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Past Matters: Reading, Writing, Making History

 

17 - 22 March 2012

In March 2012, the Department of History at the University of Bristol hosted a series of free public events exploring journeys of reading, writing and making history.

In the age of the internet and social networking, our attention can seem relentlessly focused on the here and now. But history matters as much as ever, nowhere more so than in a city such as Bristol, shaped by centuries of trade and migration. This series of events looked at the past and the ways we understand it – from the birth of modern sexual culture to the moral dilemmas of life in Soviet Leningrad.  Tales included the eighteenth century adventurer Elizabeth Marsh, the ‘forgotten lands’ of former East Prussia, and the magical realist world of Jamaican prophetess Adamine Bustamante.

 

Saturday 17 March	Meet the Authors Four leading historians and historical novelists came together to discuss how and why they write about history. An initial panel discussion explored the differences between history and historical fiction, the importance of research, and the personal stories behind the books. This was followed by four smaller “book group” sessions with the author: Helen Dunmore 'The Betrayal', Linda Colley 'The Ordeal of Elizabeth Marsh', Max Egremont 'Forgotten Land: Journeys Among The Ghosts of East Prussia', Kei Miller 'The Last Warner Woman'
Monday 19 March	Spreading the Word: Writing Constitutions and Making Empire Speaker: Professor Linda Colley (University of Princeton) is the first Visiting Deas Fellow in History and Society. Internationally renowned for her work on Britain’s past in a broader European, imperial, and global context, she also writes for the Guardian, New York Times, and the London Review Of Books. The gradual world-wide spread of written constitutions after 1787 is conventionally  linked with the rise of the nation state and with the growing allure of democracy. But, from the outset, these documents were also often instruments of empire and of international power and influence. Linda Colley discussed the reasons for this and the continuing global repercussions.
Thursday 22 March	The Origins of Sex: A History of the First Sexual Revolution Speaker: Dr Faramerz Dabhoiwala, is a Senior Fellow in History at Exeter College, University of Oxford. His exciting new book explains how and why the Enlightenment ushered in a modern culture of sex, whose principles of privacy, equality, and freedom of the individual remain distinctive to this day. As part of the University's Past Matters festival this First Annual Penguin History Lecture was a joint venture with Penguin Press to bring the very best historians to a Bristol audience.

Further information available from:

tel: +44 (0)117 33 18313

email: cpe-info@bristol.ac.uk

Part of the programme of public events.