Wednesday 20 November 2019, 2.30-4.30pm London Metropolitan Archives Why are we so interested in family secrets? How should family historians deal with the things previous generations wished to keep hidden? And why are historians increasingly drawn to family history and stories of family?  Join a panel of experts working on the borders of family history and history to discuss 'Home Truths: secrets and discoveries in family history'.   With Professor Alison Light (Oxford and UCL, author of Commo...

Tuesday 29 October 2019, 5.15pm Dreyfus Room, Birkbeck, University of London, 26-28 Russell Square, London WC1B 5DQ All welcome, no need to book  Peter Cryle and Elizabeth Stephens, University of Queensland (both), ‘Thinking Normality in Biology and Sexology, c. 1800-1950’  In 'Le Normal et le pathologique', an influential history of French medical thinking during the nineteenth century, Georges Canguilhem distinguishes between qualitative and quantitative conceptions of the normal. He finds...

Thursday 14 November 2019, 5.15-7.15pm Laws Building Room 1.00 [PLEASE NOTE ROOM CHANGE] Queen Mary University of London, Mile End Campus, Mile End Road, London E1 4NS Speakers: Tania Gessi and Ted Sale, Roma Stories Oral History Project Respondents: Graham Smith (Newcastle University), Becky Taylor (University of East Anglia), Julia Laite (Birkbeck) Chair: Nadia Valman, Raphael Samuel History Centre   The HLF-funded ‘Roma Stories’ Oral History Project shares experiences and stories ...

History of Sexuality seminar Tuesday 8 October 2019, 5.15pm. Dreyfus Room, Birkbeck, 28 Russell Square, London WC1B 4HS.  (Please note that this room is on the second floor, and unfortunately there is no lift.) This seminar is co-hosted with the Parliaments, Politics & People seminar series, and our speaker is Dr Justin Bengry from Goldsmiths, University of London. Disregarding the Past: The Problems of Pardoning Homosexual Offences This paper critically examines the 2012 Protection of ...

3.00 – 4.00pm, Wednesday 16th October 2019 Birkbeck University of London, Dreyfus Room, 28 Russell Square, London WC1B 5DQ All welcome, no need to book. This workshop features talks by two early career researchers, Peter Jones and Charlie Taverner, whose own work demonstrates the value of radical walking for understanding place and locality from the point of view of ordinary people (women, the poor, vagrants and street traders). Their papers will address problems and affordances of walking me...

Please note that seminars are postponed until further notice.   Part of the RSHC Conversations and Disputations public seminar series.  Tuesdays, 6pm to 8pm Queen Mary University of London, Arts 2, room 3.20, London E1 4NS All welcome. For information contact Barbara Taylor b.g.taylor@qmul.ac.uk 8 October 2019. Mark Lee (Oxford). 'Devotional solitude, sociability and insanity in the nineteenth century' 12 November 2019. Amy Hungerford (Yale). 'Solitude, Reading Practices and the Huma...

Date: Friday 6 December 2019 Location: Manchester Metropolitan University 2019 marks the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots in New York, which began in the early hours of Saturday, 28 June 1969, when patrons of the Stonewall Inn on Christopher Street defended themselves against police oppression. The Stonewall riots are often credited as the spark that set the gay liberation movement alight, not just in the United States, but around the Western world. In the years since, the words ‘Stonew...

Tuesday 18 June, 6.00pm – 8.00pm Birkbeck, University of London, Room 106, 43 Gordon Square, London WC1B 5DT. All welcome, no need to book. For information contact Flore Janssen f.janssen@bbk.ac.uk  ACTIVISTS Tate Strike – Jack Jeans, Tate employee and PCS union organiser, was recently involved in organising the Tate Strike ballot. HISTORIANS  Lucy McFadzean, Aberystwyth University, is a PhD Researcher looking at the cultural policies of the Greater London Council between 1981-6. She is i...

Thursday 6th June 2019, 6.30pm followed by a reception until 8.30pm Arts 2 Lecture Theatre, Queen Mary University of London, Mile End Road, London, E1 4NS Booking essential (www.history.ac.uk/events/event/19694)  ‘It soon come’, runs the refrain in Linton Kwesi Johnson’s 1974 poem ‘Time Come’.  ‘It soon come / look out! look out! look out!’. The IHR Historical Research Lecture 2019 will be given by Rob Waters. Drawing on the research for his new book Thinking Black: Britain, 1964–1985 (Univer...

Tuesday 21 May, 6.00pm-8.00pm Room 103, 30 Russell Square, Birkbeck, University of London, WC1B 5DT. For information contact Flore Janssen (f.janssen@bbk.ac.uk)  ACTIVISTS Kevin Blowe – co-ordinator of Netpol The Network for Police Monitoring seeks to monitor public order, protest and street policing, and to challenge and resist policing which is excessive, discriminatory or threatens civil rights. Netpol has built an inclusive network of activists, campaigners, lawyers and researchers to c...