June 2005 - Humanities, Languages and Social Science ...

Around the Faculty Around the Faculty
5
Department of History and
Economic History
The Manchester Centre for Regional
History organized a highly successful
Conference entitled ‘“The Greatest
mere village in England”: Networks,
Religion and Politics in Early Modern
Manchester’ in April 2005. The
conference attracted speakers from
as far afield as Japan and will result in
publication of the papers in a special
volume of the Manchester Region
History Review in 2007.
Dr Stephen Bowd has been
appointed external examiner for the
Undergraduate History Programme at
Roehampton University.
Terry Wyke has edited a specially
commissioned collection of essays to
mark the 100th volume published by
the Lancashire and Cheshire
Antiquarian Society. The volume
includes contributions from a number
of historians who studied on the MA
in the History of the Manchester
Region and was published in January.
(D. Brumhead and T. Wyke (eds),
Moving Manchester: Aspects of the
History of Transport in the City and
Region since 1700 (2005).
Professor David Nicholls presented
the paper ‘The Employability of
History Students’ at the University of
Oxford in April. Publication (by the
History Subject Centre) of Professor
Nicholls’ report entitled ‘The
Employability of History Students’
was timed to coincide with this
conference.
Professor Nicholls has also
interviewed numerous celebrity
history enthusiasts (about 30 in all
over the last six months including
Melvyn Bragg, Al Murray and Joan
Bakewell) as part of his project for the
National Teaching Fellowship award.
Professor Alan Kidd, on behalf of the
Manchester Centre for Regional
History, has secured sponsorship for a
PhD studentship in the History of
the Built Environment which
commenced during the Spring
Term 2005. The sponsorship from
English Heritage is valued in
excess of £20,000 over three
years.
Professor Neville Kirk was awarded a
Visiting Scholarship, School of
Business, University of Sydney,
January to March 2005, where he
conducted research into Class, Race,
Nation and Empire in Britain and
Australia from 1901 to the present.
Professor Kirk has also been invited to
attend a workshop of international
scholars entitled “World Economies,
Local Communities: Setting an
Agenda for a Global Labour History”
to be held at the Indo-American
Centre for International Studies,
Hyderabad, India, in July and August
2005.
Francis Salt, a PhD student,
conducted the research for a BBC
Radio 4 programme ‘Before Jarrow’
which traced the history of a march
to London by 250 blind men from
Leeds, Manchester and Newport ‘for
justice not charity’ in 1920. The
programme was broadcast on 8 April
2005.
Dr Mark Fenemore has been awarded
a highly prestigious Kluge Center
Fellowship for six months from
September 2005. The Fellowship, won
against international competition,
provides a stipend for residential
research of $4,000 per month at the
Library of Congress in Washington
D.C.
Department of Languages
It has been a busy year in the
Department of Languages! It started
with an international conference on
Mediterranean crime writing last July
and a conference on European film in
September; preparations are
currently under way for international
conferences on bande dessinée,
French film (jointly with Manchester
University) and the conference of
the Association of Italian Studies
(jointly with the universities of
Manchester and Salford) next
academic session. Speakers were
invited from around the UK to
participate in our Research
Seminars on European Literatures
and Cultures.
The department organised six 6th
Form Days in November and May,
bringing over 2,000 students from
schools and colleges around the
North West and parts of Yorkshire into
the University over the course of the
six days. Although such events are
primarily an important marketing
opportunity for the department, they
also form part of a much wider
debate at a regional and national
level on the importance of languages
to the national interests. Startling
statistics on the loss of trade within
the UK due to lack of employees with
language skills has prompted the
Government to develop a national
languages strategy in order to
address the problem. The House of
Lords has warned the Government
that British business will be severely
hampered in the global market place
because language skills in the UK are
falling so far behind those of its
competitors (The Guardian, 14 April
2005). The Languages department is
working with schools and colleges
across the region to promote the
message to students that knowledge
of a language can seriously improve
their employment prospects.
The department also participated in a
Languages project, run jointly with
Salford University and co-ordinated
by Liz Marr. The project, which was
funded through Aim Higher, involved
over 100 Year 8 and 9 pupils from the
Greater Manchester area, their
teachers and a number of language
specialists from MMU and Salford
University. Over the four events, held