Global History and Culture Centre Annual General Meeting
24 May 2012 – 14.00 – 15.30 pm
H042, Humanities Building
University of Warwick
Present:
Anne Gerritsen, Maxine Berg, Giorgio Riello, Dan Branch, David
Hardiman, Stephen McDowall, Rosa Salzberg, Felicia Gottmann,
Hanna Hodacs, Chris Nierstrasz, Meike Fellinger, Bronwen Everill,
Peer Vries, John Darwin, Luca Mola, Gurminder Bhambra,
Amy Evans, Anna Boneham
Apologies:
Margot Finn, David Lambert, Ross Forman, Ann Caesar, Bishnu Gupta
Kirsten Greer
1. Welcome
Anne Gerritsen opened the meeting and welcomed everyone, especially our
two external advisers: Professor Peer Vries from the University of Vienna, and
our new external, Dr John Darwin from the University of Oxford.
2. Minutes from the previous meeting
The minutes of last meeting were circulated, and accepted as a true record.
3. Chair’s report (circulated separately)
The booklet produced to celebrate the 5th Anniversay of the Centre was
circulated, and AG commented on the wide range of activities and initiatives
that have characterised these first five years. We should be very proud of
everything we have achieved, but she stressed the importance of using this
opportunity to discuss the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead. The
attached report outlines some of these, including:
 The importance of raising more funding for the Centre through strategic
bids;
 The development of a Global Studies MA programme;
 To grow PGT and PGR student numbers;
 To increase our visibility through joint initiatives with other centres and
attendance at major international conferences;
 To expand geographies and chronologies;
 To develop language training opportunities for our students.
AG invited comments from everyone around the table. These included the
following:
 A number of possible research themes for our consideration emerged
from the discussions, including ecology, environment and heritage;
migration and diversity through time; global finance; empire,
connections and the issue of English exceptionalism; public history
 To think about ‘how’ rather than ‘what’, how we transfer our knowledge
to a wider audience; how we write about out research insights and
findings; how we teach our students;
 To make new contacts with other European historians and to challenge
the dominance of anglophone research;
 To make our research and teaching relevance to the public, ‘nonacademic’ world;
 To have a diverse approach in order to bring on board people who are
from different backgrounds and disciplines. It may be useful to
consider themes that encourage such diversity of approaches (race,
migration and citizenship; cosmopolitanism and diversity in Europe;
alternative modernities);
 To always bear in mind of ‘Impact’ elements in research projects when
seeking funding
4. External advisor’s report: Peer Vries
 PV sees our low student numbers in Global History as exposing us to
significant risk in light of ever-increasing competition over funding
streams;
 PV expressed his concern over the development of a joint degree with
Sociology and PAIS, especially in light of his experience that the
historical perspective is often at risk in such collaborations;
 He suggested instead that we give serious consideration to the
development of closer collaboration with the newly established Oxford
Centre for Global History and the LSE;
 He also encouraged us to find ways of including more colleagues from
the History department into our teaching and research activities;
 He suggested that we might like to offer series of classes or dayschools for a wider public to draw attention to the activities of the
Centre.
5. External advisor’s report: John Darwin
 JD reported that the Oxford Centre for Global History has decided to
seek external sources of funding, and hopes to create a secure footing
for the activities of the Centre through such independent means;
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He emphasized the importance for us to be able to demonstrate the
added value of a global approach to the study of History;
He stressed the significance of bringing in colleagues from other fields
(School of Medicine, archaeology, etc);
He highlighted the significance of language study, and the importance
of integrating that into our degrees, perhaps through a 2-year
programme, and perhaps through collaboration with other institutions in
the region (including Birmingham, Manchester, Hull, Exeter, and KCL)
6. AOB
 There were no items for AOB