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Katherine Lewis was recently invited to speak at Colchester Castle Museum as part of a lecture series accompanying their exhibition ‘The Medieval Mind’. The subject of the lecture was ‘Women (and men) in the Middle Ages’ and was sold out in advance. The 60-strong audience were introduced to medieval gender theory, and the relative status of men and women in the period. Katherine also discussed the social, legal and economic limitations governing women’s lives and explored some examples of women from across the social spectrum who proved to be capable of political, intellectual and commercial achievement, despite the weight of the authorities’ opinion to the contrary. She also spoke about the nature of medieval sources and the question of whether it’s really possible to know what most women and men thought about themselves and the world in which they lived.
Katherine’s talk was very well received and followed by a lively question and answer session.
After Rachel Popplewell watched a documentary called India’s Missing Girls featuring the work of the Vijay Foundation Trust (VFT), she decided to spend the summer there doing her work placement. For the first 4 weeks she taught English to 9-12 year olds and spent the remainder of her stay interviewing the children about the tragedies that lead to them being in the home.
‘Not only did I get the opportunity to make a real difference to people’s lives, I learned I can do anything if I try… it was the most amazing and diverse work placement I could have chosen and I will never forget it’
The first Cricket Research Centre in the UK has been launched - in Huddersfield!
The initiative is the brainchild of Dr Peter Davies and colleagues at the University of Huddersfield and the hope is that it will encourage further academic work in the area of cricket history. "It's a very significant development," said Dr Davies, who also runs the £50,000 Kirklees and Calderdale Cricket Heritage Project. "The only other similar body we know of is in Barbados! It's called the University of the West Indies Centre for Cricket Research." And Dr Davies is excited by future possibilities. "Over the past five years, there has been significant research in the area of cricket history at the University of Huddersfield. The establishment of the Cricket Research Centre reflects this and also opens up new avenues for collaborative projects and cross-disciplinary activity in and around cricket history."
Dr Davies will be assisted by Dr Rob Light - an expert on amateurism and professionalism and the history of cricket in the nineteenth-century West Riding - and two Phd students. Dennis O'Keefe is working on the relationship between cricket and religion in Calderdale, while Duncan Stone is investigating the significance of regional identity in cricket, with particular reference to Surrey and Yorkshire. All four historians have published in the area of cricket history.
Dr Davies explained: "The main aims of the Centre are to facilitate cricket-related research and enable the sharing of ideas and networking. We also want to bid for external research funding and encourage postgraduate students to come to Huddersfield to engage in cricket research." The Huddersfield group hold monthly research seminars and have a full programme of guest lectures planned. In due course they will be welcoming Australian cricket writer David Frith, professor of church history Hugh McLeod, sociology lecturers Dr Philippa Velija and Dr Dan Bardsey, and cricket historians Professor Jeff Hill and Dr Jack Williams. "We also host an annual cricket conference and will have a website which will enable cricket researchers from all over the world to share their ideas," said Dr Davies. "Currently, we are working on a book for Manchester University Press, Cricket and Community in England since c.1860: A Social and Cultural History, which should be published in September 2010." And the new Huddersfield Cricket Research Centre is particularly keen to encourage postgraduate study.
Contact Dr Davies on 01484 472405 or via p.j.davies@hud.ac.uk. The Centre's website is at www.hud.ac.uk/mhm/history/research/cricket.
The conference, organised by postgraduates for postgraduates, with welcome support from the staff, brought together a wide range of the postgraduate research currently being undertaken by students within the department at both Masters and PhD levels and it was particularly good to hear what each student was researching in some detail. For several of the participants the conference was their first opportunity to present their work formally in an academic setting and it gave participating students an opportunity to share their work in what was a relaxed, supportive, yet still academically rigorous atmosphere.
The conference went spectacularly well, with ten excellent papers on time periods ranging from the twelfth century to the 1960s, all of which stimulated good discussion that continued into break times. The conference was such a success it is hoped that the department will run a similar event as a part of the University’s Research Festival next year and (maybe) beyond.
Overall the conference displayed the strength of the postgraduate community in the department and showed History at Huddersfield to have a large, dynamic and productive research environment.
