CULTURE, THINGS, AND EMPIRE: VIRTUAL SEMINAR SERIES.

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Welcome to the hub for ‘Culture, Things, and Empire’ where postgraduate students, early career researchers and museum practitioners interested in the interdisciplinary fields of global, colonial, post-colonial and imperial studies are invited to join us for a series of online seminars. The second series is running from March to July 2022 through Zoom.

Keep up to date with the latest CTE news via @CTEseminars. Please send us any enquiries via our email: culturethingsempire@gmail.com.

The project was started by AHRC Midlands4Cities DTP history PhD students Charlotte Johnson and Ellen Smith. The second series is organised by Annabelle Gilmore, Maria Chiara Scuderi and Nathalie Cooper.

Current convenors…

Annabelle is a co-convenor of the project, and a second year AHRC Midlands4Cities funded PhD student at the University of Birmingham. Her work is investigating the links between slavery and imperialism through the Beckford objects on display at Charlecote Park in Warwickshire as a collaborative doctoral award with the National Trust. Other interests include working on Black British and Atlantic histories in the long eighteenth century and how the heritage sector is working on providing more inclusive histories and their efforts in decolonising these spaces. Her recent work has studied the Black presence in Warwickshire in the eighteenth century and she was a researcher for Horrible Histories recent ‘British Black History’ and ‘Protesting with Pankhurst’ episodes. Follow Annabelle: @bellamehistory

Maria Chiara is co-convenor of the project. She began her AHRC Midland4Cities funded PhD in Autumn 2020 at the University of Leicester, co-supervised by the University of Birmingham and the conservation department at Leicester Museum and Art Gallery. Her project aims to analyse the Dryad collection and its linkage with the global and colonial context, and how this material culture history relates to museum practice today. She is interested in the international circulation of objects in missionary exhibitions and world’s fairs, and how these political events fostered transcultural relationships during the twentieth century. Follow Maria Chiara: @MariaChiaraScu

Nathalie is a co-convenor of the project, and a AHRC Midlands4Cities funded PhD student at the University of Warwick, co-supervised by the Horniman Museum and Gardens. Entitled ‘Museum Collections and Legacies of Imperialism’, her research looks at the Horniman Museum’s founding collections and its practices of curation, display and interpretation, to examine the museum as not just a witness to, but a technology of imperial power. She has previously worked in the British Library Sound Archive and the Victoria & Albert Museum.

Previous convenors…

Charlotte was a co-convener of the first series of ‘Culture, Things and Empire’. She was Assistant and Acting Curator of the Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum from 2016-2019. She began her AHRC Midlands4Cities funded PhD in autumn 2019. Entitled Imperial Connections: re-examining Kedleston Hall, Derbyshire her project is a Collaborative Doctoral Award between the University of Birmingham, the University of Leicester and the National Trust. Follow Charlotte: @CJoyJohnson

Ellen was project lead and co-convener of the first series of ‘Culture, Things and Empire’. She completed her undergraduate and masters degrees in history at the University of Birmingham. She started her PhD in September 2019 as a Midlands4Cities AHRC DTP history student at the University of Leicester. Her supervisors are Professor Clare Anderson and Dr Kate Smith, and her thesis is entitled, ‘Communication, Intimacy and Creativity: Family Life in British India, 1790-1920’. She is also one of the seminar convenors for the Institute of Historical Research History Lab Seminars. Follow Ellen: @EllenCSSmith

Images:
Banner: R.T. Cooper, ‘1907 First Oranges from South Africa, 1903 First Sultanas and Currants from Australia: Buy Empire Every Day’ London, Dunstable and Watford, England, United Kingdom, circa 1926-1934, Empire Marketing Board. Library and Archives Canada, e010758917, MIKAN 2845186.
Image Gallery:
Logo: Thanks to Needpix.com user harshrajbhanawatcer1 for allowing us to use image entitled ‘Jaipur India Architecture’.
Other featured images:
Pipes, carved ivory, Southwest Alaska Eskimo (center), c. 1900, and Bering Strait Eskimo (bottom), early 1800s. Exhibit from the Native American Collection, Peabody Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. Photography was permitted without restriction; exhibit is old enough so that it is in the public domain.
‘Aboriginal Art Painting’, pixabay image in the public domain, free for commercial use.
‘Illustrations of Mughals from the Baburnama’, image in the public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

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