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August 2009	Centre for Urban History

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Welcome to Urban History News - a monthly digest of news and information for the urban history community. CENTRE FOR URBAN HISTORY GRADUATE TEACHING ASSISTANTSHIP in Modern Urban History PhD Topic: H.J.Dyos and the Origins of Urban History in Britain Start Date: 1 October 2009 We are looking for a highly motivated, well qualified person to undertake a PhD on the role of H.J. (‘Jim’) Dyos at Leicester in the emergence of urban history in Britain. The person appointed will act as Graduate Teaching Assistant in the School of Historical Studies. The Assistantship includes fees for full-time PhD study and an annual salary over 4 years. Applicants should have a 1st class or 2:1 degree in History or other relevant subject, together with a Distinction or Merit at Masters level. Applicants currently enrolled on Masters courses should show clear evidence that they are likely to achieve Merit or Distinction. The GTA award will be based on the strength of the application and evidence of ability to complete academic tasks to time as well as to a high scholarly standard. Previous teaching experience is desirable but not essential. Full details 1 Year Postdoctoral Vacancy: Networks of State and Capital in the Low Countries Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Belgium) invites applications for a Postdoctoral researcher. This project seeks to test the hypothesis that in the eighteenth century the predominance of the ‘free market’ decreased in favour of more vigorous national state administrations. The international networks shrank in the process as well while ‘national’ administrations came to the fore in facilitating warfare. The successful candidate will concentrate their research on international networks of entrepreneurs who were active in the Low Countries or who provided troops that were operating in the Low Countries during the wars of the eighteenth century. Depending on his/her scientific background, the provisioning of German, French or English troops will be the focus of analysis. THE DECLINE OF THE INDUSTRIAL CITY Major Session 05, European Association of Urban History Conference Ghent • 01-04 September 2010 Co-organisers: Richard Harris (McMaster University, Canada) harrisr@mcmaster.ca Simon Gunn (CUH, Leicester, U.K.) sg201@le.ac.uk The rise of the industrial city, that is to say of urban centres dominated by manufacturing, was a major feature of western Europe and North America in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It both expressed and enabled economic growth. It also propelled the urbanization of society, with diverse social, political, and cultural consequences. The decline of industrial cities since the mid-twentieth century has been compensated and counterbalanced to varying degrees by the growth of office and service employment. Nonetheless, decline has had major and diverse consequences, not least for urban infrastructure and the built environment. The organisers are looking for papers on urbanism and industrial decline in Europe and North America. Formal submission of poposals must be made throught the Ghent conference website but the organisers would be happy to hear from anyone with interests in this field who wishes to participate in the session. Session details All Sessions Complexities of 'Europe': Between knowledge, power, citizenship and identity 20-21 November 2009 • Cambridge, UK The theoretical approaches to “Europe” often suggest a teleological narrative, which portrays the establishment of the European Union as the consummation of every cultural and political project of “Europeanness”. This conference aims at bringing together different viewpoints of “Europe” lying beyond the political narratives of accession and integration. Priority will be given to papers that address the complexities of the way in which “Europe” as a concept, a label, a place, an institution or a union is turned into a locus of contestation. We are particularly interested in comparative studies as well as in exploring transfers of knowledge and power across the region(s) described as “Europe”. We are also eager to examine how “Europe” interacts, constructs and is constructed by its “Others” or its “margins– whether in immigration, integration or development policies. Knitting the web. Railways, users and the city. Cities, users and their railways. Past, Present and Future 4th INTERNATIONAL RAILWAY HISTORY CONFERENCE 27-29 May 2010 • Mechelen, Belgium The Organizing Committee invites proposals for papers to be presented at this International Conference to commemorate the 175th anniversary of the first commercial rail operations on the European continent, between Brussels and Mechelen, to be held in Mechelen, Belgium, from 27th to 29th May 2010. The conference is organised by the City of Mechelen and the Belgian State Railways together with the International Railway History Association Scientific support). This conference should shed light on the complex relationship between the railways, the cities and the users / consumers of this new transport mode. The conference theme is Railways, users and the city - Cities, users and the railways Past, Present and Future. This call for papers asks for papers in this thematic approach but with a large open view on the topic. Visiting Rites: accessing the English home, c.1650-1850 10-11 September 2009 • Northampton, UK The home is often portrayed as somehow separate from the wider world. From the open nature of the great hall in medieval houses, the early modern household in particular is seen as an increasingly private terrain, removed from the public gaze, or even a haven from the vicissitudes of public life. Yet the home was always a permeable space, penetrated by visitors (both long and short-term, from lodgers to dinner guests), servants, trades people and thieves. The conference focuses on four main themes: the spaces and rituals of social visiting; the ways in which tradesmen were afforded access to the home; the strategies for securing the home against unwelcome visitors and outcomes of such intrusions, and the relationship between notions of public and private. Booking Form Forthcoming Publications Cinque Port of Rye The Romney Marsh Research Trust has just completed a three year project looking into the medieval history of the Cinque Port of Rye (Dr Gill Draper) and into its historic built environment, surveying the extant medieval timber frame houses and well as reconstructing the medieval and early modern topography of the town (David and Barbara Martin). The two volumes Rye Rebuilt: Regeneration and Decline within a Sussex Cinque Port Town, 1350-1660 and Rye: a History of a Sussex Cinque Port to 1660 will be published on Friday 13 November and the Trust is offering pre-publication discount to UHN readers.
	London Bridge... This year sees the 800th anniversary of the opening of old London Bridge, the first permanent structure built across the Thames. To commemorate this occasion, and to raise money for the Lord Mayors Appeal, the London Bridge Fair took place on Saturday the 11th of July. In a rather inventive twist, the Bridge was closed to traffic for the day and the event was held on the structure itself. [more] Mark Latham, PhD student at CUH researching London Bridge in the early-modern period, reports on the day. funding success Dr John Hinks, Honorary Fellow at the Centre for Urban History, University of Leicester, has been awarded a grant of £1,000 by the Catholic Record Society to support his research on the distribution of Catholic books in Jacobean England. The research, which will be carried out during the academic year 2009/10, will investigate two recorded cases of recusant pedlars apprehended in Leicester in 1604 and 1616, and will attempt to find evidence of similar activity elsewhere, especially in the Midlands. Contact: jh241@le.ac.uk European Association for Urban History The list of sessions for the 2010 EAUH conference, to be held in Ghent, has been published. Paper submission opens in October 2009 upcoming events... 26-28 August 2009 RGS-IBG International Conference Manchester, UK 27-28 August 2009 The Talk about Town Melbourne, Australia 27-28 August 2009 Gender and Loss: Experiencing Widowhood in Britain c1400-1900 Bath, UK 04-07 September 2009 Urban morphology and urban transformation Guangzhou, China 09-10 September 2009 Retailing and Distribution History Wolverhampton, UK 10-11 September 2009 Visiting rites: accessing the English home, c.1650-1850 Northampton, UK Booking form 11-13 September 2009 Women, Gender and Political Spaces: Historical Perspectives Oxford, UK 19 September 2009 The Early Modern English Town: Urban Authority and Popular Politics London, UK 25 September 2009 CUH GRADUATE CONFERENCE: PLACE IN HISTORY - HISTORIES OF PLACE (Registration) approaching deadlines... 09 August Topology of Technology Studentships 15 August Labour as resource 01 September Complexities of 'Europe': Between knowledge, power, citizenship and identity 05 September Women’s and Gender Studies Graduate Student Seminar Series 07 September Economic History Society Annual Conference (New Researcher Papers) 14 September Economic History Society Annual Conference (Academic Papers and Sessions) CUH seminars... CUH Seminar Series 2009-10: 2009-10 marks the 25th Anniversary Year at CUH. A celebratory seminar programme is being developed. exhibitions... London's Burning Online exhibition Coalbrookdale 300 The Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust has events throughout 2009 to celebrate 300 years of the Industrial Revolution.

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