WARWICK HISTORY
POSTGRADUATE
CONFERENCE 2015
28-29 MAY
ZEEMAN BUILDING, THE UNIVERSITY OF
WARWICK
www.warwick.ac.uk/historypgconf
www.facebook.com/historypgconf
@WwickHistPGConf
#warwickPGC
Organising Committee
Olga Palagina (chair)
Anastasia Schulze
Marguerite Hughes
Jennifer Codd
Jonathan Filar
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Conference Programme
Thursday, 28th May .......................................................................... 2
Friday, 29th May ............................................................................... 4
Abstracts .................................................................................................. 6
Thursday, 28th May
Panel 1a: Representations in Film .......................................................................6
Panel 1b: Women & Education ...........................................................................7
Panel 2a: Mental Health .......................................................................................8
Panel 2b: Early Modern Institutions .................................................................10
Panel 3a: Women’s Rights & Feminism ............................................................11
Panel 3b: Modern Culture & Politics ..................................................................12
Friday, 29th May
Panel 4a: Identities ..............................................................................................14
Panel 4b: The Reformation .................................................................................15
Panel 5a: Medical History ....................................................................................17
Panel 5b: Early Modern Consumer Goods .......................................................19
Panel 6a: Colonial History ..................................................................................20
Panel 6b: Early Modern Politics ..........................................................................22
This conference is kindly sponsored by the Centre for the History of
Medicine and the Research Student Skills Programme
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CONFERENCE PROGRAMME
Thursday 28th May
09.50-10.20
Registration
10.20-10.40
Opening Remarks
Zeeman Building, Atrium
MS.02
10.45-11.45
Panel 1a: Representations in Film
MS.03
Chair: Tomas Bray
 Melissa Bennett: ‘Picturing the West India Regiments in an Age of Unrest, Civil War and
Tourism, c.1850-1914’
 Esther Wright: ‘Portraying Early America on Film: Reading Disney's Pocahontas’
 Sarah Wilson: ‘Vietnam War Films and Veterans: Portrayals and Responses’
Panel 1b: Women & Education
MS.05
Chair: Sarah-Jane Bodell
 Olga Palagina: ‘“A Partial, Prejudiced and Ignorant Historian”: Jane Austen’s Juvenilia and the
Analysis of Experience in Female Education 1775-1810’
 Faye Riley: ‘How Did Anne Boleyn and Elizabeth I Gain Power Through Their Marital
Status?’
 Emma Leonard: ‘Who goes there? Profiles of the typical and not so typical students of St. Hugh's
College Oxford and Girton College Cambridge in the first half of the twentieth century.’
11.45-12.15
Break
Zeeman Building, Atrium
12.15-13.15
Panel 2a: Mental Health
MS.03
Chair: John Wilmot
 Hye Jean Hwang: ‘Women and Depression in Interwar Britain: Case Notes, Narratives and
Experiences.’
 Anastasia Schulze: ‘Under official and expert discussion’: The role of medical experts in the
media’s portrayal of Benzodiazepine addition as a medical and social problem in Britain, 19602000’
 Andrew Burchell: ‘Parental Rights, Mental Health and “Neurotic” Children: the End of
Corporal Punishment in British Schools’
Panel 2b: Early Modern Institutions
MS.05
Chair: John Morgan
 Sofia Guthrie: ‘Huguenot Royalism and the Victimhood in Antoine Garissoles' Adolphid
(1649), A Latin Epic Poem’
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 Ben Redding: ‘The English and French Navies in Popular Representation, c.1600-1642’
13.15-14.15
Lunch
Zeeman Building, Atrium
14.15-15.15
Panel 3a: Women’s Rights & Feminism
MS.03
Chair: Melissa Bennett
 Anna Muggeridge: ‘“The Missing Two Million”: The Exclusion of Working-Class Women
from the 1918 Franchise’
 Garance Mourgaud: ‘How has public opinion on prostitution changed in the wake of the
Wolfenden Report’
 Tabitha Hanlon: ‘The Forcible Feeding of British Suffragettes in Moving Image’
Panel 3b: Modern Culture & Politics
MS.05
Chair: Ruth Barbour
 Stephen Day: ‘The Fascist Faithful - Approving Priests, Fascist Vicars and Sympathetic Laity:
Christian support for Fascism in Britain 1932-1940’
 James Bennett: ‘The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Popular Music Canon’
 Michael Howe: ‘A Comparative Study of Antebellum Virginia and South Carolina’
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Friday 29th May
10.00-10.30
Registration
Zeeman Building, Atrium
10.30-11.30
Panel 4a: Identities
MS.03
Chair: James Bennett
 Jennifer Codd: ‘Blurring the Lines Between Sicknes and Health: Home Genetic Testing Kits
and the Creation of Pathologised Identites’
 Yichun Liu: ‘Representations of Gender and Sexuality in Chinese and Taiwanese Women’s
Literature in the 1980s’
 Jonathan Filar: ‘Being a Jewish Man in Early-Twentieth-Century England’
Panel 4b: The Reformation
MS.05
Chair: Stephen Bates
 Aaron Culbertson: ‘The Reformations of Cardinal Reginald Pole: From Protestant
Sympathiser to Protestant Persecutor’
 Elizabeth Hancock: ‘The Protestant Reformation, Marriage and Domestic Duties in England,
1540-1640’
 Alice Byrne: ‘St George in Early Modern England: Continuity and Change, 1509-1625’
11.30-12.00
Break
Zeeman Building, Atrium
12.00-13.00
Panel 5a: Medical History
MS.03
Chair: Jennifer Crane
 Sophie Greenway: ‘A Clash of Values: The Organic Movement and the Conceptual Separation
of Environment from Health in Post-War Britain’
 Zoe Day: ‘Representations of Chloroform in the Media’
 Michelle Davis: ‘Euthanasia: a Biography’
 John Wilmot: ‘Caring for the sick poor in the “age of reform”: some midland dispensaries
1820-1840’
Panel 5b: Early Modern Consumer Goods
MS.05
Chair: Michael Bycroft
 Michael Tincombe: ‘“Comed República”: Entitlement relations, Nutritional Status and the
Experience of Hunger in Republican and Francoist Spian, 1931-1952’
 Iain Dawson: ‘The First Great Moral, Medical and Mercantile Crisis - The Gin Craze in
Georgian London’
 Hester Potterill: ‘Smuggling in Britain: Long 18th century Tea Professionalisation’
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13.00-14.00
Lunch
Zeeman Building, Atrium
14.00-15.00
Panel 6a: Colonial History
MS.03
Chair: Hannah Graves
 Lewis Smith: ‘Eating Indigène: Food, Taste and the French colonial civilising mission’
 Umar Nawab: ‘“One child, one teacher, one book and one pen can change the world”:
Discourses on Malala Yusafzai and Reproducing Colonial History of Orientalism’.
 Christopher Wemyss: ‘Development, Modernity, and Colonialism: The Nature of the British
Administration in Hong Kong, 1965-1980’
Panel 6b: Early Modern Politics
MS.05
Chair: Ben Redding
 Elisabeth Graham: ‘Radical and Republican Politics in England, 1647-1658’
 Jun Huang: ‘Blackmailing the French Revolution: Exerting Political Influence through
Anonymous Menacing Letters, 1789-1791’
 Marguerite Hughes: ‘What is the Interface Between Court Life and Busy Public Sphere in
Georgian Britain 1760-1810?’
15.00-15.30
Closing Remarks
15.30
Wine Reception
MS.02
Zeeman Building, Atrium
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ABSTRACTS
Thursday, 28th May 2015
Panel 1a: Representations in Film
Melissa Bennett: ‘Picturing the West India Regiments in an Age of Unrest, Civil War and
Tourism, c 1850-1914’
The West India Regiment were British military units recruited from men of African descent that
served in the Caribbean and West Africa. At a time when the intelligence and loyalty of Britain’s
black Caribbean subjects was widely questioned and society was divided along racial lines they
served under (and in some cases alongside) white officers suppressing rebellions, supporting
imperial expansion, and regularly interacting with those outside of their own race and class.
Visual representations of the Regiment therefore had the potential to challenge dominant ideas
about race, the physical and intellectual ability of black males, and their place in society. In the
second half of the 19th century efforts began to refashion Caribbean islands as picturesque
“tropical” paradises. My thesis will explore the role that the Regiment played in this
representation. Through featuring in postcards, travel narratives and lantern slide lectures
circulated by tourists and those wishing to attract them, the Regiment helped contribute to a
narrative that the Caribbean was exotic but safe, and that its landscape and people were under
control.
Some photographs of the Regiment, especially those connected to major historical events such
as the Morant Bay Rebellion or Jamaica earthquake, were collectables and were commercially
produced, helping consumers build personal accounts and histories of the Caribbean region and
its peoples. This paper focuses in particular on photographs of the Regiment that feature in an
album collected by Alexander Dudgeon Gulland MD, a surgeon with the 6th Foot of the British
Army which was in Jamaica at the time of the Morant Bay Rebellion. It will discuss how the
photographs visually represent the soldiers of the Regiment at a time when its white officers and
black rank and file had been accused of horrendous acts of brutality by the island’s black
inhabitants and why.
Keywords: photography, military history, race, Caribbean history, Imperialism, visual representation
Esther Wright: ‘Portraying Early America on Film: Reading Disney's Pocahontas’
This paper considers Disney’s Pocahontas (1995) as one of very few film sources that deal
extensively with the history of early British America: especially colonisation via settlement at
Jamestown, and initial interactions between Native Americans and British settlers. It explores the
ways the film, its characters and narrative have been influenced by American ‘origin myths’, the
legendary portrayals of Pocahontas and John Smith, and the way these characters have been
shaped and formed in popular memory over time. Though often attacked by academics and
critics for its problematic representations, this paper explores how Pocahontas does more than
merely appropriate particular minority histories of North American colonisation; indeed, that it
conveys a perhaps unexpected range of references to specific primary source materials, as well as
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the more broad conclusions developed by historians studying this period. Moreover, in addition
to doing so, it revises the attitudes and actions of early modern contemporaries, framing them
within typically Disney constructions of good versus evil. By analysing specific images, songs and
dialogue, and comparing them to more traditional historical evidence, this paper ultimately
considers how the creators of Pocahontas have attempted to ‘use’ this particular period in
history, and how this reflects the trends film historians have identified within wider filmic
recreations of the past.
Keywords: historiography, British America, historical truth, film, popular culture
Sarah Wilson: ‘Vietnam War Films and Veterans: Portrayals and Responses’
Vietnam soldiers and veterans have appeared as characters in dozens of narrative feature films.
This work aims to examine the portrayal of American soldiers in Vietnam War films, focusing on
how filmmakers researched their portrayals, how soldiers were shown on screen and the
response of veterans to films made about them. I will also contrast the depiction of soldiers in
the war compared to veterans who have come home. Given the unpopularity of the war in
America, I will question how this has impacted the portrayal of the men who fought in the ‘first
television war’ - how the generally negative public reaction to the war contrasts with sympathy
for veterans. It will also explore in detail whether, as a Vietnam veteran himself, Oliver Stone’s
trilogy of Vietnam War films - Platoon, Born on the Fourth of July, Heaven and Earth – are any
more accurate in their portrayal of soldiers and their war experiences than those made by his
non-veteran colleagues.
Keywords: Vietnam War, film interpretation, reactions, Oliver Stone
Panel 1b: Women & Education
Olga Palagina: ‘A Partial, Prejudiced and Ignorant Historian’: Jane Austen’s Juvenilia and the
Analysis of Experience in Female Education 1775-1810’
It is a truth almost universally acknowledged that Jane Austen's novels have become a source of
fascination for book lovers and literary scholars alike. Since the end of the Victorian period, a
staggering amount of academic and fictional literature about this eighteenth century author and
her works have appeared in print. Austen's longstanding popularity has been cemented even
further with the introduction of annual events such as the famous Jane Austen Bath Festival,
which provides an opportunity for people to immerse themselves in everything related to
Austen, be it lectures, theatre performances of her novels and even dancing lessons
concentrating on the dances Austen herself would have known and took part in. Yet despite this
Jane Austen's Juvenilia has received little critical attention by literary scholars and cultural
historians. The juvenile collection of works written by Austen between the ages of eleven and
seventeen offers a precious insight into not only Austen's development as a writer but also the
experience of female education in the years spanning 1775-1810, a period when education for
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girls was a much contested topic of debate amongst social reformers and philosophers such as
Hannah More and Mary Wollstonecraft. This paper explores how Austen's 'The History of
England' sheds new light on the role of politics in female education. Using this juvenile piece of
work as a case study, it argues that girls received an informal education in politics through
reading and discussion amongst family members within the confinement of the domestic sphere.
Keywords: Juvenilia, experience, female education, historian
Emma Leonard: ‘Who goes there? Profiles of the typical and not so typical students of St.
Hugh's College, Oxford and Girton College, Cambridge in the first half of the twentieth century’
This paper will explore the backgrounds of women who attended the elite women’s colleges of
St. Hugh’s College, Oxford and Girton College, Cambridge. By using the database I have
constructed from the college registers, I will present a statistical picture of the most common
names, ages and secondary educational backgrounds of the women who were still deemed by
many at the time to be pioneers in women’s Higher Education.
My analytical approach draws inspirations from that of Jane Martin’s 2013 article in Gender and
Education in that the time period of 1900-45 will be used to explore the common background
characteristics of women who were at a pivotal point in their lives during an era widely held as
the transition from first to second wave feminism. Through selecting women who entered
university between 1900 and 1945, I will be building on Olive Banks’ 1986 study Becoming A
Feminist – The Social Origins of ‘First Wave’ Feminism. Banks analysed women academics
born between 1872 and 1891 as the final cohort in her study who represented the last generation
to experience first wave feminism. I will be examining data that fits between the studies of
Banks’ (1986) and that of Miriam E. David’s 2014 study Feminism, Gender and Universities
which starts with those matriculating in 1950. This paper aims to reveal the most statistically
frequent profile of the female Oxbridge student and explores the potential wider implications of
this; and also highlight some fascinating trends and intriguing anomalies.
Keywords: history of women's higher education, Oxbridge colleges, uses and limits of statistical profiling in
history
Panel 2a: Mental Health
Hye Jean Hwang: ‘Women and Depression in Interwar Britain: Case Notes, Narratives and
Experiences’
This research aims to reveal the experiences of female patients suffering from depression in
interwar Britain. To be specific, it will explore how the mental patients perceived their disorder,
what they considered as the origin of the emotional disturbance, and how they connected their
own life events with individual experiences in disease. The patients’ perspectives on depression
will be also compared to the professionals’.
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In order to listen to patients’ own narratives of depression, case notes will be used as main
sources, with various kinds of medical records. Case books of Holloway Sanatorium and
Maudsley Hospital, kept in the 1920s and 1930s, will be put under close scrutiny, as samples
illustrating the vivid experiences of depressed women from the middle- and upper-class. The
patients will be categorized according to age (life stage), and then sub-categorised according to
major life event presumably affecting their mental break-down. This research will contribute to
better understanding of the history of psychiatry, in general, and the history of depression and
affective disorders. It will also enrich the ongoing debate on mental illness as a gendered issue,
and show women’s life when their social and legal status fluctuated.
Keywords: psychiatry, depression, women's mental illness, patient's view, lay perspective, case note, Maudsley
Hospital, Holloway Sanatorium, life cycle, live events
Anastasia Schulze: 'Under official and expert discussion': The role of medical experts in the
media's portrayal of benzodiazepine addiction as a medical and social problem in Britain, 19602000
This dissertation explores the controversy surrounding the addictive potential of benzodiazepine
tranquillisers that emerged in Britain in the 1970s. While the history of tranquillisers in the
twentieth century is well-documented in the American context, the British literature is less
developed, and in-depth analyses of the socio-cultural significance of benzodiazepines are few
and far between. Drawing on the work of several sociologists, including Craig Reinarman’s
theories about the emergence of ‘drug panics’ and Jonathan Gabe and Michael Bury’s important
work on representations of tranquilliser dependence in the media, the dissertation reassesses the
establishment of tranquilliser dependence as a social problem in post-war Britain, particularly
focussing on the role of medical experts in this process. The paper will proceed in three sections:
first, an analysis of the process by which benzodiazepines fell from favour, focussing on
theoretical assessments of the media’s role; second, a case study of Professor Malcolm Lader’s
contributions to contemporary television programmes on the dangers of benzodiazepines with a
view to assessing his role as the medical expert in this drug panic; and finally, a second,
contrasting case study of Professor Ian Oswald, whose long-standing criticism of the tranquilliser
Halcion ultimately led to a successful lawsuit against him by Upjohn Pharmaceuticals. The
dissertation thus expands upon existing literatures about the social history of benzodiazepines in
Britain; the relationship between medicine and the media, specifically focussing on the role of
‘the expert’ in the genesis of drug panics; and, finally, offers a new perspective on current debates
about drug addiction in post-war Britain.
Keywords: benzodiazepines; mass media; iatrogenic addiction; drug panic; Malcolm Lader; Ian Oswald
Andrew Burchell: ‘Parental Rights, Mental Health and ‘Neurotic’ Children: The End of Corporal
Punishment in British Schools’
Since at least the nineteenth century, warnings have coalesced around the use of physical
punishment (and specifically beating) as a means of correcting or disciplining school pupils.
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From concerns that it might lead to an undemocratic form of servility, to a belief (accentuated by
Freudian theory) that it encouraged sexual perversion, the issue became an increasingly
heightened one in the years following the Second World War as concerns over juvenile
delinquency and classroom misbehaviour shaped public fears and imaginings of ‘youth’. This
paper argues, however, that the psychological and emotional health dimension to these debates
has often been ignored. In addition to examining the professional contestations and divisions
over beating’s effects on both ‘adjusted’ and ‘maladjusted’ or ‘neurotic’ children, it also proposes
an analysis of the heated discussions provoked by attempts to reform or abolish the teacher’s
common-law right to inflict pain as chastisement. In doing so, it offers a window onto post-war
understandings of children’s rights and the place of psychological theory in educational practice.
More significantly, it also reveals the often fraught negotiation of the rights and responsibilities
of those exercising authority over children – whether as parents, or as teachers operating in loco
parentis – and the increasing ‘pathologisation’ of such debates.
Keywords: discipline, corporal punishment, childhood, education, psychology, Britain, Twentieth Century
Panel 2b: Early Modern Institutions
Sophia Guthrie: ‘Huguenot Royalism and the Victimhood in Antoine Garissoles' Adolphid
(1649), A Latin Epic Poem’
The Adolphid is a Latin historical epic published in France in 1649 and dedicated to Queen
Christina of Sweden. Its author, Antoine Garissoles (1587-1650), was a Huguenot and a
professor of Theology at the Protestant academy at Montauban. The subject of the poem is the
Swedish king Gustavus Adolphus (1594-1632), portrayed as a heroic defender of his fellow
European Protestants in the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648). But the text also draws attention to
domestic tensions in France between the Crown and the Huguenots. By examining and
contextualising three passages from the Adolphid, this paper seeks to contribute to a greater
understanding of the complex relationship between the Huguenots and the French crown. It also
aims to give an example of Huguenot self-representation communicated to a foreign Protestant
audience in the decades after their military defeat in 1629.
Keywords: Seventeenth-Century France, Huguenots, International Protestant Unity, Humanism, Latin Epic,
Gustavus Adolphus
Ben Redding: ‘The English and French Navies in Popular Representation, c. 1600-1642’
On 16 October 1637 the Sovereign of the Seas underwent her maiden voyage; little more than a
year after the French built la Couronne had done the same. These two warships quintessentially
represented their respective kingdom; each vessel was the maritime jewel of their sovereign. It is
consequently unsurprising that they were both subject to popular representation, and served to
embody the two nations’ cultural identity. The manipulation of warships by the state to gain
national support was not a new concept; this paper will look at their utilisation in contemporary
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popular representation from the dawn of the seventeenth century until 1642 - the death of
Cardinal Richelieu, grand maître de la navigation and the commencement of the War of the
Three Kingdoms – to convey the contrasting importance applied to the navies of the two realms.
Coinage and medals, artwork, pamphlets and other published accounts will be considered. By
doing so, it will be argued that England applied a much greater emphasis on integrating the navy
into any idea of a national consciousness, than was the case in France.
Keywords: Early-Modern England, Early-Modern France, national identity, Navy, symbolism, imagery
Panel 3a: Women’s Rights & Feminism
Anna Muggeridge: ‘The Missing Two Million’: The exclusion of working-class women from the
1918 franchise
The 1918 Representation of the People Act was the first to enfranchise some women in the
United Kingdom, but it was not until a second Act was passed, in 1928, that all women were
enfranchised. Whilst the main barrier to female enfranchisement in this decade was age, with no
women below the age of thirty permitted to vote, many working-class women aged over thirty
were also disenfranchised under the terms of the Act. This paper will look, for the first time, at
the rates at which women remained disenfranchised in England and Wales between 1918 and
1928, demonstrating that, in this period, women over thirty remained disenfranchised at much
greater rates than men, for whom universal suffrage had been granted. It will then consider the
reasons for this disenfranchisement, arguing that the property-based franchise system for women
discriminated mostly against working-class women, making the 1918 Act much less democratic
than it has been perceived.
Keywords: gender; class; intersections of class and gender, interwar feminism, suffrage history
Garance Mourgaud: ‘How has public opinion on prostitution changed in the wake of the
Wolfenden Report?’
This project focuses on the public opinion on prostitution in the postwar years, in particular in
the two decades following the Wolfenden Report on Homosexuality and Prostitution (1957), a
period known as the ‘permissive society’. The report opens up two decades of liberal legislations
on issues ranging from homosexuality to censorship or suicide, but very little happens regarding
sex work, which raises the question : what is unacceptable about prostitution in the wake of the
Wolfenden Report ?
A lot has been written, including during those years, on Victorian and early twentiethcentury prostitution, but very little on the postwar era, even though the issue of sex work is
central to other issues, such as the debates over ‘permissiveness’, second-wave feminism and the
sex wars, the aftermath of the sex work legislations of 1956 and 1959, and later in the period the
sex worker’s movements.
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Therefore I would want to assess what the public opinion on prostitution was in the
1960’s and 1970’s, focusing on the mainstream opinion of ‘middle England’ rather than on the
more radical opinions of the time. To do that I will use newspapers, women’s magazines and
letters in order to get a good view of the debates and concerns of the time.
Keywords: prostitution, sex-work, feminism, morality, economics
Tabitha Hanlon: ‘The Forcible Feeding of British Suffragettes in Moving Image’
2014 marked the fortieth anniversary of the BBC miniseries Shoulder to Shoulder that depicted
the plight for the vote of the women’s suffrage movement in Britain. The 1974 show was ground
breaking; it did not shy away from depicting conditions in which many militant suffragettes were
imprisoned and it faced head on the tragic reality that was forcible feeding. I seek to understand
how the BBC was able to reconstruct these scenes given that no original archival footage exists
and moreover, how accurate they are in conjunction with various testimonies and primary
sources. I am interested in how the three key players in the forcible feeding saga, the suffragettes,
those in the prison who undertook the forcible feeding, and the government are shown. Where
does the sympathy/blame lie? Do we see justification being given? I hope to gain an appreciation
of the extent to which forcible feeding was embroiled in debates relating to the female body for
example, something particularly relevant to the feminist movement at the time.
Keywords: Suffragettes, British prisons, forcible feeding, accurate portrayal, audience responses
Panel 3b: Modern Culture & Politics
Stephen Day: ‘The Fascist Faithful: Approving Priests, Fascist Vicars and Sympathetic
Laity: Christian support for Fascism in Britain, 1932-1940’
Among those interned under the Defence of the Realm Act Section 18b from the summer of
1940, was a small group of Church of England clergy. All were held for membership of Sir
Oswald Mosley’s British Union. Detained with them were other practicing Christians, at least
one of whom became a Catholic priest in South Africa and another who, before throwing
himself off the Mersey ferry, had moved on from mainstream religious faith to construct a
unique Hitler-worshipping religion of his own.
Some of these men had supported Mosley since the early days of the British Union of
Fascists, but they were not the only Christians sympathetic to the extreme right. While huge
numbers of Christians in Europe were forced to form some sort of attitude to their Nazi and
Fascist rulers, fascism in Britain never came close to government. Nonetheless, some British
Christians developed sympathies to fascist belief that brought them no praise or respectability,
but imprisonment and rejection.
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Since Christianity and fascism both make total claims on their adherents and have very
different ideas about the nature of humanity, how might fascism’s attraction to even a small
minority of Christians be explained? Who were these people and why were they drawn to the
extreme right? How did they explain their fascism? What did British fascists have to say about
Christianity? In looking at such things as contributions to the fascist press, contemporary
reactions to the Spanish Civil War, fear of Communism and forms of anti-Semitism it is these
questions that I intend to explore.
Keywords: Britain, Fascism, Oswald Mosley, Christianity, clergy, anti-Semitism, anti-Communism
James Bennett: ‘The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Popular Music Canon’
One of the most noticeable effects of the development of television and the internet on music
journalism is the increasing popularity of ranking music in order of perceived greatness or
quality. Books, special magazine issues, television programmes and websites have been devoted
to pseudo-objective rankings of the greatest songs and albums ever, often using the verification
of being compiled by a democratic process using public votes, or otherwise being chosen by
'experts'. Often these lists are based heavily around the rockist canon, with artists like the Beatles,
Pink Floyd, the Rolling Stones and the Beach Boys featuring heavily, but often with token
inclusions from outside rock including classic pop, hip-hop and jazz performers.
This paper will examine the role of these lists in reinforcing the rockist mythology,
particularly focusing on the grandest statement of this: the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in
Cleveland, Ohio. Initiating inductions in 1986 and opening in 1995, the Hall of Fame has
become both an important tourist attraction for the city and a major advocate of its own rock
canon, with its opaque induction policy based heavily on the opinions of leading rock critics,
record executives and performers themselves. The annual induction concerts are now massive
commercial events. Those artists who are successful usually benefit from a large spike in record
sales, but some of those left on the margins have criticised it for being biased against black and
female performers and certain genres while also inducting artists from outside rock itself.
Keywords: popular music, Rockism, popular culture, music, criticism, American culture
Michael Howe: ‘A Comparative Study of Antebellum Virginia and South Carolina’
This paper seeks to highlight and analyse differences and similarities between South Carolina and
Virginia from 1815 to 1860. The work, which uses the similar histories of the early Virginian and
South Carolinian societies as a starting point, seeks to understand how they developed in relation
to each other, eventually hoping to understand what created the different experiences of each
state during the Civil War and why these occurred. Particular emphasis in the dissertation is
being given to slavery and politics and their effects on both states. Key emphasis will also be
placed on class division in Virginia and why, unlike South Carolina, Virginia had a large and
vocal unionist population in the West that ultimately became a separate state.
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Friday 29th May 2015
Panel 4a: Identities
Jennifer Codd: ‘Blurring the Lines Between Sickness and Health: Home Genetic Testing Kits
and the Creation of Pathologised Identities’
Companies such as 23andMe offer customers a report of both their genetic ancestry and their
predisposition to genetically inherited diseases, produced by the analysis of a saliva swab.
23andMe claims that ‘the more you know about your DNA, the more you know about yourself’.
This paper explores how home genetic testing kits can come to create a pathologised identity in
an individual when they are informed that they are at risk of developing, or passing on, a genetic
disease. It will explore the changes these tests can cause both in how the consumer views their
ancestors, and how they come to see themselves. It will therefore link tightly to the developing
literature on patient identities, whilst comparing it to other home testing kits, such as pregnancy
tests. It will look at the marketing of the product, whom it is aimed at, and what it wishes to
achieve in order to ask whether this product facilitates what Michel Foucault terms ‘biopower’. It
also explores how the creation of pathologised identities has become entangled with ideas of
both gender and race.
Keywords: race, racism, medical identity, internet, communication technology
Yichun Liu: ‘Representations of Gender and Sexuality in Chinese and Taiwanese Women's
Literature in the 1980s’
Reviewing cross-straight women’s literature in the 1980s on sex and sexuality, in both China and
Taiwan the power relation is highlighted to incisively criticize patriarchal society affecting
women’s status and life. In the discussions of sex, cross-straight narratives demonstrate
similarities, whereas the representation of sexuality is depicted in various ways. Also, there were
debates about sex and sexuality in public and there was dialectic relationship between women
writers and the public. Generally, in the 1980s both societies were comparatively conservative
toward sexual discussions but political discourses differentiated cross-strait public debates of
sexual narratives.
Jonathan Filar: ‘Being a Jewish Man in Early Twentieth Century England’
This paper investigates the lives, experiences and self-understanding of early twentieth century
Jewish men in England. Focusing on the East End of London, it seeks to modify and
problematise historiographical accounts that have not considered the category of gender in their
interpretation of twentieth century English Jewish history. Accordingly, this paper presents a
history of Jewish men as men and examines the relatively unexplored area of English Jewish
masculinities. The first, second and third generation of Eastern European Jewish immigrants are
the primary subjects of this study, though members of the centuries old acculturated Anglo14
Jewish community will also be considered. Using interviews and memoirs this paper looks at the
practices and expressions of masculinity amongst these demographic groups. In the encounter
between successive generations of Jewish men and women and the social and cultural fabric of
British society, a complex set of pressures namely Anglicization, poverty and anti-Semitism had
to be navigated. These pressures, in combination with an internalisation of the discursive
construct of ‘the Jew’, invariably affected the self-understanding of Jewish men.
Keywords: gender, masculinity, hegemonic, assimilation, anti-Semitism, immigration, and class
Panel 4b: The Reformation
Aaron Culbertson: ‘The Reformations of Cardinal Reginald Pole: From Protestant Sympathiser
to Protestant Persecutor’
One principal challenge facing the historian of religious life in the sixteenth century is
establishing an appropriate interpretive framework that avoids determinism based on knowledge
of later events. This is particularly pertinent when considering the nature of Catholicism
following the Catholic Church’s most important response to the schism of Western
Christendom, the Council of Trent (1545–1563), together with those involved in the Catholic
reform movement, such as Reginald Pole (1500 ̶ 1558) and the “spirituali”, many of whom drew
on humanistic thought to construct a Christo-centric belief system focused on inward spiritual
devotion. Although many of the theological views of Pole and his associates were initially
permitted by the Church or were yet to be defined in terms of their orthodoxy, they would be
rejected subsequently at Trent, thus opening the way for suspicions of heresy. The life of
Cardinal Pole, who ultimately conformed to the Tridentine doctrinal decrees and then went on
to promote their widespread adoption and enforcement, provides an excellent opportunity to
examine the influence of the long shadow cast by Trent on the historiography of Catholic
reform, in particular that relating the Italian reformation and to Pole’s later sphere of influence in
Marian England as Papal Legate and Archbishop of Canterbury. My thesis analyses the religious,
intellectual, and political spheres that combined to shape and transform Pole’s distinctive
religious outlook in these changing contexts. By conducting this study of Pole’s attitudes towards
reform, salvation, and Church unity, along with the impact of both local and more widespread
social and intellectual trends on these attitudes, a more complete picture of the influential
Catholic reform movement and its relationship to Catholicism in Marian England is developed.
In exploring the intersections between context, personal motive, and historical change, my work
provides the foundations for a reassessment of the historiographical categorisations that have
shaped studies of religious reforming currents of the period in both England and Continental
Europe.
Keywords: Reginald Pole, Catholic Reformation, Counter-Reformation, English Reformation, Council of
Trent, Sixteenth Century, Theology, Heresy, Inquisition, Queen Mary Tudor, King Henry VIII, Protestant,
Spirituali, Pope Paul IV, Cardinal Gasparo Contarini
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Elizabeth Hancock: ‘The Protestant Reformation, Marriage and Domestic Duties in England,
1540-1640’
This work looks at how the Protestant Reformation impacted the institution of marriage, one
important dimension of the family. The research methods employed are qualitative, looking at
contemporary texts and case studies. It seeks to gauge the impact of the Reformation on
marriage by looking at some of the historiography in the first section of this study, concentrating
on the work of authors like Stone and Brown and Cressy, on marriage, the family and kinship in
early modern England. The second chapter analyses William Gouge’s series of treaties on
Domestical Duties, published in 1622, to help delineate some of society’s expectations of
marriage in Post-Reformation England. Even though the treaties were written with a Protestant
agenda, it outlines some of the theory pertaining to marriage, and allows for comparison with
how these treaties were followed, or otherwise in many families in the fourth chapter. Before
this, though, the way in which a wife’s relationship with her priest can alter the dynamic of
marriage, is investigated. Particular attention is paid to the case and trial of Margaret Clitherow in
order to illustrate the argument. The final chapter before conclusions are drawn, concentrates on
the practical experience of marriage in Reformation England in both Catholic and Protestant
families. Case studies are selected from prominent families in England. It seeks to discover
whether there were marked differences in the experience of wedlock between Catholic and
Protestant families, or whether they were, in fact, similar.
Alice Byrne: ‘St George in Early Modern England: Continuity and Change, 1509-1625’
Although many historical and literary works allude to St George as the patron saint of England,
he is often ‘slotted’ away or labelled without any further analysis into his wider significance to
early modern politics and culture; my thesis seeks to redress the balance. For example,
it is often argued that St George’s cult disappeared with the Henrician and Edwardian
Reformations, yet there is evidence across all levels of society that he remained a popular and
important figure. At a monarchical level, St George was used to facilitate religious change
throughout the period, both at court and with the larger populace. With regards to the latter, it
is apparent that St George was a popular figure through various practices both of a religious and
secular nature.
The thesis also investigates whether St George was largely ‘secularised’ as a result of the
English Reformation. My argument is that, rather than becoming a purely secular figure, or
conversely a Protestant champion, St George was a far more malleable figure who was used by
various religious groups to espouse their beliefs. At all levels of society, St George remained a
significant cultural resource.
The idea of nationhood or national identity is another key topic to
be explored. Although St George was the patron saint of England from the fifteenth century,
this term is only relative as it is clear at that point in time there was no singular idea about
nationhood. The thesis seeks to identify the role that St George played in developing ideas
about nationhood during the establishment of the Church of England and the tumultuous period
of the Counter Reformation. It also examines how traditions related to St George, such as the
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Order of the Garter, were used to ‘Anglicise’ figures or decrees that could be perceived as
contentious or foreign.
Keywords: cult of the saints; reformation; iconography and other representations of sainthood; chivalry;
nationhood; secularisation
Panel 5a: Medical History
Sophie Greenway: ‘A Clash of Values: The Organic Movement and the Conceptual Separation of
Environment from Health in Post-War Britain’
In this paper I will analyse the significance of the Family Health Club Housing Association
(FHC), 1944-56, founded to implement the ideals of the Peckham Experiment in the
reconstruction of Coventry. In arguing that unrealised schemes should not be viewed as
unrealistic, I will highlight the ‘powerful versions of the inevitable’ that have become attached to
the post-war settlement overall, and to the NHS in particular.
The empowerment of the citizen through active involvement at all stages of community
formation was central to the FHC, and will be contrasted with the Attlee Government’s use of
central power to raise the condition of the poor to a level at which they would be able to become
active citizens. A reassessment of the financial viability of the FHC will provide a new
perspective suggesting that citizen empowerment, whether within food growing or community
building projects, should be regarded as a viable alternative within current discourse.
Keywords: health, reconstruction, citizenship, environment, growing
Zoe Day: ‘Representations of Chloroform in the Media’
Regardless of the fact that there are numerous studies of the history of chloroform and especially
the history of anaesthetics more generally, how chloroform was represented in media from its
discovery until the modern day has received relatively little attention. Many studies of anaesthesia
focus mainly on the discovery of ether and chloroform and the opinions of people towards these
substances immediately after their introduction. In my dissertation I intend to explore
representations of chloroform in literature and media right up until the present day and see how
attitudes towards the substance have changed over time. One of the main resources I shall be
using to explore representations is the case of Adelaide Bartlett, who in 1886 was tried for her
husband’s murder by way of chloroform and was acquitted. The ‘Pimlico Poisoning Case’ as it
was known generated many newspaper headlines and provoked reactions nationally. In this
presentation I shall be looking at how chloroform was represented in the media surrounding the
Pimlico Poisoning Case and evaluating what historians can read into media representations of
chloroform and whether these representations follow wider historical trends.
Keywords: representations, Chloroform, Victorian literature, literature
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Michelle Davis: ‘Euthanasia: a Biography’
The word euthanasia today is predominantly used in one of two contexts. Firstly, there is human
euthanasia. Often associated with the Nazi genocide of the twentieth century this method of
dying has never been legalised in the UK for fear of the ‘slippery slope’. However, with a new
assisted dying bill currently passing through parliament interest in the subject has been growing.
Secondly, there is the euthanasia of an animal, something which has become such a normal
practice it goes on every day without remark.
My dissertation is a study on euthanasia, which places the word itself as the subject of
enquiry – it is a study of the use of language. There are many studies currently published on
euthanasia activists or the Nazi euthanasia program. What I propose is a study tracing the word
itself to discover how it became associated with not only a medically induced death in humans
but also in veterinary medicine. The literal Greek translation means ‘a good death’ and at the
beginning of the nineteenth century it was still used very loosely to mean the end of something.
This paper is going to discuss how euthanasia transformed over the course of the nineteenth
century and became a medicalised term, whose definition was a medically induced premature
death. By focusing on ideas of death, the human/animal relationship and pain, and through the
use of newspapers and journals, the changes to euthanasia can be successfully traced, leading to a
much needed fuller understanding of a sensitive subject.
John Wilmot: ‘Caring for the sick poor in the age of reform: the history of some Midland
dispensaries, 1820-1840’
Dispensaries were important sources of medical care for working people from the late eighteenth
until the mid-twentieth century. Their early context included the ‘urban renaissance’, the later
enlightenment, and continuing concerns about the proper function of charity; from c. 1801,
national debates concerning institutional and political reform were also relevant. Dispensaries
provided medical, surgical, and often midwifery treatment to outpatients and home-patients.
This paper deals with two West Midland institutions in Birmingham and in Stratford-on-Avon,
founded respectively in 1793 and 1823. In both places, prospective patients needed letters of
recommendation from the affluent individuals who were institutional subscribers. The
Birmingham General Dispensary became much busier as the city grew, treating a total of 742
cases in 1795, 2926 in 1821, and 3721 in 1831. Activity levels in the market town of Stratford
changed little. Medical staff attended 369 outpatients in 1833, having seen very similar numbers
ten years previously. The presentation will address selected organisational aspects of the two
institutions, as well as epidemiological and demographic information derived from extant
records.
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Panel 5b: Early Modern Consumer Goods
Michael Tincombe: ‘Comed República’: Entitlement relations, Nutritional Status and the
Experience of Hunger in Republican and Francoist Spain, 1931 to 1952
This paper will attempt to construct an account of the civil conflict in Spain, from the
establishment of the Second Republic in 1931 to the end of food rationing in 1952, through the
nutritional status and everyday experience of hunger of ordinary Spaniards, as this changed
before, during and especially, after the conflict. This will be approached using individual and
group entitlements, endowments and exchanges, within situations of generalised food availability
decline, and using the extended family as the basic unit of evaluation. This approach is modified
to allow application to a dysfunctional and distorted post-war market economy, with production
and distribution of food and other basic commodities disrupted as a result of the civil war, and
deformed by rationing, corruption, an extensive black market and the regime’s disastrous
attempts at autarky. This occurs within the context of the brutal political repression of the
defeated Republic and its sympathisers, and the Francoist project to construct a unified, Catholic,
anti-democratic ‘New Spain.’
Keywords: Sen, Food, Availability, Coercion, Autarky, Memory
Iain Dawson: ‘The First Great Moral, Medical and Mercantile Crisis: The Gin Craze in Georgian
London’
The Gin Craze was the first great moral crisis for Georgian London; now a conurbation so large
its like had never been seen before in the European History. Alcoholic spirits were a new
commodity of mass availability, and ‘Madam Geneva’ was the name given to spirits flavoured
with juniper berries; known today as gin. This powerful drug with instant effects was sold cheap
and became popular with the new urban underclass in the pre-industrial city. These poorest slum
dwelling Londoners used gin to numb their pains and distresses. As they took to gin, legislators
encouraged this new market for English grain and consumption of alcoholic spirits boomed. So
began a great moral panic, a mercantile concern, and an unforeseen medical phenomenon.
Mothers and fathers addicted to spirits abandoned their responsibilities, and gin-babies were
born deformed. In reaction came the Georgian social reformer culture and a generation of
politicians with new social policies. Yet in their crackdown they did not solve the problem; an
underground black-market flourished, consumption rose, and a legion of informers and
magistrates battled Madam Geneva. To all of this the question remains: was the Gin Craze panic
rooted in real fears, or were they self-perpetuating? And, how exactly were consumers of this
new commodity criminalised?
Keywords: London, alcohol, gin, Gin Craze, crime, William Hogarth
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Hester Potterill: ‘Smuggling in Britain: Long 18th century Tea Professionalisation’
Smuggling is defined most significantly by fiction, the story of smugglers and smuggling has been
immortalised by romanticised accounts of their lifestyle and political motivations. However,
smuggling was a significant threat to the economic status of Britain in the long eighteenth
century. Accounts of both the daring and the affront of smugglers are abundant, though records
of their actions are contrastingly sparse. Much research has portrayed smuggling either as a
manifestation of rebellion, or desperation, in economically oppressive times. Yet I will argue that
it is most arguably self-interest that can be repeatedly seen in the chronology of smuggling. For
the purpose of considering the evolution of smuggling in Britain the long eighteenth century
seems a much more natural historic period than one divided by superficial centenary markers.
Throughout this period a significant professionalization of the smuggling trade took place. This
was as a direct consequence of taxation and warfare within Europe, the former often an
inevitability of the latter. Studying the Acts of Parliament designed to counteract smuggling are
very telling, and give an insight into the increasing restrictions deemed necessary for the
repression of this clandestine trade. By contrasting these Acts with court records it is possible to
gain an understanding of the varying problems faced by customs officers, and the actions taken
to remedy them and thus allowing an insight into the professionalisation and development of
smuggling.
Keywords: tax, brandy
Panel 6a: Colonial History
Lewis Smith: ‘Eating Indigène: Food and the French colonial civilising mission’
The study of food allows for a greater understanding of the ways in which relations of power are
entangled in the material and discursive practices of everyday life. Food thus serves as a valuable
source for scholars interested in the impact of colonialism on lived experience and the
imagination of spaces and identities. This paper explores the significance of food and culinary
habits in shaping the boundaries of the French imagined community in relation to the North
African colonial ‘other.’ Drawing on archival research and sources including cookbooks, travel
narratives and folk poetry, it will argue that food served as a means of legitimising, initiating, and
resisting the French mission civilisatrice in its various guises. This can be seen both within the
colonies and, later, in the metropole itself, as migration to France became increasingly common
throughout the 20th century.
Keywords: colonialism, consumption, space, modern history
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Umar Nawab: ‘One child, one teacher, one book and one pen can change the world’: Discourses
on Malala Yusafzai and Reproducing Colonial History of Orientalism
Malala was shot by the Taliban on October 9, 2012. Two years later, she became the youngest
recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. Malala has now been catapulted into international fame. In
this fame, Malala is popularly seen to represent something very universal and powerful: the right
of a child to security, education, and the fight against violence and subjugation of women.
Nevertheless, these very tropes of freedom and empowerment also obscure the longer
history out of which Malala’s fame comes. In other words, in this dissertation I ask how and why
has Malala’s story gained such a wide and admiring global audience? What has given her such
appeal and reach in such a short time? And how does her recent past resonate with the wider
dominant contemporary geo-political themes of the day?
On the one hand, Malala is undeniably a brave and talented young women. On the other
hand, it is difficult to ignore how she is now implicated in a broader ‘‘great game’’ of global
politics. In the backdrop of the ensuing ‘‘war against terror,’’ her selection, and subsequent
celebration, by the West as an indigenous voice against extremism is not a mere coincidence but
an act of skillful political manoeuvring. Malala is symbiotically drawn upon by the macro political
structures being exercised in the context of national, social, economic and cultural ideology that
intersects and criss-crosses within the larger global framework.
This humanitarian intervention situates Spivak’s thesis in a contemporary setting which
continues the colonialist tradition of a ‘‘white man’s burden,’’ exhibited by the earlier campaigns
of Sati and Rukhmabai’s child marriage which attempts to ‘‘save brown women from brown
men.’’ Thus, in Malala, one sees a rehearsal of sexual and imperial politics, at the centre of this
contested domination in the longer historiographical discourses on colonial history.
Keywords: Malala Yusafzai, discourses, history from the present, orientalism, representations, colonial history,
power
Christopher Wemyss: ‘Development, Modernity, and Colonialism: The Nature of the British
Administration in Hong Kong, 1965-1980’
This dissertation analyses the response of the British administration in Hong Kong to the 1966
and 1967 riots. The period to 1980 saw the transformation of the territory’s economy into its
modern form and major reforms from the colonial government headed by Governor Murray
MacLehose. The paper focuses on three policy areas directly related to the cause of public revolt:
transport, policing and education. Documents from the National Archives at Kew are used to
weigh how far reforms in these fields were motivated by British desire to maintain control of the
territory, economic development, popular sentiment, or the personal ambition of MacLehose.'
Keywords: twentieth century, colonialism, Britain, China, Hong Kong
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Panel 6b: Modern Politics
Elisabeth Graham: ‘Radical and Republican Politics in England, 1647-1658’
It is said that the English people could never have imagined a republican government before
1649. Yet at the beginning of this year they faced this very prospect, as one by one all the
institutions of monarchical government were torn down, beginning with the execution of the
king. This was not the first time an English monarch had been killed, but it was the first time an
axe had been taken to the whole tree, and not just the rotten fruit. The republican experiment
was not to last long, as Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell assumed monarch-like powers within
four years, and by 1660 the monarchy had been restored in all its splendour. How was it that
these events came to pass? The drive seems to have been led by those varyingly termed radicals
and republicans, but the terms ‘radical’ and ‘republican’ are misleading because they suggest unity
of purpose where there was very little. They drew their influences from a multitude of sources,
from medieval England, from ancient Greece and Rome, from foreign governments and from
the Bible, but determining where these were exemplars and where these were justifications is far
from straightforward. How did these divided factions coalesce to bring down an institution that
had stood for centuries? How can we understand the notion of republicanism in this period and
on what basis did it rest? Was this truly an English republic at all?
Jun Huang: ‘Blackmailing the French Revolution: Exerting Political Influence through
Anonymous Menacing Letters, 1789-1791’
This dissertation examines how the contemporaries of the French Revolution exerted influence
over the revolutionaries through anonymous menacing letters in the early phase of the
Revolution from 1789 to 1791. It also tries to explain the lasting implications of these letters in
shaping the Revolution and in the coming of the Terror. As a repertoire inherited from the Old
Regime, writing anonymous letters became politically problematic in the revolutionary era. Living
in a time when people had very limited control over the erratic, unpredictable, and chaotic
political world, the contemporaries had no choice but to try whatever they could find in the wellsupplied warehouse of repertoires to exert influence over revolutionary politics. One of the
available means was sending the revolutionaries anonymous menacing letters. Feeling disturbed
and threatened, the revolutionaries adopted different measures to suppress these letters and
attached greater importance to the notion of transparency. Some of their measures, however,
violated and sacrificed revolutionary values, the very things that the revolutionaries took pain to
establish and valued most. Unlike François Furet and Keith Baker, this dissertation thus argues
that it was in part the fear, paranoia, and anger aroused by anonymous menacing letters, as well
as by other sorts of threats and violence, that forced the revolutionaries, mostly pragmatic
politicians, into adopting Rousseauian ideas and eventually led them to the Terror.
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Marguerite Hughes: ‘What is the Interface Between Court Life and Busy Public Sphere in
Georgian Britain 1760-1810?’
The relationship between the royal court and people is a crucial point of concern for studies of
popular politics in the eighteenth century. In studies of the relationship between the court and
parliament in eighteenth-century Britain, debates often centre around discussions concerning the
political agency of the King. Brewer rightly claims that 'if the early years of George III's reign
have given birth to a flourishing body of historical work they have also engendered a
historiographical controversy which has affected almost every historian of modern British
politics.' Whilst scholars have acknowledged the King’s active role in popular politics in the late
eighteenth century, there is more to discover about his motivations. Was the King controlling
popular politics in this period? To what extent did the court need a different type of relationship
with the public? And why is there an increase in royal caricatures in this period? This study will
examine the caricatures of the reign of George III as evidence for how public opinion towards
the monarchy changed, and in order to digest how public attitudes towards the court changed.
Keywords: British history, eighteenth century, court culture, public and private spheres, King George, political
history, London
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