Global History and Culture Centre Management Committee meeting
26 May 2010 – 3.30 – 4.45pm
IAS, University of Warwick
Present: R Bin Wong(UCLA), Anne Gerritsen, Giorgio Riello, Maxine Berg, David
Arnold, Trevor Burnard, Christian Hess, Gurminder Bhambra, Margot Finn
Visitor: Dorothy Ko (Barnard College, Columbia University)
Apologies: Clare Anderson, David Washbrook (Trinity College, Cambridge),
Stephen McDowall, Karen O’Brien, Daniel Branch, Bishnupriya Gupta
1. Welcome
Many thanks to Prof. R Bin Wong for his active involvement and contribution
in the Centre in past years. He will stand down as an external Committee
member at the end of this academic year.
Many thanks to Prof. Dorothy Ko, the IAS visiting fellow, for her valuable
thoughts and comments on the matters in the Centre.
2. The minutes of the 2009 Management Committee meeting, held in London,
were accepted as a true record of activities of the Centre.
3. Matters arising
Margot Finn reported that her application to the Leverhulme for a research
project is currently pending.
Trevor Burnard reported that a series of successful meetings and workshops
with members of the History and English Departments at Vanderbilt had just
been concluded, and that there was enthusiasm from Vanderbilt to develop
future collaborations with the GHCC, making use of the Venice conference
facility.
He also indicated that the School of Comparative American Studies would like
to establish a closer links to the Global History Centre, if possible together
with the newly renamed Yesu Persaud Centre for Caribbean Studies.
Possible activities could include a Marie Curie Fellowship application or other
joint grant applications. There might also be interest in linking these activities
with the Centre for the History of Medicine. Perhaps a small working party
could be created to discuss such plans further.
4. Overview of the past year (Annual report attached)
The activities of the Centre as presented in the Annual report were briefly
discussed.
Anne reported that there are three ongoing projects, two new grants and two
applications pending. Maxine mentioned that Haneda at Tokyo University
would be a good contact person for Chris Hess for his global cities project.
Maxine pointed out that future grant applications that are put through the
Global History Centre might raise funds to cover the overheads of the Centre.
Anne reported that the Institute for History research (IHR) and Notre Dame’s
London Centre are keen to develop close links with the Global Centre. Last
year, Felipe Fernandez-Armesto organised a series of Global History
seminars in London which was announced on our Global Centre website, and
carried the Warwick GHCC’s logo.
The value of this collaboration was discussed, and it was decided it would be
more valuable for the Warwick GHCC to try to organise an afternoon
workshop with the IHR in London, and to discontinue the seminar series
under the Warwick banner.
Maxine reported that the Centre for History and Economics in Cambridge is
keen to make a connection with Warwick. The Cambridge Centre has offered
Maxine membership, and this will be useful base from with to consider future
joint developments.
5. Strategic development for the future
Bin Wong pointed out that the Centre seems to have hit a bit of a threshold. It
is not easy to give widespread visibility to the GHCC, despite the wide range
of ongoing activities. He proposed various ways in which we might generate
more visibility for the Centre: by having our members of staff and students
‘circulate’ (i.e. attend high-profile academic events and spread the reputation
of the Centre); and by having MA and PhD students move into different
academic settings.
Dorothy pointed out that having high quality PhD students should be one of
our priorities, and the PRC would be a good place to find students with
appropriate linguistic skills. She also stressed the importance of getting highquality publications out to spread the reputation of the GHCC members.
Margot suggests that the Centre could consider the IAS ‘Career Fellowships’.
These are part-time, short-term stipends that provide recent PhD’s with an
affiliation and library access. They often combine this with a 50% teaching
post.
6. External members of the management committee for next year.
Peer Vries has agreed to serve as external member of the management
committee from next year.
7. AOB. There was no other business.