GLOBAL HISTORY & CULTURE CENTRE
MEETING - TUESDAY 26TH JUNE 2007 1.00pm
Present:
Maxine Berg, Giorgio Riello, David Arnold, Anne Gerritsen,
Sarah Hodges , Luca Mola , Gad Heuman , Carolyn Marshall
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General
Maxine opened the meeting by welcoming Carolyn Marshall as the Centre’s new Administrator
and offered congratulations to David Arnold on his award from the Economic and Social
Research Council for a project starting in October 2007 looking at "Everyday Technology in
Monsoon Asia, 1880-1960". David has also obtained a Fellowship to spend time in Chicago in
2008/09
1.
Termly Meeting
Maxine proposed a termly meeting of the members of GHCC in week 3 on Wednesday
1.00-2.00pm in the Centre’s office ( at present H413 but from October tba)
2.
Global History Seminars & Reading Groups
There was a recap of the successful events that the Centre has been involved in over the last 6
months since its inauguration. Articles are due to appear in the Alumni magazine and
Communicate about the Indian Textiles event.
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Opening Conference at the Palazzo in Venice- January 11-12th 2007 - History’s Global
Conversations
Global Arts Network “ Creativity and innovation –theories of divergence and cross
cultural connection – Warwick 26th January 2007
Colonialism and Global Governance – Warwick – 1st May 2007
Global Conversation – Warwick – 3rd May 2007
India : The Global City – Warwick – 11th May 2007
Global Arts : East meets West- Ashmolean Museum – 25th May 2007
Global Cultures of Indian Textiles – V & A – 1st June 2007
Ceramics Day – Waddesdon Manor – 22nd June 2007
Maxine thanked Giorgio for his assistance in the organisation of many of these events and for
creating the Global Centre website.
3.
Mailing Lists
There was a request for all members to let Carolyn have names, contact details and specialisms
of anyone they think may be interested in the Global Centre so that we can compile a mailing list
for future events. Also details of any publications that have a global relevance so that we can
start an online back catalogue.
4.
Forthcoming Events
Global History Seminars will be held in weeks 3 & 5 and the following speakers have been lined
up in the first term
17th October - Jan de Vries
31st October
- David Washbrook
Requests were made for suggestions on speakers for the 2nd term particularly on China. Anne
Gerritsen to investigate. Maxine to ask Bartolome Yun Casalila to one meeting. We could also
hold a reading group.
One new book – John Darwin - After Tamerlane: The Global History of Empire was suggested
as a topic for discussion
13th – 16th December – Anne Gerritsen is organising a specialist China conference and is hoping
to use the GHCC mailing list for advertising to create connections. Contributors will be coming
from USA, mainland China, Taiwan and Singapore. Members are encouraged to attend to
support the project. Anne has also secured a Fellowship to spend time in Singapore next year.
Anne Smart-Martin – an Atlantic world specialist- will be at Warwick at some point during next
year and Maxine would like to arrange a seminar /workshop to take advantage of this.
Maxine is also keen develop a workshop with Claudia Stein on the transmission of knowledge,
and is looking at a China Conference as a possibility for 2008.
5.
Advisory Board & Membership
Our Constitution states that we can have a Management Committee which should meet once a
year without being too formalised. It should include:Chair
Dept Head
Faculty of Arts Rep
Non Faculty Reps
External Members
Centre Director Chair of HistoryTBA
TBA
TBA
Maxine Berg
Margot Finn
Karen O’Brien ( suggested)
Sean Breslin ( suggested)
Bishnupria Gupta ( suggested)
Claire Anderson ( suggested)
Bin Wong , UCLA ( suggested)
David Washbrook ( suggested)
It was suggested that the meeting takes place before the Global Conversations Day perhaps with
an off-campus dinner.
David Arnold announced 2 new appointments in Sociology who may become involved in the
activities of the Centre :Claire Anderson – specialising in the Indian Ocean, slaves and convicts
Gurmindra Bhandra – historical sociology
Maxine advised we need to raise our web profile and see if we can get on the main Warwick
webpage and also have a separate listing as a Research Centre. CM to investigate.
6.
Venice Conference – 11th-12th January 2008
Rebecca Earle is co-ordinating this as the theme is Culinary Cultures after the Columbian
Exchange. Funding is currently being researched by the Development Office to try to get food
industry sponsors. At present there are a number of speakers such as Sara Pennell, Emma Spary
coming for one day as the cost of hiring the Palazzo is £500 per day. There is the opportunity to
extend it to 2 days .
The Centre would like to invite the graduate students but Global Centre members should raise
their own travel funding. The contribution towards accommodation from the GHCC will be
around £3,000, the rest from the Development Office. The Editor of the Journal of the History
of Food , Alan Grieco has offered the possibility of 1000 euros funding.
Those present were asked to look ahead and make suggestions for themes for future annual
conferences .
7.
Budgets
We have an underspend this year and are investigating whether we can use this towards expenses
for the Venice Conference next year.
8.
Reports and Online discussions
Members should e-mail short reports on events to Carolyn to go onto the website along with any
links and abstracts. David Arnold mentioned the problems of plagiarism in connection with
online papers.
9.
Other Matters
David Arnold raised the difficult issue of area studies as the British Academy has set up
committees for specific areas. Further discussion is required on this and Maxine will arrange a
separate meeting. We need to look at how other global centres deal with this such as UCLA.
Immediate action that can be taken is to create a webpage to detail the specialisms of GHCC
members in China and Asia and make the British Academy aware of these.
We need to promote other Global Conferences such as “World Order” in Dresden .
Any other initiatives need to be logged on a spreadsheet of plans for the Centre and we need to
engage other disciplines such as the Art Historians
The GHCC at Warwick needs to be put on the map with possibly a larger Global Conference or
dialogue with the British Academy with a high profile panel.
Sarah enquired about the MA in Global History. This is not running for 2007/08 but some
components are in place and it will probably be up and running the following year. Anne
mentioned she has a student interested and we need to encourage this interest.
No news yet on our location for 2007/08- to be advised.
CM 26/06/07