 1729 following three successive harvest failures in Ireland.
 
 
John Price, a PhD student in the department, spoke to Robert Elms on BBC London Radio about his new book Watts Memorial to Heroic Self-Sacrifice, Postman’s Park.