Modern British Studies Conference 2026 - University of Birmingham Conference information

Registration for MBS2026 is now open! Registration link and the conference programme can be found here: www.birmingham.ac.uk/events/moder...

Anyone working in history of comedy/satire, television, modern British politics - there's a fully funded PhD to research the Spitting Image archive @theul.bsky.social, with supervision at Exeter Uni. All disciplines considered, pls do share widely.
www.exeter.ac.uk/study/fundin...

Colonized by Humanity: Caribbean London and the Politics of Integration at the End of Empire, by Rob Waters This subtle and original work is the first focused analysis of those men and women who responded to the tensions created by large-scale immigration in the

John Davis reviews 'Colonized by Humanity: Caribbean London and the Politics of Integration at the End of Empire', by Rob Waters @qmcbs.bsky.social

academic.oup.com/ehr/advance-...

@academic.oup.com

QMUL is advertising an exciting opportunity: a fully funded PhD studentship, working on European politics, ideology, and political 'myths' with @karlpike.bsky.social and @timbale.bsky.social. Details below.

www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DRB421/p...

This was a really fun episode to take part in.

The "Parliament Matters" podcast is really good - do give it a try if you're looking for something new!

bookshelves at Waterstones Birmingham featuring Matt Houlbrook’s Songs of Seven Dials and Matthew Hilton’s Charity after Empire. And some other books.

Friends front out.

Keeping good company in Waterstones Birmingham.

(Not the Turner book: that’s awful).

“It is a social history of charity; charity cannot just be a thing but has to be a relationship. So the book tries to understand the dynamics of that relationship.” — Matthew Hilton

A few places remain!
Join us for Charity After Empire: British Humanitarianism, Decolonisation and Development
24th March, QMUL, London E1
Book here eventbrite.co.uk/e/book-launch-charity-after-empire-tickets-1981162909594

@bbkhistorical.bsky.social
@qmul.bsky.social
@qmcbs.bsky.social

Reposting a reminder - next Tuesday (24th), 6pm

Don’t miss ‘Rethinking Internationalism’ and celebrate research on histories of internationalism 📚

Starts: 19 March 2026, 10:00
Finishes: 20 March 2026, 14:00
Venue: Birkbeck Central
🎟️ https://bit.ly/4bjh8uh

‘The Polycrisis? Historical Roots & Critical Perspectives in Modern British Studies' programme is looking very exciting; we'll be writing to speakers next week, & launching the lineup soon.
Huge thanks to @britishacademy.bsky.social for supporting #MBS2026
www.birmingham.ac.uk/events/moder...

This image shows the title and abstract for a new journal article by Benjamin Bland, published in the Journal of British Studies. Title: "“I Am Not Anti Black Music But …”: Popular Music, the NME, and Race in Late Twentieth-Century Britain". Abstract:"Popular music culture has often featured in postwar British history as a site of tolerance and inclusivity, of multicultural exchange and anti-racist activism. This article, while not denying music's intersections with progressive causes, presents a different narrative. I use the pages of Britain's most prominent weekly music paper, the New Musical Express (NME), to demonstrate the important role that music has played in perpetuating wider processes of racialization in the late twentieth century. Surveying contestations over race in the mid-1980s and early 1990s, it highlights the ways in which popular music institutions such as the NME could function as sites of racial formation, reproducing the social power of whiteness even when providing space for what was often referred to as “black music.” The article underlines the degree to which popular music could produce hegemonically white cultural spaces, despite the diversity of musical culture at large. In so doing, it indicates the significance of popular culture for understanding patterns of racialization into the latter years of the twentieth century and beyond."

This is a fascinating looking paper by @benjamin-bland.bsky.social, on processes of racialisation in the popular culture of late C20th Britain.

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Book Launch: Charity After Empire British Humanitarianism, Decolonisation and Development

Book launch 3. Matthew Hilton’s Charity After Empire, Tues 24 March 6pm, Arts 2, @qmul.bsky.social, with @rshc.bsky.social, @riakapoor.bsky.social, David Williams, Kavita Datta and Bill Schwarz: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/book-launc...

Book Launch for Make Cheese not War. Transnational Resistance and the Larzac in modern France

Book launch 2. Andrew Smith's @smidbob.bsky.social ky.social Make Cheese not War. Transnational Resistance and the Larzac in modern France, 9pm, 5.30pm at @ihr.bsky.social in conversation with @alisoncarrol.bsky.social, @vbivar.bsky.social
& Sarah Farmer : www.history.ac.uk/news-events/...

Book launch 1. Leslie James' The Moving Word: How the West African and Caribbean Press Shaped Black Political Thought: this Thursday 4 March, 6pm QMUL Graduate Centre, 7th Floor in conversation with Musab Younis (Oxford)

Three book launches by QM History in March: Leslie James; Andrew Smith @smidbob.bsky.social and Matthew Hilton

History PhD students and postdocs: join us for ‘How to Publish Your Research: a workshop for Early Career Researchers’
with Profs Stephen Legg, Elisabeth Leake, Matthew Hilton & Erez Manela
18 March, Birkbeck, Bloomsbury
More info here www.bbk.ac.uk/events/event...
@jessicareinisch.bsky.social

Deploying History for Change: A Public Lecture Co-hosted with the Raphael Samuel History Centre and the QMUL Centre for the Study of Race, Class and Empire

Deploying History for Change: A Public Lecture
Davarian Baldwin (Trinity College, Connecticut)
1st April, 5.30pm
Queen Mary University of London, E1 4NS
Book here www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/deploying-history-for-change-a-public-lecture-tickets-1983359946992
@bbkhistorical.bsky.social
@qmul.bsky.social

We are advertising a two-year lectureship in Modern British History at University of Cambridge, please spread the word!
www.cam.ac.uk/jobs/assista...

The Go-Home Office: border forces since 1962 Histories exploring the Home Office and its immigration service

Tomorrow (24th) at 5pm with @liamliburd.bsky.social ,
@juanitacox.bsky.social and Bobby Phe Amis: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-go-hom...

Charity After Empire Cambridge Core - Twentieth Century British History - Charity After Empire

Use 20% discount code CAE2026 to purchase here: www.cambridge.org/core/books/c...

How charity helped shape Britain after empire

Today is the publication date for Matthew Hilton's Charity After Empire: www.qmul.ac.uk/media/news/2...

Not quite QM British Studies but @smidbob.bsky.social is a wonderful neighbour & ally. Congratulations!

Next week, I'm speaking at The Mix in Bethnal Green as part of an event on the history of the inner workings of the Home Office. I'll be speaking about the letter signed by 38 immigration officers at London Heathrow airport in support of Enoch Powell in the wake of his 1968 'Rivers of Blood' speech.

History and Archives in Practice History and Archives in Practice is where historians and archivists come together to consider shared interests in archive collections.

If you’re planning to be in Sheffield in April, @ihr.bsky.social @royalhistsoc.org and @nationalarchives.gov.uk.web.brid.gy are hosting the annual History & Archives in Practice conference, registration now open! www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/professional...

Book Launch: Charity After Empire British Humanitarianism, Decolonisation and Development

Why did charity become the outlet for global compassion?
Join us for the launch of 'Charity After Empire' by Matthew Hilton
24/3/26, QMUL, London E1
Book here eventbrite.co.uk/e/book-launch-charity-after-empire-tickets-1981162909594
@qmul.bsky.social

Air Travel, Statelessness, and the Rights Claims of Ugandan Asians, c.1973* Abstract. In the aftermath of Idi Amin’s expulsion of Uganda’s South Asians in 1972, some of those made technically stateless arrived in India unsupported

On advance access: "Air Travel, Statelessness, and the Rights Claims of Ugandan Asians, c.1973"

by @riakapoor.bsky.social (@qmul.bsky.social)

#OpenAccess

doi.org/10.1093/past...

Thanks too for support from @rshc.bsky.social

Book Launch: Charity After Empire British Humanitarianism, Decolonisation and Development

Next QMCBS Book Launch with @qmulsse.bsky.social : Matthew Hilton's Charity After Empire on 24 March 6pm: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/book-launc.... Panel with Bill Schwarz,
@riakapoor.bsky.social Kavita Datta & David Williams