Global History and Culture Centre
Annual General Meeting
22 May 2014, 3.30-4.30pm
R1.13, Ramphal Building
University of Warwick
Present:
Maxine Berg (MB), Giorgio Riello (GR), Dan Branch (DB), David Hardiman
(DH), David Anderson (DA), Hanna Hodacs (HH), Ross Forman (RF), Howard
Chiang (HC), John Darwin (JD), Matthias Middell, Nile Green, Pat Manning,
James Baldwin(JB), Luca Mola(LM), Chris Nierstrasz(CN), Matteo Pretelli
(MP), Amy Evans (AE),
Apologies:
Rosa Salzberg (RS), Bishnu Gupta, Felicia Gottmann, Claudia Stein, Jiao Liu,
Michael Harrigan (MH), Aditya Sarkar, Alice Brooks, Helen Clifford
1. Welcome
A warm welcome extends to Matthias Middell as the new external advisor, and to
Nile Green as a visiting speaker and IAS fellow.
2. Minutes from the previous meeting were circulated and accepted as a true record.
It was agreed to create a Steering Committee to take care of the day-to-day issues of
the Centre and it has been doing just that this year.
3. Directors’ report
Dan and Giorgio presented their Directors’ annual report and emphasised the
following points:

Seminar and workshop series
Several seminars and ‘Global Research Exchange’ took place in conjunction
with other Centres and seminar serious in the department, which allowed us
to achieve the aim of increasing cooperation between different research
centres in the department and bringing global history to a wider audience.
A programme of workshops was successfully organised and their main aim
was to provide a platform for the two new strands of activities, ‘Power and
Politics’ and ‘Global Humanity?’.

Major Events
Two conferences funded by the AHRC as part of the ‘Empire Loyalists’
project; the Leverhulme-funded Luxury Network workshop, ‘The Geographies
of Luxury’; the Economic History Society’s annual conference hosted at
Warwick with support from the Centre (panel members, speakers and
finance sponsor); ‘The Future of World and Global History’ workshop is to be
held on 23 May.

Collaborations and international visibility
We have continued to work closely with numerous institutions, Melbourne
University, the V&A, University of Stockholm , University of Bologna, the EUI
in Florence; Birkbeck College, University of London; the British Institute in
Eastern Africa in Nairobi and Institute of Advanced Humanistic Studies (IAHS)
at Fudan in Shanghai.
Plans for closer collaboration with the British Library and British Museum on
a joint project on the Indian Ocean are at an advanced stage.
The Luxury Network is currently planning an international symposium in
February 2015 in collaboration with the Warwick Business School. This event
will be the first major event of the new Warwick Business School, London
Campus.

Impact
Impact activities are now built into the GHCC’s activities as a matter of
routine. Editor in chief of major media and representatives of MoD attended
and spoke at our conferences, as well as our members were invited to brief
the ministry on their research.

GHCC website
The website was redesigned in the autumn to make it more welcoming to
external visitors and more coherent for the centre’s members.

GHCC research fund
The GHCC received 12 applications from its members, 7 of which were
supported for a total of £3,700. These included personal research, support
towards publication and the organisation of events.

Research priorities
Strengthened further by the arrival of new members in 2013, the GHCC is
now ready to expand substantially its activities and attract new funding. With
institutional support, the GHCC is well-positioned to strengthen existing
research clusters such as African history in a global context, and lead the
development of new areas of research, including global intellectual and
political history.
An application for increased funding to support this expansion is currently
under consideration by the university.

Future plans
The aim for the next five years is to expand the activities of the Global History
and Culture Centre into new areas of research. The main aims are:
o to allow the GHCC to remain a key international centre for the promotion
of global history broadly defined and thus contribute to the Warwick’s
internationalisation strategy;
o to expand the Centre’s activities to include the expertise of new
colleagues so that the GHCC will act as a major research platform for the
Department, Faculty and University;
o to secure future research funding in an increasingly competitive
environment.
4. Reports from John Darwin and Matthias Middell and emphasised these points 





The form of the ‘Steering Committee’ is a sensible move to focus on plans
and innovations.
The number of events organised is impressive. External funding successful
rate is high. It’s great to see collaborations with other institutes and plans for
future.
The plan for ‘MA in Global Studies’ is interesting. However, MA recruitment
remains difficult.
The past has demonstrated that the strategies of the Centre has been a right
one with the University’s support, which is largely depending on ‘return’.
‘Identity’ remains an issue. How to distinct from many other ‘Global History
Centre’, ‘Global Studies’ etc.
On funding issue, the Centre should develop technique and strategies to help
new comers to integrate to the system and provide a platform for them to
apply funding internally and externally.
5. Current GHCC activities and research streams
Three major strands for the coming years ‘Material Life in a Globalising World’ is our strength and core interest, which has
brought in research grants and enable many collaborations with other institutes.
‘Power and Politics in the Colonial and Postcolonial World’ is built on the
department’s expertise and will expand to explore new ideas and practice of politics
in variety of imperial and post-imperial settings.
‘Global Humanity? Possibilities and Challenges’ is built on new members’ expertise
and replying on the existing strengths of History of Medicine. Activities will explore
areas of health, citizenship, human rights and democratisation etc.
6. Future GHCC plans, activities and funding
The Centre is to continue raise the visibility, considering a publication of serious
books with CUP.
7. AOB
None.