Paper Trails Conference, 4th July 2019, University College London

Often there is more than research inside the books we read. Bookmarks, train tickets, receipts, and menus tucked into pages offer clues about the life of the book itself. Yet the lives of our research material often go unmarked, lost between the gaps in disciplinary boundaries and narrow definitions. The biographies of books and documents can illuminate their contexts, as printed matter that is sold, … Continue reading Paper Trails Conference, 4th July 2019, University College London

Paper Trails: Workshop Roundup

I’ve never been happier to be asked, “What does ‘privy’ mean?” Along with five schoolchildren, I pored over reports on sanitation (or lack thereof) in nineteenth century London, before we then compared maps of drains in Whitechapel to get a sense of how they fitted into the rhythms of daily life (ahem). On that map, we noted the Public House on nearly every corner, the … Continue reading Paper Trails: Workshop Roundup

Paper Trails: Conference Roundup

Paper is tied up with so much of what we do as historians that it’s sometimes easy to forget about it. Likewise, our research stories are some of the first things we reach for when talking with colleagues, but they seldom make it into our published work. What happens, then, when we put these things at the heart of our history? This conference, which I … Continue reading Paper Trails: Conference Roundup

Paper Trails CFP

Paper Trails Workshop, 19th-21st June 2017, University College London Often there is more than research inside the books we read. Bookmarks, train tickets, receipts, and menus tucked into pages offer clues about the life of the book itself. Yet the lives of our research material often go unmarked, lost between the gaps in disciplinary boundaries and narrow definitions. The biographies of books and documents can … Continue reading Paper Trails CFP

Progress, Change and Development Conference – June 2015

Like the Wizard of Oz, Samir Amin appeared on the wall as an enormous head, with wild white hair, and puffing on a cigar. In his gravelly voice, he barked at someone off screen ‘peux-tu fait un café?’ Moments later, the famed ‘creative marxist’, all the way from Senegal, launched into an excoriating and impassioned critique of ‘monopoly capitalism’, lauding the memory of the Bandung … Continue reading Progress, Change and Development Conference – June 2015