Minutes of the Global History and Culture Centre meeting
3.30 pm, Wednesday 16 March 2011, H241
Present: Anne Gerritsen, Maxine Berg, Chris Nierstrasz, Stephen McDowall, Dan Branch, Felicia
Gottman, Christian Hess, Bishnu Gupta.
Apologies: Margot Finn, Tony McFarlane, Gurminder Bhambra, Clare Anderson, Steve Hindle, Dennis
Novy, David Arnold, Helen Clifford, Hanna Hodacs, Claudia Stein
Minutes:
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These were accepted as an accurate record.
AG mentioned the workshop on the 24th, and the other events listed in the previous
minutes, and urged all to come.
Matters arising:
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The application for the IAS fellowship for Adam McKeown has gone in. No other IAS
fellowships have been applied for via the GHCC this year.
Maxine provided an update about the British Academy upcoming grant closures (small
grants, conference grants), and stressed the importance of other schemes:
o The BA funding for language and quantitative skills
o The Newton fellowships. If anyone knows of rising stars not yet in permanent
employment but not based in the UK, please let us know.
Graduate student conference with Columbia and LSE
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AG reported on progress. Columbia is keen to do this with LSE and Warwick in equal
partnership (paying in equal measure for the event). We agreed to put aside £3000 for this
event (with the partners also contributing £3000 each), but we await a response from
Columbia.
AG will take this forward.
MA with PAIS and Sociology
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We decided our next step should be to bring together the people who might have a stake in
this for a meeting on 27 April. These should include, apart from people from History (DB,
AG, others?) Breslin and Browning from PAIS, and Gurminder from Sociology (Clare
Anderson is away). The aim would be to formulate a possible plan for this development.
The MA would have a strong social science focus.
Bishnu Gupta proposed that we explore the option of an Erasmus Mundi collaboration.
Economics has such a collaboration between three institutions (Warwick, Lund University
and Universidad Carlos III in Madrid), allowing students to study for an MA at two
institutions not in their homeland.
Janelle Reinelt (Theatre Studies) might be able to offer advice on the application procedures.
Seminars next year
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We discussed the format of the past year (separate, themed workshops, rather than a
regular 5pm seminar series with single speakers). The were mixed feelings: on the one hand
colleagues felt the workshops had provided interesting, stimulating and sustained
discussions, had brought some colleagues from the Department to our activities who hadn’t
been to our seminar series in the past, and had provided opportunities for taking the lead on
organising Centre activities. On the other hand, attendance has not been very good at the
two events we have had thus far (10-15 in the audience), and having entire workshops,
sometimes located away from main campus (Millburn House) makes it harder for colleagues
from other departments to attend.
It was felt that we could proceed for 2011-12 with a workshop series, but leaving open
spaces for individual ‘one-off’ papers.
We decided to support the following proposals for workshops in 2011-12
o Sarah Hodges, ‘the post-global’. Dan Branch proposed she contacts Dan Orrells from
Classics to support bringing over Peter Geschiere from the Netherlands.
o Giorgio Riello, ‘Reconfiguring the Indian Ocean in World History’, jointly funded with
the EAC project (Berg).
o Rosa Salzberg, ‘Methods and Challenges for Early Modern Global History’. Bringing
over Mary Laven and others.
Less definite, but possibilities that would be enthusiastically supported:
o Chris Hess, ‘Japanese colonial cities and urban health’ (together with History of
Medicine, and the Daiwa foundation);
o McDowall and Branch, ‘Cricket and Imperialism’, including Ramachandra Guha
(author of A Corner of a Foreign Field), who will be at the LSE for the year;
o ERC fellows, ‘New questions for Historians of the Company’;
o Marina Warner, lecture on ‘Arabian Nights’ (with English and the HRF)
Other options under consideration:
o Robert Bickers, one-off lecture on his completed project on the Maritime Customs
Service.
o William-Gervase Clarence Smith (SOAS)
AOB
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Please note the date of the AGM on May 12. We kick of the events at 5.30 on May 11 with a
discussion of Prasannan Parthasarathi’s new book (Why Europe got rich and Asia did not),
with Peer Vries as discussant, followed by dinner. After the AGM (lunchtime) there will be a
workshop on the theme of ‘Global and Local Approaches to History’.
Maxine Berg will take forward the idea of raising funding (an endowment) for the Centre, to
support the creation of a Professorship in South Asian History at Warwick. She will consider
approaching Lord Battacharya. Dan also mentioned the Aga Kahn Foundation.