British and Irish History: locality, ideology and economy

Events

‘Muck and Brass: Money and Finance in Victorian Britain’
10 November 2012, Leeds Centre for Victorian Studies.

Sponsored by the British Association for Victorian Studies, the Economic History Society and the Social History Society, this one day colloquium will be held at the Leeds Centre for Victorian Studies.

Download the programme and registration form [PDF 64 KB]
Please return the completed registration form by 29 October 2012.

Keynote Addresses

• Professor Ranald Michie (Durham): ‘The Race for Wealth in Victorian and Edwardian England: Perception and Reality’
• Professor Janette Rutterford (Open): ‘Investing in companies in the 19th century: safety in numbers’.

Sessions include:

• Charity, Patronage and Community: Capitalism, Welfare, and Art
• Global Flow and Material Encounters: Capitalism and Morality
• Domestic Economy, Business, and Social Change
• Currency, Coinage, and Circulation
• Banking, Business, and Buildings: Market Regulation, Ethics, and the Law
• Exchange, Speculation, Aesthetics, and Value
• Cities, Culture, Environment, and Exposure

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Launch Event – ‘Big History, Little History’
13 September 2012

This new research group focuses upon histories relating to locality, ideology and economy. The seminar will involve short papers and discussion on the present trend towards micro history and how this trend affects the development of macro history. Papers will include:

Prof. David Vincent, 'Nothing is Local'

This paper looks at the cultural history of privacy, and the advantage of engaging with the large national themes through the single cultural event of a play on the London stage. It will argue that this movement between the local and general is made possible in the nineteenth century by the energy of the consumer market and the sophistication of emerging communication systems which together can translate with great speed a local event into a national and international phenomenon.

Dr. Amanda Goodrich, 'Linguistic Change and Digital History'

This paper considers how digital resources can transform a qualitative micro history of linguistic usage into a quantitative macro history. In researching usage of the term 'aristocracy'  over the period 1700-1850, a number of databases have been used in keyword searches and deeper browsing and Google Ngram and Bookwork graphs compiled to illustrate the frequency and trajectory of usage. This paper also looks at both the advantages and disadvantages of using such resources.

Venue: The Open University Campus, Milton Keynes, Wilson rooms 1, 2, 3. All very welcome.

For further details please contact Amanda Goodrich A.J.Goodrich@open.ac.uk

 

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