Institute for the Public Understanding of the Past
News archive 2013
Please note that these are archived news items. Links may be broken and images may not display correctly.
"York: The Making of a City 1068-1350" by IPUP Director, Sarah Rees Jones
Just published by Oxford University Press:
- First book-length study of York between 1068 and 1350
- Provides a new interpretation of the impact of the Norman Conquest on English towns
- Presents new evidence for the polyfocal character of York and the integration between town and country
- Argues for the fundamental importance of new lay enthusiasm over urban saints cults to the development of civic government in medieval English towns
- Reassesses the evidence for a change in opportunities for women in towns over the fourteenth century
Within the Walls
An AHRC-funded Collaborative Doctoral research project, involving the University of York's Archaeology and History departments, and the City of York Council, gets underway this autumn. The project team has been recruited and includes three PhD students - Katrina Foxton, Ed Freedman and Victoria Hoyle. The 3-5 year project will critically assess the various heritage values that apply to York's historic environment and its archive, placing national and international values (such as Outstanding Universal Value - used to assess the suitability of World Heritage status) alongside locally held 'social' values. According to John Schofield, the project's director, "this is a wonderful and timely opportunity to critically and closely assess what heritage means to local people, including those rarely before engaged in the subject. To take one particular question: do local people care about World Heritage? Does it matter, or is local heritage of more concern?"
Photo caption: Within the Walls project team. From L-R: John Schofield, Sarah Rees Jones, Victoria Hoyle, Ed Freedman, Katrina Foxton, John Oxley, Richard Taylor
Richard III Lecture Series, October-November 2013
Tuesday 22 October "Greyfriars, Leicester and the Search for Richard III"
Speaker: Richard Buckley (Leicester)
Tuesday 5 November "Richard III and York"
Speakers: Mark Ormrod (York) and Rhian McLaughlin (York)
Tuesday 26 November "The Women in Richard III's Life"
Speaker: Joanna Laynesmith (York alumni)
Part of the University of York Public Lecture series. For more information see: http://www.york.ac.uk/news-and-events/events/public-lectures/
Richard III: Rumour and Reality
A new website is being developed to host a wealth of evidence-based information on Richard’s connections with the north, this is part of a wider festival of events across the region which will run from June 2013 to June 2014.
Press release
Three AHRC CDA Studentships offered
Applications are invited for three AHRC CDA studentships commencing October 2013 on ‘Within the Walls’: Heritage Values and the Historic City
Two of these awards will be based in the Department of Archaeology (supervised by Dr John Schofield), and the third in the Department of History (supervised by Dr Sarah Rees Jones). The projects are in partnership with City of York Council.
Using York’s unique position as a ‘heritage laboratory’, the three closely related projects will together make a critical assessment of contemporary heritage values as they relate to (1) the built environment and (2) the buried archaeological resource (both based in Archaeology) and (3) the archive (in History), in relation to national and international criteria on the one hand, and community-led views and values on the other. They will explore the complex relations that exist between heritage and community, and how these can be better aligned to serve contemporary society. As heritage becomes less expert-led, and more community driven, this critical assessment is timely as is realignment of the way heritage values are construed and applied in practice.
Each award pays fees and an annual maintenance grant (currently £13,726 per year), with City of York Council contributing £2000 pa to project costs, including student research expenses. The usual AHRC eligibility rules apply to these studentships, including having an appropriate masters degree by October 2013 and AHRC’s residential requirements.
Applications should be made online (http://www.york.ac.uk/study/postgraduate/apply/#tab-2) and will comprise: an application form incorporating a Personal Statement (which should specify which of the three PhD projects you are interested in, and a statement of how your research interests and experiences to date will contribute to the success of the project); a CV; two references; and two pieces of written work. The closing date is 19th July 2013. Interviews will be held in mid August 2013. Informal inquiries should be made to Dr John Schofield (john.schofield@york.ac.uk) or to Dr Sarah Rees Jones (sarah.reesjones@york.ac.uk).
FURTHER INFORMATION - click here
Interdisciplinary Workshop on Slavery and Social Justice: History and Futures Past
Thursday 20 June
IPUP is pleased to welcome to York, Professor Anthony Bogues, Director of the Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice, Brown University. The workshop will be an opportunity to discuss and compare research in the field of the history of slavery, servile labour and segregation and its continuing legacies.
Click here for full details
PhD Scholarship: Classical Heroism in War and Peace 1914-24
White Rose Consortium Network
The closing date for applications is 24 June 2013. For full details of the project and award see:
http://www.york.ac.uk/study/postgraduate/fees-funding/postgraduate/white_rose/.
The White Rose Consortium is pleased to offer a three-year doctoral scholarship at the University of York, with co-supervision from Classics at the University of Leeds, to begin in October 2013. To commemorate the centenary of the First World War, the scholarship will fund interdisciplinary research on the receptions of classical heroism in the war and its cultural legacies in communities across regional Europe. The scholarship will cover the UK/EU tuition fees and a maintenance stipend at the standard Research Council annual rate (£13,762 in 2013-14).
Informal enquiries welcome: e.e.pender@leeds.ac.uk
Download project description pdf
Engaging Audiences: International perspectives on museum and heritage visiting - Symposium
Friday 24 May, 1.30-4pm, Wentworth College W/222
Posted on 21st May 2013
Symposium organized by ECCE (European Centre for Cultural Exploration, Department of Sociology) and IPUP, University of York
What brings visitors to museums and heritage sites? What do they bring to it? And how do they engage with different forms of display? This symposium will address state-of-the art visitor research in museums and heritage sites in a range of countries and types of museums and heritage sites – including history and art. It is an opportunity to explore the social relations and implications of different forms of audience engagement, as well as questions of how to study and interpret museum and heritage visiting.
Laurajane Smith (School of Archaeology and Anthropology, Australian National University): Visitor emotion, affect and registers of engagement at museums and heritage sites
Laurie Hanquinet (Department of Sociology and ECCE, University of York): Mondrian as kitchen tiles? Artistic and cultural conceptions of art museum visitors in Belgium
Discussants include: Geoff Cubitt (History) and Sharon Macdonald (Sociology)
All welcome!
Further event details (Department of Sociology)
For further information please contact: Sharon Macdonald (Sharon.macdonald@york.ac.uk)
Christians and Jews in Angevin England: The York Massacre of 1190, Narratives and Contexts
New publication from Sarah Rees-Jones and Sethina Watson
Posted on 24th April 2013
The mass suicide and murder of the men, women and children of the Jewish community in York on 16 March 1190 is one of the most scarring events in the history of Anglo-Judaism, and an aspect of England's medieval past which is widely remembered around the world. However, the York massacre was in fact only one of a series of attacks on communities of Jews across England in 1189-90; they were violent expressions of wider new constructs of the nature of Christian and Jewish communities, and the targeted outcries of local townspeople, whose emerging urban politics were enmeshed within the swiftly developing structures of royal government.
This new collection considers the massacre as central to the narrative of English and Jewish history around 1200. Its chapters broaden the contexts within which the narrative is usually considered and explore how a narrative of events in 1190 was built up, both at the time and in following years. They also focus on two main strands: the role of narrative in shaping events and their subsequent perception; and the degree of convivencia between Jews and Christians and consideration of the circumstances and processes through which neighbours became enemies and victims.
About the Editors
Sarah Rees Jones is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of History and Director of IPUP. She works on medieval urban history, with special interests in the history of citizenship and town planning.
Sethina Watson is a Lecturer in the Department of History. She works on the religious and social history of the High Middle Ages in England.
The book is available to buy through all good bookshops, or direct from Boydell and Brewer.
Dr Sarah Rees Jones appointed as New Director of IPUP
6th February 2013
Stuart Carroll, Head of the Department of History says:
"I am delighted to announce that the University Senior Management Group has just confirmed Sarah Rees Jones's appointment as the next Director of the Institute for the Public Understanding of the Past, which she will assume with immediate effect. IPUP will remain in History, but its brief will be to face out to other Departments and promote interdisciplinary dialogue and initiatives in the area of Public History throughout the University and beyond. Sarah brings a wealth of experience and expertise to the post and has made a great success of the MA in Public History. We congratulate her on her appointment and anticipate her taking IPUP forward in new and exciting directions."
IPUP marks Holocaust Memorial Day with "The York Jewish History Trail"
2.00pm to 3.30pm, Sunday 27th January 2013
Starting at the Yorkshire Museum, Museum Gardens YO1 7FR
Walking tour led by Professor Helen Weinstein with IPUP interns. Free and unticketed. All Welcome! Meet at the steps to the Yorkshire Museum.
The trail ends at Clifford's Tower at 3.30pm which has been kindly opened by English Heritage for free until 4.30pm to those on the IPUP trail.
Explore the History of York and discover one thousand years of York's Jewish past from buildings of the Norman period up to the site of York's last synagogue, closed in 1975.
If you want to take this as a self-guided trail, please see IPUP's Jewish History Trail webpage.
This event is organized by IPUP to mark Holocaust Memorial Day as part of the programme coordinated by the University of York and City of York Council. For further events in the region, see attached pdf
AHRC Cultural Value Project
Monday 14th January
Tate Britain
Helen Weinstein has been appointed to the Advisory of the AHRC and the Cultural Value Project.
In launching the two-year Cultural Value Project, the Arts & Humanities Research Council wishes to make a major contribution to how we think about the value of arts and culture to individuals and to society. Recent years have seen many attempts to capture that value in straightforward ways, not least in order to make the case to government for public funding, but none have commanded widespread confidence. The AHRC decided that something more ambitious was needed. The Cultural Value Project seeks to establish a framework that will advance the way in which we talk about the value of cultural engagement and the methods by which we evaluate that value. For more information, see
http://www.ahrc.ac.uk/Funded-Research/Funded-themes-and-programmes/Cultural-Value-Project/Pages/default.aspx