SCHOOL OF HISTORY & ANTHROPOLOGY
NEWSLETTER
APRIL2010
2012
NOVEMBER
Mystery members of staff, spotted at the History and Anthropology Societies’ Formal at the
Europa Hotel. Congratulations to the Ball Committee on organising such a successful event.
Staff news:
Sioḃán McCartan, our hardworking and ever-cheerful timetabling administrator (along with many other
things) in the History Office, has been promoted to another post elsewhere in the university.
She will be much missed and we wish her well in her new office.
Congratulations to Liam Kennedy, Professor Emeritus of Economic History at QUB, who
has been elected as a Member of the Royal Irish Academy.
Our Charles Wallace India Trust Fellow in Social Anthropology for this year is Subir Rana
from Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi. This Fellowship will lead to additional international publications
from his doctoral thesis entitled, ‘Inheriting a Trade: A Study of Inter-Generational Prostitution within
a community in Forbesganj, Bihar’. He will compare affinity and descent among the present day
gypsies of Europe with the ‘untouchables’ and so called ‘criminal tribes’ like Nats, Doms and Kanjars
of India. After completing his Masters in Sociology from the Delhi School of Economics, University of
Delhi, Subir pursued his M.Phil. from (JNU) with Prof. Visvanathan on the ‘Representation of Female
Bodies in Contemporary Indian Paintings.’ His publications cover gender studies, art and aesthetics,
If you would like any more information on Newsletter items, or have any comments or queries, please contact us by email at:
history@qub.ac.uk or anthropology@qub.ac.uk, or visit our website at
http://www.qub.ac.uk/schools/SchoolofHistoryandAnthropology/
The School is also on Facebook at:
History at Queen’s University Belfast
QUB Anthropology
QUB History and Anthropology Alumni
subaltern studies and nomadology and he has made presentations in Italy, Seoul, South Korea and Turkey. He
has been co-ordinator of the Global Studies Programme in JNU and has worked on international projects as
consultant with Care India, PricewaterhouseCoopers Limited, Action Aid and Amnesty International.
Research news:
Publications – books:
Eric Morier-Genoud (ed.), Sure Road? Nationalisms in Angola,
Guinea-Bissau and Mozambique (Leiden: Brill - African Social Studies
Series no.28, 2012) 270pp. ISBN 978-9004222618.
This book brings together new research on the subject of nations and nationalisms
in Angola, Guinea-Bissau and Mozambique. It explores the history and politics of
diverse nationalist discourses and ideologies, and it revisits the formation and
contemporary developments of national imagined communities in Portuguesespeaking Africa. It does so by drawing on several disciplines and by exploring
themes as diverse as Frelimo’s liberation literature, UNITA’s moral economy and
the disaggregation of Guinea-Bissau. The authors provide novel insights in the
hope of contributing to the academic and public debate on the subject, not least in
those countries where, in the face of liberalisation, ruling parties and their
opponents have been arguing intensively over, and have sometime struggled to reinvent, a sense of national community. The book will also make a contribution to
the general discussion of the concepts of nations and nationalism.
A paperback of Fearghal McGarry’s Rebels: Voices from the Easter Rising has been published by Penguin
Ireland.
Publications - articles and chapters:
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Stuart Aveyard, ‘The “English Disease” is to look for a “Solution of the Irish Problem”’: British
constitutional policy in Northern Ireland after Sunningdale 1974–1976’, Contemporary British History,
(Online publication, 2012), pp/ 1-21.
Hilary Foye (PhD Anthropology), ‘Desperate church wives: Experiencing conflict, negotiating gender
and managing emotion in Christian community’, Irish Journal of Anthropology 14 (2), 2011.
Ranmalie Jayawardana (MA Anthropology), ‘Cultivating kinship: An exploration of creating feelings of
relatedness through food production and consumption in northern Sri Lanka’, Irish Journal of
Anthropology 14 (2), 2011 (this article was based on her prizewinning essay for her BA Social Anthropology
at QUB in 2011).
Colin Kidd, ‘Mythical Scotland’, in T.M. Devine and J. Wormald (eds), The Oxford Handbook to Modern
Scottish History (Oxford: OUP, 2012).
Fearghal McGarry, ‘Violence and the Easter Rising’, in David Fitzpatrick (ed), Terror in Ireland 19161923 (Dublin: Lilliput Press, 2012), pp 39-57.
Eric Morier-Genoud, ‘Introduction. Thinking about nationalisms & nations in Angola, Guinea-Bissau
and Mozambique’, in Eric Morier-Genoud (ed.), Sure Road? Nationalisms in Angola, Guinea-Bissau and
Mozambique (Leiden: Brill - African Social Studies Series no.28, 2012).
Research projects:
Brian Kelly travelled to Charleston, South Carolina to represent the After Slavery Project
on the Steering Committee of the Jubilee Project, a Carolina-based initiative bringing
together academics, community and cultural organizations to commemorate the
sesquicentennial of slave emancipation in the US. After Slavery is working with K-12
teachers in Charleston SC, to design a web-based curriculum to mark these events.
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Renato Castro (PhD Ethnomusicology) organised a postgraduate conference on the theme ‘Connected
Memories, Connected Communities’, as part of the Latin American Studies Forum at QUB. The event
received papers in a wide range of areas such as: Cinema, literature, Music, Theatre and History. The keynote
speaker was the Brazilian scholar Dr Samuel Araújo (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro), who spoke on
‘Amidst Walls, Wired Fences and Armoured Cars; Connecting the Sonic Memories and Heritage in PostIndustrial Society’.
Marie Coleman delivered a paper entitled ‘The Military Service Pensions Acts, 1924-1964’ to the Irish
Historical Society in Dublin.
Thérèse Cullen (PhD Irish Studies) presented a paper on ‘“That would be an Ecumenical Matter”: The
Protestant parading tradition on St Patrick’s Day in Ireland 1762-2012’, at the New Voices: Legitimate
Ireland Conference, at QUB; and at the Institute of Irish Studies Seminar Programme.
James Davis spoke on ‘“Goþ or wey, corn is dere!”: attitudes towards grain traders in fourteenthcentury England’, to the Dublin Medieval Society at TCD; and on ‘Negotiating the marketplace: the
expectations and fears of medieval English peasants’, at the European Social Science History Conference,
University of Glasgow.
John Wilson Foster gave the keynote lecture, ‘RMS Titanic: History or Heritage?’ to a conference on The
Titanic and Other Aspects of the Maritime History of Cork (University College Cork), at the Commodore
Hotel, Cobh.
Paul Huddie (PhD History) presented his paper ‘“I often think on those Shandon bells”: Irishness in
Ireland’s Crimean War poetry and balladry’, at the New Voices 2012 Conference at QUB.
Keith Jeffery lectured on ‘Writing the history of MI6’ at the University of Aberdeen.
Brian Kelly presented a paper on ‘The Transnational Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr’, at the annual meeting
of the Organization of American Historians in Milwaukee, WI; gave an inaugural lecture entitled “‘Bottom
Rail on Top”: When Labor Ruled the City’, for the Charleston Radical History Workshop; and presented a
lecture entitled ‘Freedom’s Jagged Edge: The Timing of Slave Emancipation in South Carolina, 18611867’ at the College of Charleston.
Liam Kennedy spoke on ‘Marriage, Fertility, Social Class and Religion: Belfast 1911’, at the European
Social Science History Conference, University of Glasgow.
Colin Kidd spoke on ‘The Mystery of Adam Ferguson’, at Université Paris VII; on ‘Sovereignty and the
World of 1707’, at Harvard University; and on ‘Race, difference and the origins of British Anthropology’,
also at Harvard University.
Aoife Laughlin (PhD History) spoke on ‘Race and Manifest Destiny in the Mexican-American War’ to
the History Postgrad Seminar, QUB.
Kirsty McCluskey (PhD History), gave an invited presentation at Kolloquium Osteuropäische Geschichte,
Universität Bielefeld, Germany, on ‘Reading the living and the dead’.
Pamela McIlveen (PhD History), spoke on ‘Belfast Jewish immigrants and onward-migration’ at Bangor
University’s conference on Migration, Ethnicity and Identity: Perspectives from the Celtic Nations.
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Conferences, seminars and public lectures:
Jonathan Skinner spoke at Ben Gurion University, Israel, on ‘Maze Breaks in NI: Terrorism and tourism
in the Shadows of Modernity’.
External appointments:
Marie Coleman was an assessor for the IRCHSS post-doctoral awards scheme.
Hastings Donnan chaired a university-wide assessment of research performance at the National University
of Ireland Galway, 15-20 April. Appointed by the President of the University, he was responsible for leading
a team of external reviewers across a week-long series of meetings with senior management and researchers to
produce reports on each School and Research Institute as well as a generic set of recommendations for the
university as a whole.
Mary O’Dowd, was appointed as a member of the Preservation and Access Awareness Committee of the
Irish Manuscripts Commission; and appointed a member of the External Advisory Committee for the
Centre for Women’s and Gender Studies in Trinity College Dublin.
International connections:
From March to mid-April Hastings Donnan visited Beijing as part of
the partnership agreement between Anthropology at QUB and the
School of Ethnology and Sociology at Minzu University. He gave
classes at both MA and undergraduate level as well as delivering
recruitment talks to all levels of students in Anthropology including
PhD, as well as to a range of students from Humanities and Social
Sciences generally. He also met with staff and senior management
and made preliminary arrangements for reciprocal visits to Belfast of
Minzu staff in June 2012 and in Spring 2013. He also took the
opportunity of meeting staff from the University of Nationalities at
Guizhou with a view to extending the partnership agreement there.
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Catherine Clinton was a guest lecturer for a postgraduate course in US History at Tulane University, New
Orleans, LA.
The School was visited by Prof. Andrew McMichael of the University of Western Kentucky, Bowling Green
KY, to discuss research and teaching collaborations.
Dion Smythe visited the Department of Classical Philology, University of Silesia, Katowice, Poland,
discussing editorial collaboration, teaching two classes and exploring further collaboration. Also included was
a visit to the Palace at Pszczyna (Schloß Pleß), home of “Princess Daisy”.
Jonathan Lande, who recently completed an internship at the Ulster Museum
as part of his MA degree in US history, was the Queen's delegate to the
Barnes Student Conference at Temple University, Philadelphia, over St
Patrick's Day weekend, the longest running postgraduate conference held in
the US each year. Temple's own Melanie Newport presented at a postgraduate
conference held at QUB sponsored by the International Forum for Research
Fran Abbs (QUB MA 2011) - last
on Women for International Women's Day, 8 March. This exchange between
QUB and Temple students provides postgraduate students with opportunities to year's delegate to the Barnes
Conference - with Melanie Newport
present work abroad and develop international academic contacts.
at Riddell Hall.
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Hastings Donnan with Professor Yang Shengmin on
the Minzu University campus, Beijing.
Knowledge transfer / research impact:
Renato Castro (PhD Ethnomusicology) made a website called Jongo da Galinha
- The Chicken Dance, intended to be a tool for schoolchildren to learn about
Brazilian history, culture and music. The text on the website was revised by Dr
Suzel Reily. See:
http://www.qub.ac.uk/chickenjongo/Jongo_da_galinha_2/Welcome.html
Catherine Clinton participated in a roundtable discussion about Mary
Lincoln's 1875 Insanity trial, sponsored by the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and
Museum and the Illinois Supreme Court Historic Preservation Commission, both in Springfield,
IL. The program was held in the State Capitol of Illinois, and will form the basis for re-enactments of
the trial in Chicago and Springfield In September 2012. A video of the panel can be found at
http://www.wasmarylincolncrazy.com/roundtable.html
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John Wilson Foster’s ‘A Better Boy’, a dramatic monologue (concerning Lord Pirrie
and Thomas Andrews) was staged by Kabosh Theatre at The Barge and Ulster Reform
Club; his ‘Remember the Submerged’, was included in the programme for ‘Requiem for
the Lost Souls of the Titanic’ by Philip Hammond (Belfast Titanic Company and Arts
Council of Northern Ireland. He was also interviewed on Titanic centenary events by
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, The National, April 4; BBC TV, The One Show,
April 10; BBC Radio Ulster, Titanic Town, April 13; by the German Press Agency
(DPA), Associated Press and Dagens Nyheter (Sweden) for syndicated distribution.
Keith Jeffery lectured on ‘Ireland and the First World War’ for the Community Relations Council-sponsored
‘Remembering the Future’: Marking Anniversaries lecture programme at the Ulster Museum; and at the
Enniskillen-Derry Connection & Division exhibition at Enniskillen Castle Museum.
Brian Kelly was interviewed on ‘Raising the Memory of the Titanic, and a City’s Role in Its Creation’ in the
New York Times Online, 16 April.
Liam Kennedy was interviewed on ‘Belfast 100 years ago’ for Downtown Radio, 17 April.
Chris Loughlin (PhD History), Matthew Lewis (PhD History 2011) and Fearghal McGarry contributed to
History Ireland’s Hedge School debate – ‘The War of Independence in Ulster: ‘”Four glorious years” or
squalid sectarian conflict?’ –which was hosted by Cavan County Museum on 19 April.
Fearghal McGarry participated in a workshop with the cast, director and writer of White
Star of the North by Rosemary Jenkinson, a play set against the background of the sinking
of the Titanic and signing of the Ulster Covenant, which was recently staged in the Lyric
Theatre. This is the second History-Lyric collaboration this spring, and we look forward
to the further development of this engagement. He also spoke on ‘1916 and the Irish
republican tradition’ at Stranmillis College as part of the Community Relations Council’s
‘Marking Anniversaries 2012-2023: ‘Remembering the Future’ lecture programme;
and he participated in a discussion on the Easter Rising on Near 90fm’s ‘The History
Show’ on 16 April.
Mary O’Dowd gave a presentation at the opening session of the Northern Ireland Community Relations
Council’s series of public lectures on Remembering the Future: Marking Anniversaries.
Olwen Purdue spoke at Ballintoy Historical Society on the history of the Irish poor law.
Teaching news:
Our British Intelligence History MA class was visited and addressed
by Michael Herman, author of Intelligence Power in Peace and War,
and former secretary to the UK Joint Intelligence Committee.
Congratulations to Rachael Morhall (BA History), who has been
accepted to a place on the Holocaust Studies MA at the University of
Bristol.
Outdoor US History class, in
the early April heatwave.
Careers news:
POSTGRADUATE CAREERS EVENT, 4 May @ 2-4pm, Humanities Postgrad Centre.
This event highlights the different experiences and careers possible with a postgraduate degree
from the School both in academia as well as in other research capacities outside of academia.
Following an informal panel discussion led by staff members and former postgraduates in the
School, a reception with light refreshments will allow for questions and discussion. As many of
our postgraduates will soon be venturing into an unstable and somewhat daunting job market,
we want to ensure that we are informed of all the possibilities. This event is an excellent way to
ensure we leave our postgraduate courses prepared! Contact: mrallings01@qub.ac.uk
Recruitment activities:
Olwen Purdue ran a half-day workshop for 6th form History students at Carrickfergus College over the
Easter Holidays. The students came into school especially for the event and participated with enthusiasm.
Alumni news:
Dr Roisín Higgins, Fellow of the Institute of Irish Studies in 2006-7 and now working for Boston CollegeIreland, has published Transforming 1916: Meaning, Memory and the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Easter
Rising (Cork, 2012).
Forthcoming events in May:
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The School is sponsoring the launch of Terror in Ireland 1916-1923 (Lilliput Press) at 5
p.m. on Friday 4 May at No Alibis bookstore on Botanic Avenue. This collection of essays
is dedicated to the memory of Peter Hart, author of several ground-breaking books on the
Irish revolution and a former lecturer at the School of History. Professor David Fitzpatrick,
editor of the volume, will speak at the event, and all are welcome.
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Spyfest 6: Spies and their Families: 2 May @ 10am: Contact Prof Keith Jeffery for
further details. http://www.qub.ac.uk/mh/NewsandEvents/Conferences/Spyfest6/
The Life and Writings of Helen Waddell (1889-1965): 11-12 May, at Humanities Postgrad
Centre, 18 College Green: A conference to discuss the life and writings one of Queen's most wellknown alumni, Helen Waddell. This will be the first conference dedicated to the work of Waddell.
It will bring together literary specialists, historians and fans and admirers of Waddell's writings.
The conference is open to the general public.
http://www.qub.ac.uk/mh/NewsandEvents/Conferences/TheLifeandWritingsofHelenWaddell/
The Wiles Lectures 2012 will be given at QUB by Professor Peter Hennessy (Queen Mary,
University of London), on the theme 'History, Country, Autobiography: Writing about one's
own times', and will be held daily from Wednesday 16 May to Saturday 19 May. All are
welcome to attend these public lectures. Full programme at:
http://www.qub.ac.uk/mh/NewsandEvents/WilesLectureSeries/WilesLectures2012/
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Please see School website ‘News’ section (http://www.qub.ac.uk/mh/NewsandEvents/ ) for more information on
events, or contact us by email/phone at the numbers above.
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Anthropology Seminar: Subir Rana (Charles Wallace Fellow): Title TBA. 1.5 @ 4.15 in 13UQ Perf. Rm.
Religious Studies Seminar: Micheal O'Siadhail: ‘Echoes of the Word: Learning from George Herbert’. 3.5
@ 5.15pm in PFC 02/008.
Medieval Forum: Alice Jorgensen (Trinity College Dublin), ‘Translating Emotion in the Paris Psalter’. 4.5
@ 4pm, in 16UQ/101.
History Postgrad Seminar: Peter Leary (QUB): ‘Fishing on the frontier: the disputed border and contested
fishing rights of the Lough and River Foyle’, 4.5 @ 4pm, in Postgrad Sem Rm, 18 College Green.
Irish Studies Seminar - NARRATIVES OF THE PAST: Sara Templer (QUB), ‘I tell you, it’s a thing that
needs not remembering: Memory and Political Transition in Zimbabwe and Northern Ireland’; Shawn
Reming (QUB), ‘Viewing Conflict: Museum Visitor Experience of Exhibitions of the Conflict in and about
Northern Ireland’. 8.5 @ 1pm, 16 UQ/G01
Anthropology Seminar: David Prendergast (Intel/TRIL), ‘Building bridges: ageing, ethnography and
technology design’. 8.5 @ 4.15 in 13UQ, Perf. Rm
Ulster Society for Irish Historical Studies - J.C. Beckett Lecture: Roy Foster (Oxford), ‘The Making of a
Revolutionary Generation in Ireland, c 1890-1916', 10.5 @ 8pm. Lanyon 01/052
Medieval Forum: Malte Urban (QUB), Title TBC. 11.5 @ 4pm, in 16UQ/101.
Wiles Lecture 1: Peter Hennessy (QMUL): 'Staying behind and catching up: The contemporary historian's
craft’, 16.5 @ 5pm, in PFC G01/007.
Wiles Lecture 2: Peter Hennessy (QMUL): 'A very peculiar practice: Watching Prime Ministers', 17.5 @
5pm, in PFC, G01/007.
Medieval Forum: Stuart McWilliams (Edinburgh), “The Inscription of Enchantment: Magical Books in
Theory and Practice”. 18.5 @ 4pm, in 16UQ/101.
Wiles Lecture 3: Peter Hennessy (QMUL): 'Children of the Uranium Age: The shadow of the bomb', 18.5 @
5pm, in PFC, G01/007.
Wiles Lecture 4: Peter Hennessy (QMUL): 'A view from a Hogwartian window: The question of the Lords'.
19.5 @ 11am, in Larmour Lecture Theatre (Physics).
Kennedy Memorial Lecture: Alan Brinkley (Columbia University), ‘“The Irish Prince: John Kennedy and
his legacy”, 23.5 @ 4pm, in Great Hall.
Medieval Forum: Paul Oldfield (Manchester Metropolitan University), ‘A Bridge to Salvation and Entrance
to the Underworld: medieval southern Italy and international pilgrimage’. 25.5 @ 4pm, in 16UQ/101.