PUNCS members and other members of the History department and School of Law at the University of Plymouth attended the fantastic international conference hosted by the University of Exeter, 21 – 23 June 2018, on ‘Britain and the World’, offering insights into their research in progress on military empires and the empire of knowledge (Harry Bennett); mercy and empire in the long nineteenth century (James Gregory); the ‘White Mutiny’ of East India Company’s European troops 1857-61 (Ann Lyon); and the Three Towns’ curious history in relation to the Irish diaspora (Judith Rowbotham).
A panel of members of the School of Law and PUNCS: Kim Stevenson, Craig Newbery-Jones, and Rob Giles, presented research on Plymouth as point of departure, with discussion varying from mapping the circles of Plymouth-based innovators in science and exploration; creating virtual reality simulations inside a transportation ship to Australia; to journeys of criminality through a micro-history, or ‘life-course analysis’ of one Plymouth-born lawbreaker who made a new life after transportation in Australia.
With 190 delegates and 55 panels, the conference ranged chronologically from the early modern to the present day, and thematically offered a rich and very varied fare from eighteenth-century theatre, to The Kinks and superheroes, from Restoration-era Jamaica to the British social world in Hong Kong in the era of decolonization. Imperial and international themes in nineteenth-century history were well represented.
It was a great conference! The twitter-sphere records the lively interventions of the seagulls.
PUNCS: Plymouth University Nineteenth Century Studies 