Professor Donald Sassoon
Professor Michael Questier
Dr James Kelly
Dr Georgios Varouxakis
QM History Staff Out and About
Queen Mary Historians have been particularly active in the world beyond QM recently.
Who’s this (1:40 in) talking about the cultural and political significance of the Eurovision Song Contest in The Secret History of Eurovision, a documentary, charting the history of the Contest and its impact on European political and social structure? It’s Professor of Comparative European History, Donald Sassoon. The programme was broadcast throughout Europe and distributed by BBC Worldwide. It was broadcast in the UK on More4 on Saturday, May 7 2011.
Professor Sassoon has also been curating Italy’s largest history festival, La Storia in Piazza and contributing to Lizst and his Women for BBC Radio 4. The programme, presented Lucy Parham, celebrates the bicentenary of the great pianist and conductor’s birth, and investigates his romantic, womanising image. You can listen to the whole thing here.
Professor Amanda Vickery (right)
Not content with having been commissioned to present a new BBC2 documentary on Jane Austen, Professor Amanda Vickery is particularly busy at the moment. Amongst other things, she is judging the prestigious BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction. The announcement of the winner on July 6th will be filmed as a Culture show special for BBC2.
On 28 June she gave an evening lecture on female virtue & white linen at Fenton House (a charming and virtually unchanged 17th Century merchant's house) for Selvedge magazine’s We Love Linen event and she will be appearing at the Chalke Valley History Festival (7-9 July) where she will lecture on The English at Home.
Finally, she will be presenting a new series of the Radio 4 programme Voices from the Old Bailey, which dramatises extracts from Old Bailey court cases from the 18th century and discusses what they reveal about the period. The first episode of the new series will be broadcast 27th July at 9 a.m.
Dr Peter Catterall has been similarly busy. As well as his recent trip to Kurdistan as part of the British Council funded DelPHE-Iraq Project, Dr Catterall was invited to the Electoral Reform Society’s seminar on House of Lords reform at the Houses of Parliament on 15 June, where he contributed his comments on how the expert contributor problem could be avoided in an elected Upper House by co-opting experts onto particular committees (as happens in local government and has happened in the past for particular cabinet committees). He has also edited the newly released second volume of the Macmillan Diaries (1957-1966: Prime Minister and After) for Pan Macmillan, delivered a paper on ‘Harold Macmillan and Liberal Conservatism’ in Cambridge on May 16, and has recently been appointed to the London Historic Environments Forum.
Dr James Ellison talke to BBC News
Dr James Ellison could recently be seen all over BBC News discussing the visit of President Obama and Anglo-American relations. He appeared on the BBC News Channel and BBC World on 24 and 25 May. He was also quoted in the Christian Science Monitor, telling them "This was a speech of interdependence and multilateralism. Obama’s gone a long way today to extend America’s history beyond Bush. I can’t think of an American president making such a sensitive speech in Europe for some time." You can read the full article here.
The Who Were the Nuns? Project hosted its project conference, centred on identities, organisations and exile, in collaboration with the HWRBI(History of Women Religious in Britain and Ireland). Speakers included The School’s Dr Caroline Bowden, Professor Michael Questier , Dr James Kelly and Dr Katharine Keats-Rohan and Caroline Watkinson as well as a host of distinguished scholars from around the globe. You can find more information here.
Dr Georgios Varouxakis gave a lecture at the The Political Thought of John Stuart Mill Conference, University of Cyprus, Nicosia, 4 June 2011, entitled 'John Stuart Mill on War and Peace'. He will also be giving a paper at the 11th Conference of the International Society of Utilitarian Studies at Lucca, Italy, 23-25 June 2011, entitled 'John Stuart Mill and Henry Sidgwick on International Relations'.
Professor Michael Questier will be the invited keynote speaker at the Catholic Record Society Conference on 25 July where he will give a paper entitled '"The Cause of this Sudden Execution": Treason, Politics and Religion in Post Reformation England.' You can find the programme for the conference here.
Dr Peter Denley participated in a workshop on the history of the University of Paris – ‘Journées d’études Studium Parisiense’ from 23-24 June at the University itself.