Global History and Culture Centre

Annual General Meeting

Thursday 12 May 2016

2.30-4pm

R0.14 Ramphal Building

University of Warwick

Minutes

  1. Welcome

Anne welcomes our external advisors, Clare Anderson (Leicester) and Matthias Middell (Leipzig), to join us for the meeting.

  1. Attendance

AnneGerritsen, MaxineBerg, DanBranch, Michael Bycroft, Robert Fletcher, James Baldwin, David Lambert, Julia McClure, Clare Anderson, Matthias Middell, Amy Evans

Apologies

David Anderson, Giorgio Riello, Ross Forman, Rosa Salzberg, CamilliaCowling, GurminderBhambra, Bishnu Gupta, Aditya Sarkar, Rosie Dias, Howard Chiang

  1. Minutes from the previous meeting
  • A change was made in last year’s minutes to reflect that David Anderson had in fact not yet submitted the application to the ERC on ‘Violence and Empire in the Indian ocean’.

There were several matters arising from the minutes:

  • Charles Walton and Claudia Stein were awarded a Leverhulme grant on ‘Rights, Duties and the Politics of Obligation: Socioeconomic Rights in History’;
  • Robert Fletcher was awarded an AHRC grant on ‘The War of the Locust’.
  • The bid for an ESRC/Leverhulme grant on ‘Indian Ocean Trade’ is ongoing;
  1. Report on Activities 2015-2016
  • An impressive number of books by members of the Centre was published during the past year in the Centre. A celebration event will take place on 25 May.
  • An international workshop on ‘The Space Between: Micro History and Global History’ organized by Maxine Berg and John-Ghobrial (Oxford) took place in Warwick in Venice. It brought together a number of scholars at various stage of their career to have a conversation on the topic. It was a successful event, and a network grant application will be prepared by Maxine Berg for follow-up activities around the theme.
  • A new network, The Poverty Network, was established by Julia McClure and Andy Jones (Teaching Fellow in History). Two events have already taken place, with several more to come for the remainder of the semester. The network receives support from the GHCC, and the group will seek further externalfunding opportunities. One of these is an AHRC Development grant that would establish activities in Brazil, Maxico, Bangladesh, Indian Ocean and Eastern Europe. Some possible connections with the new focus on GSD (Global Sustainable Development) will be explored.
  1. Reports from Matthias Middell and Clare Anderson (oral)

Clare and Matthias’ comments highlighted these points (their written reports will be available on the GHCC Intranet):

  • Impressive events have taken place that were rationalised with clear objectives of the three major research strands;
  • The ‘reading group’ is an interesting activity. It may be worth considering what this leads to, and explore the option of using this as a basis for a blog or twitter feed.
  • The website is now an impressive outward face of the Centre, with details of current research projects, people, activities and publications etc. Both external advisers praised the new look of the website.
  • One suggestion was to add a new page to state the three themes that underpin the work of the Centre, which would be a good means of representing its work and distinctiveness.
  • Matthias Middell suggested that visibility at the big conferences in the field (WHA, ENIUGH) might be a more useful way to flag up the Centre’s activities than hosting single events elsewhere.
  • Both externals suggested we should do more with social media:
  • Short blog posts, rotated between all the members of the Centre, flagging up the kind of things we work on, the speakers we host, and interesting developments in the field.
  • These posts should then be linked to a twitter feed for the Centre.
  • Could we create a bursary for a graduate student to take responsibility for this? The emphasis should still be on pieces we write (rather than students) to make it distinctive.
  • Interviews with more senior scholars are a good way to flag up our activities.
  • Facing the challenging funding environment, we should run a programme of redevelopment/ resubmission of unsuccessful bids, as well as a more proactive approach to securing postdoctoral applications under BA, Leverhulme and (possibly) Wellcome Trust schemes.
  1. Future GHCC plans, activities and funding
  2. Several possible speakers were mentioned as potential invitees to the Centre: Sunil Amrith (speaker for Migration conference?); Marcel van der Linden’ Isabel Hofmyer (Witts); Antoinette Burton; Clare Midgeley (Hallam); Tina de Moor; Debin Ma.
  3. Possible workshops that might be organised:
  4. Rob Fletcher on sites and cultures of locusts.
  5. An event in California, possibly together with UC Davis colleagues.
  6. Possible institutes to collaborate with:
  7. Fudan
  8. Witts
  9. Capital Normal
  1. A.O.B.

Next AGM is May 2017.