Our Events are listed below in date order, with the most recent first. Please click the link to go to Archive events.
Dr Karl Hack testifies as expert historical witness
In October 2012 Dr Hack testified as expert historical witness on communists in the case of Mohamad Sabu versus Utusan Malaysia, in the Penang High Court, Malaysia. This case touches on issues of historical memory, politics and freedom of speech, and was widely reported in the regional press, as in The Malaysian Insider and Utusan Malaysia
Paper by Françoise Ugochukwu 'Igbo language at the crossroads: ebe ka anyi na-eje?' At the 3rd Annual International Conference on Extinction of Igbo Language
06-08 July 2012
Umuhia, Abia State (Nigeria)
A paper on the challenges facing the Igbo language.
Lecture by historian Dr Rozina Visram ‘The curry in history: from early origins to national dish’
Wednesday 04 July 2012
Berrill Lecture Theatre, Open University, Milton Keynes Campus
To Launch the Exhibition:Beyond the Frame: India in Britain, 1858–1950, in partnership with the British Library.
Seminar: Britain, Empire and Afghanistan
12 June 2012
Milton Keynes Campus
Speaker Shane Malhotra gave a paper on ‘The First Afghan War: through the eyes of Florentina Sale’, this was followed by a general discussion on British perceptions of Afghanistan, cross-cultural contacts, and 'tribes'.
Chair, Hugh Beattie (author of Empire and Tribe in the Afghan Frontier Region: Custom, Conflict and British Strategy in Waziristan until 1947. London: I.B.Tauris (Forthcoming)).
Wasafiri, Susheila Nasta in Conversation with two young African Writers: Noo Saro-Wiwa and Chibundu Onuzo
South Bank Centre
22 March 2012
Noo Saro-Wiwa and Chibundu Onuzo explored their native land of Nigeria through travelogue and fiction, sharing their stories of Lagos and beyond.
Saro-Wiwa's activist father took her back to Nigeria each year when she was a child. In 'Looking for Transwonderland' she journeys through a country of extreme contrasts, of eccentricity, kitsch and modernity, to become reconciled with her homeland.
Onuzo's debut novel, 'The Spider King's Daughter', explores the daring and unexpected love affair between Abike Johnson, from the elite of Lagos society, and a young hawker she meets from the city's slums. The novel looks at the rifts and tensions in Nigerian society.
The event was chaired by Susheila Nasta, writer and editor of 'Wasafiri'.
Making Britain Exhibition
The 'Making Britain' team in partnership with the British Library presented a touring panel exhibition 'South Asians Making Britain, 1858-1950'. The exhibition focused on a wide range of South Asian-British networks and interactions including South Asian contributions to sport, the arts, domestic, cultural and intellectual life, resistance and activism, as well as national and global politics. It developed from the extensive research of the project, examining a wealth of new material from archives in India, Sri Lanka, the United States and Britain. The exhibition was funded by the AHRC, The Open University and The British Library. The exhibition visited regional venues across the UK throughout 2010-11. Find out more from the project website.
Seminar ‘Narrating British India: the East India Company and the imperial imagination’
Jack Harrington, Research Affiliate
Friday 21 October 2011
Milton Keynes Campus
This paper explored the link between empire-building and history-writing in the early nineteenth century. The creation of a narrative of the rise of British India was analysed by looking at the intellectual origins of James Mill's History of British India and its implications for the Victorian era.
Interfaculty Heritage Studies Research Group Seminar
‘Heritage and Human Rights: Changing Perspectives’
7 July 2011
Milton Keynes campus
Link to programme Word doc (35 kb)
Heritage studies website
Memory and Nationhood: panel presentation at ECAS4 conference
15-18 June 2011, Uppsala, Sweden
Lotte Hughes, based in the Ferguson Centre and History Department, co-organised a successful panel entitled ‘Contestations over Memory and Nationhood: Comparative Perspectives from East and southern Africa’, at ECAS4, the 4th European Conference on African Studies, held in Uppsala, Sweden, 15-18 June 2011.
The theme of the conference, attended by some 1500 scholars from around the world, was ‘African Engagements: On Whose Terms?’ It was organised by the Nordic Africa Institute, with the support of (among others) AEGIS, the Africa-Europe Group for Interdisciplinary Studies.
The two-session panel, co-organised with Reinhart Kössler (Arnold Bergstraesser Institute, Freiburg, Germany) was an opportunity for Lotte (Principal Investigator) and Kenyan collaborator Karega-Munene (lead Consultant) to co-present on their research on heritage and memory issues in Kenya. Unfortunately project Co-Investigator Annie Coombes (Birkbeck College, University of London) was unable to attend because of illness. Prof. Kössler also acted as discussant for the first of two sessions, while Dr. Sabelo J Ndlovu-Gatsheni (former Ferguson Centre staff member and Associate Professor, Department of Development Studies, University of South Africa) was discussant for the second.
A Day at The British Museum
Museums and Peacemaking in a Post-Conflict State,
a talk by Lotte Hughes
11 June 2011
The Clore Gallery, The British Museum
Flyer pdf (859 kb)
Paper by Françoise Ugochukwu on 'Language & identity: the impact of Nigerian video-films on diasporic communities'
At Language, Identity, and Intercultural Communication Conference
BAAL-SIG on Intercultural Communication & The Annual Bloomsbury Round Table
09 -10 June 2011
Birkbeck College, University of London
Conference: Language, Identity, and Intercultural Communication
Birkbeck College, University of London
9 -10 June 2011
A joint conference of the British Association for Applied Linguistics Intercultural Communication Special Interest Group and The Annual Bloomsbury Round Table.
Paper by Françoise Ugochukwu, The Open University 'Language & identity: the impact of Nigerian video-films on diasporic communities'
Joint Cross Cultural Identities Group and Ferguson Centre Seminar: ‘Truth be Told: Some Problems with Historical Revisionism in Kenya’
Lotte Hughes, Lecturer in African Arts and Cultures at the Open University
03 June 2011
Historical revisionism is equally appealing to state and non-state actors during periods of intense socio-political change, especially following civil conflict, when the need for unification is paramount. This applies to Kenya as it struggles to come to terms with the post-electoral crisis of 2007/08. Redressing orchestrated amnesia about Mau Mau and the struggle for independence is another important element, amnesia instituted by first president Jomo Kenyatta, ostensibly in the interests of national unity. Since Mau Mau was unbanned in 2003, and a lawsuit was brought by veterans with the support of a human rights group against the British government in 2009, there has been an upsurge in public memorialisation and debate about the liberation movement in Kenya. This has been accompanied by increasing calls for ‘true’ history to be written. Veterans have persuaded the state to support a ‘rewriting Kenya history’ project, which links to efforts to commemorate heroes and broaden official definitions of heroism to include a wide range of ethnic communities and rebel leaders from different periods of anti-colonial resistance. These themes are reflected in two new history exhibitions developed by National Museums of Kenya, and in the local media, which has done more to popularise these histories and commemorative initiatives than any scholarly texts. This paper drew on research interviews and the literature on resistance, social memory and patriotic nationalism to problematise and analyse these developments, within the context of constitutional change.
Cross Cultural Identities Group website
Making Waves – Connections Across the Indian Ocean
Wednesday 25 May 2011
Ananda Devi – Indian Tango
Abdulrazak Gurnah – Desertion
Tabish Khair - Filming
with Susheila Nasta and Stephanie Jones
Three eminent writers whose evocations of Indian Ocean worlds have established new literary geographies, and whose new work continues to re-define the landscapes of international contemporary writing.
Ananda Devi, from Mauritius, writes lyrical narratives centred on the troubled lives of women at the edges of Mauritian communities. Zanzibar novelist Abdulrazak Gurnah’s narratives trace both the regular and irregular routes of migrants, and work provocatively upon the vagueries of memory and history-telling. Poet, novelist, journalist and academic Tabish Khair provocatively addresses topics from guilt to religion to love in his writing.
In partnership with Wasafiri, the AHRC Landscape and Environment Programme and the University of Southampton
For more information
Flyer pdf (231 kb)
Inter-University Research Seminars, 2010-2011
Biography, its Subjects and Sources
From Montaigne to Mandela
The Open University's Book History and Postcolonial Studies Research Groups in Association with the Institute of English Studies, University of London. The seminars ran from Wednesday October 6, 2010 to Tuesday April 5, 2011. Follow this link for full details of the programme
Empire and Postcolonial Studies Research GroupAnti-colonial activism: Campaigns in and Beyond Africa and Asia, 2011
Despite a growing body of work on anti-colonial movements and the activities of individual activists, there remain large gaps in our knowledge of early agitation in and around Africa and Asia, and the links between people. This seminar will focus on early transnational networking, particularly by journalists and other types of writer, which laid the foundations for later nationalist struggle and today’s globalised human rights activism.
Contact: l.hughes@open.ac.uk
AHRC/British Library workshop
4-5 March 2011
Sandip Hazareesingh was one of the UK-based researchers funded by the AHRC to participate in this interdisciplinary workshop, joining India-based scholars to explore how historical records are currently being used in research on climate. This event is part of a new strategic engagement by the AHRC designed to bring together researchers and institutions in the UK and India for interdisciplinary research collaborations on climate issues. Updates on this will follow in due course.
Nollywood in Diaspora: a cultural tool
Paper by Francoise Ugochukwu (Ferguson Centre)
23-25 March 2011, University of Lagos Nigeria
This paper, focusing on Europe and based on two sets of questionnaire and interviews dated 2009 and 2011, confirms the growing importance of the Nigerian Diaspora in those countries and the strategic position of the UK in the current building of a European network. It examines the individual and communal consumption of Nigerian video films by diasporic communities, considers its social, linguistic and economic impact among both first generation migrants and British youth of Nigerian descent, and reasons behind the success of Nollywood among resettled Nigerians. It highlights the premium given to the cultural aspect of these films by viewers, and its link to individual and collective memory and moral values. Given viewers’ insistence on the educational value of these films, considered by the majority as a fair reflection of the current Nigerian scene, the paper posits that producers should pay more attention to the content of their films and to their possible impact on other diaspora-linked factors such as the attitude of Nigerians towards their home country and its wellbeing.
For more details please go to website
Informal Ferguson Centre Talks:
Performing Memory: Theatricalising Identity in Contemporary South Africa
08 March 2011
Milton Keynes Campus
Negotiating with the Enemy
Friday 24 September 2010
Joint Workshop at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, London
Karl Hack, Hugh Beattie, William Sheehan, Elizabeth McDonnell, Philip Murphy, Paul Dixon, Huw Bennett, Isabelle Duyvestyn, Chris Tripodi, Bart. Schuurman, Andrew Mumford, Robert Johnson
Summary: Counterinsurgency, 'homeland security' and 'The War on Terror' have led to a renewed interest in historical case studies of counterinsurgency, including case studies from the British Empire and Commonwealth. There has been considerable debate, notably in the US and UK, of military strategies, 'winning hearts and minds' through civil programmes, and policing for international operations. But the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the peace process in Northern Ireland, demonstrate that another, relatively neglected area can have a major impact on such campaigns. This is the 'negotiation' with, and 'persuasion' of, militant elites and their key civilian supporters. The Northern Ireland peace process was developed through complex, often secret, contacts. The Iraqi insurgency was turned around as much through the 'Anbar Awakening' as by a 'surge' and new American counterinsurgency policy. The question of how to negotiate, persuade and buy over Taliban leaders and supporters came to the fore in Afghanistan policy in 2009 to 2010. This workshop looked at a wide variety of ways and contexts, contemporary and historical, in which 'enemy' leaders (military and civilian) have been targeted for persuasion and negotiation.
Outcome: Special edition of the Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History (forthcoming 2011), edited by Karl Hack and Philip Murphy.
Research seminar: Cross-Cultural Identities
Half-day research workshop under the “Cross-Cultural Identities” research theme
Tuesday 06 July 2010
Milton Keynes Campus
Short presentation will be made by:
Maria Nita (Religious Studies)
Robert Samuels (Music)
Catherine Tackley (Music)
Amy Whitehead (Religious Studies)
This workshop shared related research with a view to establishing a collaborative research project.
Making Britain Conference
Bharat Britain: South Asians Making Britain 1870-1950
13-14 September 2010
British Library Conference Centre, St Pancras, London
Keynote speakers:
Humayun Ansari, Elleke Boehmer, Antoinette Burton, Mukti Jain Campion, Dominiek Dendooven, Chandani Lokugé, Susheila Nasta, Shyama Perera, Nayantara Sahgal, Meera Syal, Rozina Visram.
This major international conference marked the culmination of the AHRC-funded project ‘Making Britain: South Asian Visions of Home and Abroad, 1870-1950', led by the Open University in collaboration with the University of Oxford and King's College, London . ‘Bharat Britain ' showcased new research from distinguished scholars, curators and writers worldwide. Held in partnership with the British Library, it explored the manifold ways in which South Asians impacted on the formation of Britain 's cultural and political life prior to Independence and Partition in 1947.
Features:
Exhibition showcasing the historical contribution of Asians in Britain
Launch of the Making Britain database
For more details or to make a booking please go to the Making Britain website
Conference flyer pdf (194 kb)
Workshop 'Memory, Home and Migration'
Tuesday 1 June 2010, 10am
GC062 Geoffrey Crowther Building
Short presentations were made by
Jenny Doubt ( Ferguson Centre, Department of English)
Byron Dueck (Department of Music)
Lorna Hardwick (Department of Classics)
Laura Leante (Department of Music)
Dennis Walder ( Ferguson Centre, Department of English)
Awelani Moyo (Performing Arts, Warwick)
Followed by a talk/response from Alison Blunt, Professor of Geography, QMW, author of, for example, Travel, gender, Imperialism (1994), Domicile and Diaspora (2005), Home (2006).
Our aim was to share related research with a view to establishing a collaborative research project.
