Reminds me of this astute observation at the #QMCBS roundtable
University managers & politicians are using the wrong metrics to measure value. We’ve got to find a way of making visible that ripple effect beyond blunt full-time student numbers…
ah, fabulous! For those who missed this paper at #QMCBS: thinking prompts about historical bullshit. #SkyStorians
Somehow my phone persisted throughout the final #QMCBS roundtable, but then gave up the ghost when Queenie The Campus Cat came to deign us with her glamorous presence. And that phone and I need to have a word about priorities.
@riakapoor.bsky.social did you somehow capture Queenie's picture?
Rather glad @julialaite.bsky.social spoke more about the historiographical interventions at #QMCBS than about the meanings of retracing Shanawdithit story, because I definitely was welling up throughout that beautiful Gresham Lecture.
This bit in particular has been rattling around my brain for the past two days. We do tend to buy into the 'my bit is important as well', especially now we're so embattled, and made to prove our value. I like the challenge to refuse the framing and will keep thinking about how concretely #QMCBS
Big screen showing Queen Mary University of London with panel sitting below
Final plenary discussing purpose of British history today @clairelanghamer.bsky.social @robertsaunders.bsky.social @lottelydia.bsky.social @riakapoor.bsky.social and Michelle Tusan @thenacbs.bsky.social All v thought-provoking! #QMCBS 🗃️
Big screen showing black and white document about SUS stop and search in 1980s, Ayshah speaking at side
Delighted to speak on Vote100 2018 celebrations and plans for equal franchise 2028 on panel on political history today - with @jhdavey.bsky.social @martinspychal.bsky.social William Pettigrew and brilliant presentation by Matthew Smith & Ayshah Johnston on Inclusive Histories project #QMCBS 🗃️
Big screen with black and white drawings on it, people in front and to side
Then Historiographies panel with @georgedevans93.bsky.social Geoff Hicks and David Thackeray - these pics from David illustrating Māori women and parliament in 1890s #QMCBS 🗃️
Big screen showings photos of elderly white people dancing, keeping fit, out in countryside. Panel sitting below
Great 2nd day of @qmcbs.bsky.social British History Now conference. Starting with awesome panel inc Jean Smith, @freddyfoks.bsky.social and @historianhelen.bsky.social on emigration, race and Empire post 1945 - loved these pics from Helen of expat retirees in Europe #QMCBS 🗃️
Thanks for this wonderful thread on our panel at @qmcbs.bsky.social’s British History Today conference, @onslies.bsky.social. #qmcbs
Agreed - lots to think about, and lovely to see friends and meet new ones #qmcbs
(Bad debate: about positioning, not about exchange of ideas #QMCBS )
Reflections on how the way public history is about The Debate, and that binary and combatitiveness as the only register, while we prefer collaboration, reflective reasoning, exchange, etc #QMCBS
Michelle Tusan: let’s not get distracted by chasing relevance, and resist the lie that we don’t matter. There is never a history emergency; History has always been in existential crisis. So we should continue to do the work #QMCBS
Michelle Tusan: What happens to national histories when a country turns inwards? As someone flying in from the US, and recognising the value of continuing to collaborate and talk in person (even in ridiculously hot rooms…) #QMCBS
@riakapoor.bsky.social how come academics displaced from that conversation in the public? What’s the impact of the displacement of expertise from the public discourse which makes us suspect? #QMCBS
@riakapoor.bsky.social answering the prompt on to what extent academic history should be shaped by present concerns: notices that the issues that are discussed without nuance and with binary ideas in the public discourse were discussed brilliantly & with nuance at #QMCBS.
What a thoughtful and provocative series of reflections about the point of doing British history today #qmcbs
@riakapoor.bsky.social who thinks of Britain as just one theatre of what she works on, and often the least important one. Britain as entangled: doesn’t just export ideas of history or civilisation etc. but shaped through its entanglement #QMCBS
Painful reading programmes from 2015, 2017, 2019 & know who is no longer in the profession. Wonder how many here now ar #QMCBS will still be in the profession in a couple of years, or whether the QM School of History will be in any way recognisable (we’ll be a “subject area” according to proposals)
@lottelydia.bsky.social on weaponised critique of research on British history (being sued, threats, stalking, etc), how we can productively study the emotions of how British process history, but comes with risks, and we need to be aware of who can afford to take that risk and who is supported #QMCBS
@robertsaunders.bsky.social rallying for the humane case for history: not reducing people to contributors to GDP, but the role of the informed citizens, seeing the world through other eyes, making the present strange. We need to be confident in that to change the narrative about history&UKHE #QMCBS
Call for a language of expertise that is inclusive and recognisant of democratisation: not a strict line between professional & amateur, while respecting expertise. Many who are doing history “out there”, uses to do it “in here [academia]”, but no available jobs or accessible working pattern #QMCBS
There is a reason why history is at the heart of the culture wars. History is central to public consciousness and people care.
History seems to be thriving everywhere apart from in the spaces where historians are trained… #QMCBS
An inclusive history is as much about the topics as about who is included in the profession. Our working conditions shape our research; and the #UKHE crisis is a daunting context. #QMCBS
Picture of a panel of fabulous historians
Final round table on the purpose of British history writing in today’s political, cultural, and higher education landscape #QMCBS
Q&A: how to adapt feminist perspective and criminology approaches to the social reality of Britain? Cannot just copy-paste American ideas, which are contextualised in American realities #QMCBS
Reporting of laughter more than of dissent. I.e.: the acts that reinforce authority and dominant stereotypes rather than the questions around it #QMCBS
Discussion of the reporting of humour in court (both what was said and whether there was laughter). Not unique to racist examples but a subset. #QMCBS
Over to Lizzie Seal who opens with advertising an EXCITING research fellowship on her Leverhulme project “Imagining Race, Crime and Justice in Sailortown, 1870-1939”. Deadline is on Tuesday so make haste! #QMCBS #SkyStorians
jobs.sussex.ac.uk/job/18442578...
