Global History and Culture Centre Management Committee Meeting

Global History and Culture Centre Management Committee Meeting

Global History and Culture Centre Management Committee meeting

26 May 2010 – 3.30 – 4.45pm

IAS, University of Warwick

Present: R Bin Wong(UCLA), Anne Gerritsen, Giorgio Riello, Maxine Berg, David Arnold, Trevor Burnard, Christian Hess, Gurminder Bhambra, Margot Finn

Visitor: Dorothy Ko (Barnard College, Columbia University)

Apologies: Clare Anderson, David Washbrook (Trinity College, Cambridge), Stephen McDowall, Karen O’Brien, Daniel Branch, Bishnupriya Gupta

  1. Welcome

Many thanks to Prof. R Bin Wong for his active involvement and contribution in the Centre in past years. He will stand down as an external Committee member at the end of this academic year.

Many thanks to Prof. Dorothy Ko, the IAS visiting fellow, for her valuable thoughts and comments on the matters in the Centre.

  1. The minutes of the 2009 Management Committee meeting, held in London, were accepted as a true record of activities of the Centre.
  1. Matters arising

Margot Finn reported that her application to the Leverhulme for a research project is currently pending.

Trevor Burnard reported that a series of successful meetings and workshops with members of the History and English Departments at Vanderbilt had just been concluded, and that there was enthusiasm from Vanderbilt to develop future collaborations with the GHCC, making use of the Venice conference facility.

He also indicated that the School of Comparative American Studies would like to establish a closer links to the Global History Centre, if possible together with the newly renamed Yesu Persaud Centre for Caribbean Studies. Possible activities could include a Marie Curie Fellowship application or other joint grant applications. There might also be interest in linking these activities with the Centre for the History of Medicine. Perhaps a small working party could be created to discuss such plans further.

  1. Overview of the past year (Annual report attached)

The activities of the Centre as presented in the Annual report were briefly discussed.

Anne reported that there are three ongoing projects, two new grants and two applications pending. Maxine mentioned that Haneda at Tokyo University would be a good contact person for Chris Hess for his global cities project.

Maxine pointed out that future grant applications that are put through the Global History Centre might raise funds to cover the overheads of the Centre.

Anne reported that the Institute for History research (IHR) and Notre Dame’s London Centre are keen to develop close links with the Global Centre. Last year, Felipe Fernandez-Armesto organised a series of Global History seminars in London which was announced on our Global Centre website, and carried the Warwick GHCC’s logo.

The value of this collaboration was discussed, and it was decided it would be more valuable for the Warwick GHCC to try to organise an afternoon workshop with the IHR in London, and to discontinue the seminar series under the Warwick banner.

Maxine reported that the Centre for History and Economics in Cambridge is keen to make a connection with Warwick. The Cambridge Centre has offered Maxine membership, and this will be useful base from with to consider future joint developments.

  1. Strategic development for the future

Bin Wong pointed out that the Centre seems to have hit a bit of a threshold. It is not easy to give widespread visibility to the GHCC, despite the wide range of ongoing activities. He proposed various ways in which we might generate more visibility for the Centre: by having our members of staff and students ‘circulate’ (i.e. attend high-profile academic events and spread the reputation of the Centre); and by having MA and PhD students move into different academic settings.

Dorothy pointed out that having high quality PhD students should be one of our priorities, and the PRC would be a good place to find students with appropriate linguistic skills. She also stressed the importance of getting high-quality publications out to spread the reputation of the GHCC members.

Margot suggests that the Centre could consider the IAS ‘Career Fellowships’. These are part-time, short-term stipends that provide recent PhD’s with an affiliation and library access. They often combine this with a 50% teaching post.

  1. External members of the management committee for next year.

Peer Vries has agreed to serve as external member of the management committee from next year.

  1. AOB. There was no other business.