Labour and Society

The research strand has helped to generate a significant cluster of PhD students. They play an active role in steering the strand, organising events and in the LS PG writing group. We have strong research ties with our Northern Bridge partner institution, QUB. This has led to successful NB applications and joint supervisions.

We have good links with:

• Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums
• Northern Stage
• the Tyneside Irish Centre
• South Tyneside Council

We network with professional associations, including the:

• Society for the Study of Labour History
• International Conference of Labour and Social History
• Società Italiana di Storia del Lavoro
• European Labour History Network (ELHN)
• Irish Centre for the History of Labour and Class (ICHLC)
• Chartism Annual Conference

Dr Joan Allen’s research interests coalesce around:

• 19th century British radicalism
• Irish nationalism
• the popular press.

She is a former Vice President of the Society for the Study of Labour History. She's an editor of Labour History Review. Her most recent work is a contribution to Laurence Marley (ed.) 'The British Labour Party and Twentieth-Century Ireland' (MUP, 2015) and a study of Mazzini and print culture in Nick Carter (ed.) 'Britain, Ireland and the Risorgimento' (Palgrave, 2015).

Dr Sarah Campbell’s work focuses on:

• 20th century Ireland
• the Northern Ireland conflict
• social movements
• memory
• oral history
• protest

Her latest book is 'Gerry Fitt and the SDLP: "In a minority of one"' (2015). She is currently working on two projects:

• the civil rights movement and student protest in Northern Ireland in the late 1960s
• working men's clubs in North-East England since 1945

Dr Robert Dale is a Lecturer in Russian History. His research focuses on the late Stalinist period (1945-1953). It looks at the social, economic and cultural impact of the Great Patriotic War on Soviet society. His broad interests include:

• the role of voluntary, paid and forced labour in post-war reconstruction
• the changing nature of labour and the workplace under late Stalinism
• labour mobility during and after the Great Patriotic War

Dr Martin Farr’s current labour-related research includes three articles:

• James Callaghan, Michael Foot, and Neil Kinnock for a book entitled 'Labour and the Left in the 1980s'
• the effects of the Representation of the People Act 1918 on the House of Commons for a special edition of 'Parliamentary History'
• a comparative study of the deaths of Hugh Gaitskell and John Smith

Relevant recent publications include articles on:

• the 1918 general election
• the Labour Party and strategic bombing in the Second World War

Professor Tim Kirk is a Professor of European History at Newcastle University. He studied modern languages and history at Manchester University. He's published many works on working-class history, organised labour, fascism and cultural history. They include:

• 'Nazism and the Working Class in Austria' (CUP, 1996, 2003)
• 'Opposing Fascism' (edited with McElligott, CUP, 1999)
• 'Working towards the Führer' (ed)
• essays on the history of Austrian social democracy, workers culture in imperial Vienna

He is currently writing a book on fascism and the Nazi ‘new order’ in Europe. He is a fellow of the:

• Royal Historical Society
• European Academy of Arts and Sciences
• German History Society, which held its annual conference in Newcastle in 2016.

He is a member of the Newcastle-based research group in European Urban Culture.

Dr Matt Perry  works on aspects of 20th-century labour history in Britain and France. His interests are in social memory, transnationalism and protest. His books include:

• The Jarrow Crusade: Protest and Legend
• Prisoners of Want: the Experience and Protests of the French Unemployed 1921-45
• 'Red Ellen' Wilkinson: Her Ideas, Movements and World

He is currently researching the mutinies of French sailors in 1919.

Lost Futures: Historical Reflections on the Future of Work, Technology and Time

Monday 13 January 2020 (2-4pm)

The impact of new media and technology are fundamentally changing society and work. But to what extent is this novel? Previous technological change has inspired prophesies of dystopian, utopian and neutral effects. Some were proved accurate, others not, and most technological change had unanticipated effects. The Labour and Society Research group, the School of Historical Studies, and the Business School, Newcastle University extends an invitation to all interested staff, from whichever faculty, to a two-hour workshop and networking event to reflect on the impact of technology and the future of work. We encourage participants to reflect on any topic relevant to the interface of technology, social change, and work. This includes: social movements in favour of, and against, technological change in work; imagined and real discussions about the future of employment under the impact of pre-industrialisation, industrialisation and post-Fordism; theories of social change and technology; how social relationships are mediated and changed by new economics and new modes of production; how disruptive technological change is mediated by social institutions.

Rebellion, revolution and resistance in the twentieth century: Class, networks, and political violence

4-5 October 2019

Keynote speakers: 
• Professor Niall Ó Dochartaigh (National University of Ireland, Galway) - Friday 3pm - 'The hunger strike as protest tactic: negotiation, deadlines and the micro-temporalities of protest'. 
• Professor Sarah Waters (University of Leeds) - Saturday 2pm - 'Suicide as protest in the neoliberal French workplace'.

Generously supported by: Society for the Study of Labour History, Newcastle University Labour and Society Research Group , Royal Historical Society and British Association for Irish Studies.

Writing in 2006, Jim Smyth argued that ‘social movement theory and research have tended to focus upon middle-class and peaceable movements in advanced industrial societies. In general, movements with a nationalistic, ethnic or religious dimension have been ignored’. Smyth’s critique implored scholars to consider movements with more radical objectives, tactics, and strategies. As an intellectual field, social movement theory connects the individual, networks, and movements. Donatella della Porta has defined social movements as ‘networks of individuals and organisations, with common identities and conflictual aims that use unconventional means in order to change the social order’.

This workshop will situate radical social movements (violent and non-violent) in domestic and transnational contexts, throughout the twentieth century and in the contemporary world. With papers connecting concepts from social movement theory with case studies spanning radicalism in labour, feminist, and nationalist movements, it aims to understand more fully global cycles of contestation between the micro-dynamics of contention and broader historical processes.

FRIDAY 4 OCTOBER 2019 
1400-1430: Registration 
1445: Welcome and opening remarks (Emma Dewhirst & Jack Hepworth) 
1500: Keynote 1: Professor Niall Ó Dochartaigh - The hunger strike as protest tactic: negotiation, deadlines and the micro- temporalities of protest 
1615: Break 
1630: Panel 1: Radicalism, racial politics and refugee activism 
Joe Redmayne (Newcastle University) - Militancy and Whiteness amongst the Working People of County Durham, 1919: A Multi-Occupational Approach 
Maria Vasquez-Aguilar (Sheffield University) - From ‘victims’ to ‘actors’: the political activism of Chilean refugees in the UK following the military coup in 1973 
1800: Drinks reception

SATURDAY 5 OCTOBER 2019 
0900: Tea/coffee 
0930-1100: Panel 2: Radicalism and work 
Ben Partridge (Newcastle University) - “Run, comrade, the old world is behind you!” Revolution and the Republic in French strike photography 
Rowan Hartland (Northumbria University) - “White like you”: The Spectacle of Whiteface in the Free Southern Theater, 1964-1977 
Alison Atkinson-Phillips (Newcastle University) - “Save Our Shipyards”: Revisiting deindustrialisation in the north-east of England 
1100-1130: Break 
1130-1300: Panel 3: Political violence in twentieth-century Ireland 
Victoria Ball (University of Cambridge) - Jobs for the boys? The role of women in the Provisional IRA 1970-1998 
Emma Dewhirst (Liverpool University) - The Roots of Radicalism: Family and the creation of ‘Natural Radicals’ 
Jack Hepworth (University of Central Lancashire) - Between republicanism and revisionism: Writing Ireland’s twentieth-century political violence 
1300-1400: Lunch 
1400: Keynote 2: Professor Sarah Waters - Suicide as protest in the neoliberal French workplace 
1530: Plenary 
1630: Workshop concludes

ABSTRACTS & SPEAKER INFORMATION 
Niall Ó Dochartaigh 
The hunger strike as protest tactic: negotiation, deadlines and the micro-temporalities of protest 
• Niall Ó Dochartaigh is a professor in the School of Political Science and Sociology at the National University of Ireland, Galway. His research interests span conflict, territoriality, new technologies, and attempts to moderate or resolve conflict. A founding convenor of the ECPR Standing Group on Political Violence, Niall’s publications include From Civil Rights to Armalites: Derry and the Birth of the Irish Troubles (Cork University Press, 1997) and ‘“Everyone Trying”: The IRA Ceasefire, 1975: A missed opportunity for peace?’ (Field Day Review, 7, 2011). niall.odochartaigh@nuigalway.ie

Joe Redmayne 
Militancy and Whiteness amongst the Working People of County Durham, 1919: A Multi-Occupational Approach 
This paper gives an introduction to my PhD project exploring research aims, objectives, methods and anticipated challenges. It will situate County Durham during the year 1919 transnationally, exploring the global implications of Empire on British society through regional working-class consciousness. On 4 February 1919, as in Liverpool, Cardiff, Hull, Glasgow, London, Newport, Barry, Salford during the same year, a race riot took place in South Shields targeting Arab seafarers. The year 1919 stood at the beginning of the interwar remaking of County Durham as a Labour Party stronghold. This year might therefore be considered as formative of a refashioned working-class political identity that has persisted to the present day. 
This project allows us to gauge the extent to which ‘whiteness’ constituted an emergent strand of that identity. Given contemporary political debates about the ‘white working class’ as an element of the current political uncertainties and the rise of populism in the UK and beyond; this project can test the utility of the contentious concept of the ‘white working-class’ in a longer frame and, by using Mikhail Bakhtin’s concept of thought and language as a many voiced ‘dialogue’ renews our understanding of class consciousness with an emphasis upon its heterogeneity. 
• Joe Redmayne recently started his History PhD at Newcastle University funded by the Northern Bridge Consortium. He is interested in the study of global labour history and the methodology of setting small-scale historical phenomena within macro-historical processes. 
j.redmayne2@newcastle.ac.uk 
 
Maria Vasquez-Aguilar 
From ‘victims’ to ‘actors’: the political activism of Chilean refugees in the UK following the military coup in 1973 
Following the military coup in Chile in 1973, thousands were tortured, killed and made to ‘disappear’. Forced exile was used by the state to rid itself of its opponents and thousands more were forced to leave, with the UK accepting refugees within three months of the coup. The brutal military dictatorship, headed by General Pinochet, was to last seventeen years and Chilean exiles across the world actively campaigned against the regime. 
Political and human rights networks were formed locally, nationally and internationally and Chilean exiles were at the forefront of exposing the atrocities of the regime and trying to bring about political change. A great amount of solidarity was both received and given to other political struggles during the time. Using oral history, this research will look at the political activism of the Chilean refugees in the UK and their non-Chilean supporters, over a forty-year period. 
The study will also explore the impact on the second generation through the intergenerational transmission of memory and identity. Political activity did not end with the dictatorship, and the Extradite Pinochet campaign which emerged following Pinochet’s arrest in London in 1998 is a key example of the revival of networks of activists. 
This paper will provide an overview of the study and explore the role the exiles played in campaigning against the regime. I will also contend that this political commitment has been transmitted to the second generation, which illustrated by their increasingly significant role in subsequent campaigns following democratisation. 
• Maria Vasquez-Aguilar arrived from Chile with her family as political refugee in 1978. Maria is a qualified Politics teacher and an active member of the Chilean community. She is in the third year of her part-time PhD at the University of Sheffield. pop05mev@sheffield.ac.uk

Ben Partridge 
“Run, comrade, the old world is behind you!” Revolution and the 
Republic in French strike photography 
• Ben Partridge is a PhD candidate in History at Newcastle University. His doctoral research explores photography of major strike movements in France in June 1936 and May 1968. Ben’s article ‘Visualizing Labour: Photographing the Factory Gates in May 1968’ was published in Labour History Review in July 2019. b.partridge@newcastle.ac.uk

Rowan Hartland 
“White like you”: The Spectacle of Whiteface in the Free Southern Theater, 1964-1977 
In 1963, the Mississippi-based travelling theatre group the Free Southern Theater (FST) toured the American South performing racially integrated productions to local, mainly African American audiences. Their mission was to illustrate the problems African Americans faced in the South whilst providing cultural and educational opportunities to southern Black audiences during the Civil Rights Movement, and later the Black Power Movement. 
This paper investigates the spectacle of ‘Whiteface’ as a performative technique used by the FST to challenge perceived racial and cultural aesthetics in the American South. Their initial portrayals of racial allegory through Whiteface in their 1964 rendition of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot provided a new method of engaging with local, mainly rural, Black communities. However, the paper will demonstrate how Whiteface in Godot was not an isolated occurrence during FST performances. Whiteface acted as a tool of protest and as a vehicle for raising consciousness throughout the FST’s lifetime. By exploring the FST’s application of Whiteface in the several plays performed during the 1960s and 1970s, the paper will reveal the complexities of race, class, and identity explored within their radical protest strategy. Whilst FST scholarship casts the Theatre as primarily ‘integrationist’ and neglects the Whiteface aspect, this paper will explore the FST’s diverse, multi-layered, and often original campaigns which were used to contest life in the American South. 
• Rowan Hartland is currently writing a thesis on Black Power Culture in the under-researched and often marginalised regions in the US South. The thesis challenges the notion that Black Power was dominated by Northern Black Nationalism and instead emphasises the heterogeneous strategies of organisations and movements that formed cultural networks in the South. My research interests include the Black Power Movement(s); the Civil Rights Movement; African American Culture; Visual and Material Culture. 
rowan.hartland@northumbria.ac.uk

Alison Atkinson-Phillips 
“Save Our Shipyards”: Revisiting deindustrialisation in the north-east of England 
• Alison Atkinson-Phillips is Research Associate in the Oral History Unit & Collective at Newcastle University. Alison’s interdisciplinary research connects oral history, ‘difficult’ memory, trauma, and memorials. Her book Survivor Memorials: Remembering Trauma and Loss in Contemporary Australia was published by University of Western Australia Publishing in 2019. alison.atkinson-phillips@newcastle.ac.uk

Victoria Ball 
Jobs for the boys? The role of women in the Provisional IRA, 1970- 1998 
Women are largely absent from many authoritative historical accounts of the Provisional IRA (PIRA), echoing gendered assumptions of terrorism as an all-male domain. As interest increases into female participation in terrorism globally, the case of women in the PIRA must be reconsidered. This paper draws on feminist theory to challenge historical practices which have suppressed women’s voices, by using interviews with female members of the PIRA, both archival and conducted by the author. It argues that women filled multiple diverse roles, and were perhaps more versatile than their male counterparts. It concludes that women were disproportionately involved in bombings, which were central to the PIRA’s strategy. Further primary interviews, with women of similar backgrounds who did not join the PIRA, would be beneficial to clarify the scale of female involvement. The study concludes that women made a critical contribution to the organisation and argues for their inclusion and assessment in historical accounts of the PIRA. 
• Victoria Ball holds an MA in Middle Eastern Studies and Social Anthropology from Cambridge University and an MA from the War Studies department of King's College London. She is currently working on a European Commission-funded project with a team of academics at Cambridge University, investigating intercultural dialogue amongst schoolchildren in ten countries. Victoria is particularly interested in exploring what drives people, especially women and children, towards extremist ideology and political violence. victoria@victoria-ball.com

Emma Dewhirst 
The roots of radicalism: Family and the creation of ‘natural radicals’ 
The pre-revolutionary and revolutionary periods from 1913 to 1923 have been the subject of much research, which has only increased with the current ‘Decade of Centenaries.’ Only recently however has the role of women and the contribution of organisations such as Cumann na mBa(Irishwomen’s Council) to Irish Independence been explored within the historiography. This paper proposes to encourage a more inclusive approach to the role of women in the fight for Irish independence by exploring familial relationships, specifically the role of a woman as a mother in revolutionary families. 
Using the recently released records from the Irish Military Pensions Collections my research will explore the kinship ties and networks between revolutionaries. In doing so, this paper will provide a more inclusive analysis in terms of its approach to gender and highlight the variation of roles women and ‘the family’ had. 
This paper will draw upon social movement theory and political violence studies to identify how and why rebels were drawn into the Irish independence ‘movement’. An exploration using social movement theory considering the role of kin and kinship networks has yet to be completed, and a thorough examination of the interactions and interlinking between groups and individuals at a grass roots level is also absent from the existing historiography. The role of the family in the processes of radicalisation is similarly significant: from encouraging nationalist outlooks, participation, or providing support. This paper will examine the influence of parents, specifically mothers, within the processes of radicalisation and revolutionary activism. 
• Emma Dewhirst is a PhD candidate at the Institute of Irish Studies, University of Liverpool and a Council Member of the British Association of Irish Studies. Her research focuses on the processes of radicalisation and the interlinking networks within the Irish revolutionary movement from 1913 to 1919. e.c.d ewhirst@liverpool.ac.uk

Jack Hepworth 
Between republicanism and revisionism: Writing Ireland’s twentieth-century political violence 
Between the 1930s and 1980s, the opposing poles of republicanism and revisionism were the dominant paradigms in Irish historiography. So-called revisionists and social movement theorists alike were reluctant to address violent protest and insurgency. Only in the last two decades have social movement theorists applied their analytical frameworks to differentiate and understand the motivation and mobilisation for radical actors in violent movements. The Northern Ireland peace process, and more recently the Brexit saga, have profoundly affected how scholars and public historians represent and reflect on twentieth-century political violence in Ireland. This paper will review these historiographical developments, critically situating them in contemporary political, social, and economic questions in Ireland and Britain. 
• Jack Hepworth is Associate Lecturer in History at the University of Central Lancashire. His doctoral research at Newcastle University examined the internal dynamics of Irish republicanism between 1968 and 1998. Jack also has research interests in migration, food poverty, and the political and cultural dynamics of music and sport. jhepworth2@uclan.ac.uk

Sarah Waters 
Suicide as protest in the neoliberal French workplace 
• Sarah Waters is Professor in French Studies at the University of Leeds. Her current research explores workplace suicides in French, and her previous publications include Between Republic and Market: Globalisation and Identity in Contemporary France (Continuum, 2012); Memories of 1968: International Perspectives (co-edited with Ingo Cornils) (Peter Lang, 2010); and Social Movements in France: Towards a New Citizenship (Palgrave Macmillan, 2003). s.a.waters@leeds.ac.uk

With special thanks to: 
Society for the Study of Labour History Royal Historical Society, Newcastle University Labour and Society Research Group British Association for Irish Studies, Dr Sarah Campbell, Clare Holden, James Main, Dr Matt Perry.

Annual Conference

1 June 2019

The Labour and Society Research Group in the School of History, Classics and Archaeology, Newcastle University, will host the annual conference on the Chartist movement (1838-58) for workers’ rights and democracy on the 1st of June. 

The Chartist conferences were founded at the University of Birmingham in 1995 under the inspiration of the late Dorothy Thompson and have become a staple feature of Society for the Study of Labour History’s calendar of events. As well as a strong contingent of labour historians, the conferences attract a broad spectrum of academics - historians, literary scholars, postgraduate students from multiple disciplines and the wider public - all drawn together by a shared interest in Chartist studies and a desire to foster new research in the field and in the study of British radicalism. Moving the conferences from one venue to another, mostly in northern or central England but notably at Newcastle in 2015, has been a key element in encouraging new scholars. Some of that important work has been published by Merlin Press as part of its Chartist Studies series and two Special Issues on Chartism in Labour History Review (2009 and 2013). In 2010 and 2014 the conference was held at the University of Paris IV–Sorbonne and at NUI Galway. The conference has always attracted a diverse range of research papers reflecting yet again the continuing expansion of interest in all aspects of Chartist history but has sought to embrace a transnationalist agenda that deepens our understanding of the international links between Radicalism and Chartism.

Book a place: Chartism Day Conference booking form.

PROGRAMME 
9.00–9.15 Registration.

9.15–9.30 Introduction and Welcome (Joan Allen and Richard Allen, Newcastle).

9.30–10.15 Tom Scriven (Manchester). ‘Chartism's electoral strategy and the bifurcation of Radicalism’.

10.15–11.00 Joan Allen (Newcastle). ‘Chartist trials, 1839: Revisited’.

Break

11.30–12.15 Mike Greatbatch. (Independent/WEA). ‘William Parker: A Chartist Life’.

12.15-13.00 Joe Stanley (Sheffield Hallam). ‘Protest and Popular Politics amongst the Yorkshire Miners, 1786-1839’.

Lunch

2.00–3.00 Keynote Lecture: Robert Poole (UCLAN). ‘Peterloo and Chartism’ - title tbc

3.00–3.45 Mark Bennett (Durham). ‘Chartism’s legacy: the reform debate in Yorkshire, 1859-67’. 
Break

4.15-5.00 Matt Roberts (Sheffield Hallam). ‘The Visual and Material Culture of Chartism’.

Sponsors: with grateful thanks to School of History, Classics and Archaeology, Newcastle University, and The Society for the Study of Labour History.

The global challenge of peace - 1919 as a Contested Threshold to a New World Order

A conference

17-18 May 2019

Room 2.16 Armstrong Building, Newcastle University 
Free admission, please register at 1919conference@gmail.com. This event is organised by Labour and Society Research Group and Conflict and Revolution Research Strand at Newcastle University.

Programme 
Friday 17 May 2019

12.30 – 13.00 Registration and Coffee 
13.00 – 14.30 Panel 1: The Dynamics of Contention in 1919. Chair: TBC 
Jacopo Perazzoli (University of Milan): The General Strike of July 1919: Lenin, Wilson and their Influences on Italian Socialism 
Jude Murphy (WEA) and Nigel Todd (WEA): How did military/civilian dynamics shape matters with the return and demobilisation of millions of military personnel? 
Gordon J. Barclay and Louise Heren (Independent Scholars): The Battle for George Square, 1919: myth, memory and reality in Red Clydeside 
14.30– 15.00 Tea and Coffee 
15.00 – 15.45 Keynote Lecture – Chair: Máire Cross Professor Tyler Stovall (University of California, Santa Cruz): The Black and the Red: the Elaine, Arkansas Massacre of 1919 
16.00 – 17.30 Panel 2: Contentious Politics from Below. Chair: TBC 
Professor Claudia Baldoli (University of Milan): “Do as in Russia”: The Italian Peasant Movement in 1919 
Matt Perry (Newcastle University): The 1919 mutinies in the French Armed Forces: Colonialism, Ethnicity and the Remaking of the French left 
Professor Máire Cross (Newcastle University): Blessed are the peacemakers! The presence of ideas of nineteenth-century French socialists in twentieth-century pacifism 
Reception/Dinner 

Saturday 18 May 2019

09.30 – 11.00 Panel 3: Colonialism and Race. Chair: Joe Redmayne 
Neelam Srivastava (Newcastle University): Sylvia Pankhurst in 1919: Feminism, communism, and Interwar Internationalism 
Paul Griffin and Hannah Martin (Northumbria University): The “Race Riots” of 1919: Within and Beyond Exceptional Moments in Glasgow and South Shields 
Willow Berridge (Newcastle Univesity): Iraqi Perspective on Gertrude Bell 
11.00 – 11.30 Tea and Coffee 
11.30 – 13.00 Panel 4: Reaction and Non-Reaction. Chair: Rob Dale 
Christopher Loughlin (Newcastle University): The Forward March of Reactionary Working-Class Politics? Democratic Authoritarianism and “Modernity” in Britain and Ireland, 1919 
Professor Tim Kirk (Newcastle University): 1919: Revolution, Counter-revolution and Fascism in Austria 
Jeffrey Johnson (Providence College): The “Soviet Ark” in Context: The Buford and the Anti-Radicalism of 1919 
13.00 – 14.00 Lunch 
14.00 – 15.30 Panel 5: Transnational Interactions in 1919. Chair: Matt Perry 
Sarah Hellawell (Sunderland University): Women as Peacemakers: The Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom in Zurich, 1919 
Megan Trudell (Newcastle University): Soldiers, Veterans and Volunteers for Gabriele D’annunzio’s occupation of Fiume 
Estela Rukseniene (Independent Scholar): British Military Missions as Intermediaries between Western Europe and Lithuania in 1919-1920s 
15.30 – 16.00 Closing Comments (Rob Dale)

'Cross Disciplines': An exploration of the intersectionality of biography, transnationalism, gender and labour

20-21 September 2017

This workshop will explore the themes of interest that have shaped the work of scholar Professor Máire Cross, who has been on the steering committee of the Labour and Society Research Group since its inception in 2009. Máire will be retiring from the University in September after 12 years in the School of Modern Languages as Professor of French Studies. During a distinguished career, Máire has established an international reputation as a leading researcher in the field of nineteenth-century French history. Locally, she has been a long-standing member of the HaSS Labour and Society History Research Group, and the Gender Research Group.

Fighting for Rights: From the Rights of Man to Freedom City Lecture Series

September 2017 – April 2018

In collaboration with the Tyneside Irish Centre and Freedom City, we have organised a series of lectures that focuses on specific historical struggles against discrimination and political oppression and will examine the emergence of human rights and social justice within specific historical contexts.

The Labour and Society Social Theory Reading Group

The Labour & Society Social Theory Reading Group will run weekly on Thursdays at 2pm commencing Thursday 28th September 2017 for ten weeks. (The programme is being finalised and will be circulated shortly). Each week a member of staff or PGR will lead on a particular piece of work (with scanned copies pre-distributed by email); all other participants will have read sections of that work. Please contact Jack Hepworth if interested.

‘Race, Class, and Revolution: Insights from 1919’

Labour and Society research seminar

Professor Tyler Stovall (University of California Santa Cruz)

People’s history in historical pageants in Britain, 1905–2016 (Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne Lecture)

Wednesday 25 October 2017, Newcastle University

Alexander Hutton, King’s College London

Whatever happened to our shipbuilding industry?

Tuesday 7 November 2017, 17:30 - 18:45 Curtis Auditorium, Herschel Building, Newcastle University

Dr Paul Stott, naval architect and shipbuilder, School of Engineering, Newcastle University events

‘Fake News!’: An Historical Perspective

10-11 November 2017 Newcastle University

In association with the Newspaper & Periodical History Forum of Ireland

Fake news is a term that has become familiar in late 2016 and early 2017, not least because of international political developments. But is it necessarily a new phenomenon? The control, presentation and manipulation of news has played a key role in the, sometimes tumultuous, history of Anglo-Irish relations. And a similarly important role in the assertion and subversion of power in colonial, totalitarian and radical societies throughout history worldwide. To what extent does fake news, and its close relative propaganda, represent active falsification of information and the dissemination of misinformation, as opposed to the reporting of mistakes or errors due to confusion? What are the implications of the accusation of fake news for a report or news outlet? How does historical perspective change the evaluation of whether something is fake news? The Newspaper and Periodical History Forum of Ireland (NPHFI) seeks to investigate this phenomenon and its historical application in the print media at its tenth annual conference which will be convened by Dr Joan Allen at Newcastle University. This is only the second time the conference has been held in England. Papers will interrogate and/or challenge these questions from a range of disciplinary perspectives at this event.

‘The Personnel of Armageddon’ - Politicians and Artists, 1914-1919

29 November 2017 Laing Gallery

Talk by Dr Martin Farr on the political and social background to the First World War.

‘68: Resonances and Reverberations’

Friday 19th January 2018

We will invite speakers from a range of disciplines to talk about the ‘afterlives’ of '68 in transnational contexts. How have collective memories of '68 been invoked in subsequent political contexts? How have collective memories of '68 been shaped and transmuted? What relevance does '68 have today? Organised by Jack Hepworth, Ben Partridge and Ruairidh Patfield (all postgraduate research students).

Permanent display of Jarrow Crusade Artefacts at Jarrow Town Hall, opened 31 May 2016. 
 
Marching into History exhibition at South Shields Museum and Art Gallery, 1 October 2016 to 25 February 2017.

Dr Matt Perry acted as guest curator for the exhibition. He designed the layout and contents, identifying artefacts and drafting text. 12,222 visitors attended. The exhibition sought to make the Crusade relevant today. It looked at themes of austerity, migration, health and wealth inequalities. It showed newsreels. It had a range of artefacts not assembled together up to that point. It elicited loaned items from Crusader families. It displayed interviews with families about how they felt to be from families of men who marched. Dr Perry also conducted two guided tours for crusader relatives of the exhibition. He also participated in the educational offer that the Museum put together. This involved three local schools (St Josephs, Jarrow Cross and St Bedes).

Who Were the Marchers? Film (2016)

Dr Perry participated in the conceptualisation and making of the film Who Were the Marchers?  (link to archived site) It was produced by local filmmaker Gary Wilkinson.

Public lectures

Dr Perry has conducted public talks on both Ellen Wilkinson and the Jarrow Crusade. They looked at their contemporary relevance (inviting organisation, date and attendance):

• Jarrow Library (1 June 2016, 42)
• Literary and Philosophical Society (Lit and Phil, 3 October 2016, 45)
• Jarrow Town Hall (reception event of invited guests for crusader families and local school children and their parents, 5 October 2016: c. 200)
• Newcastle University (Insights Public Lecture, 20 October 2016, 330)
• South Shields Art Gallery and Museum (1 December 2016, 30)
• Low Light Museum (4 March 2017, 40)
• St Matthews Church Hall, Jarrow (Jarrow Women’s Institute, 14 February 2017, 150)
• Influence Church, Richmond (Richmond and District Civic Society, 9 February 2017, 100)

Media appearances and consultancy

Dr Perry appeared on:

• Radio Newcastle interviews (29 September 2016)
• Tyne Tees
• Look North
• for an Italian documentary on Brexit
• for an Arte documentary The History of Britain – from Above.

Dr Perry spoke in Jarrow Town Hall to relatives of Crusaders, councillors and local schoolchildren. He spoke at the Lit and Phil. He also took part in the Newcastle University Insights Lecture series.

Educational Project: Who Were the Marchers? Jarrow Library sessions

Four sessions took place in Jarrow Library with two primary schools, St Bede’s and Jarrow Cross. Each session last an hour and a half. Catrin Galt of South Tyneside Library Service, Matt Perry and Tom Kelly, playwright, participated. The project combined library resources, primary materials, re-enactment activities, and creative writing. It drew on the skills and expertise of the three project leaders.

Testimonials

Jeremy Corbyn, Leader of the Labour Party, quoted from speech at Monkton Stadium, Jarrow, 1 October 2016, commemorating the 80th anniversary of the Jarrow Crusade.

"The most famous MP that Jarrow had was Ellen Wilkinson […] and I’ve just been reading Red Ellen Wilkinson by Matt Perry of Newcastle, it is an amazing book."

Read testimonials ‌from:

• Helen Ford (Correspondent and presenter for ITV Tyne Tees and Border)
• Stuart Maconie (BBC radio broadcaster)
• Lucy Lunt (Producer: Ramblings. BBC Radio 4)
• Colin Grant (Lecture Program Coordinator, The Richmond and District Civic Society)
• Kitty Walker (researcher for Paul Unwin, playwright, writing a West End play about the 1945 Labour Government)
• Dr Mikhail Karikis (Artist, Senior Lecturer & Associate Research Fellow, University of Brighton)

This exhibition was inspired by Newcastle’s connection to Dr Martin Luther King Jr. It offered the chance to contemplate the black freedom struggle in one American city in a compelling multi-sensory way. The focus is on Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, famed for its central role in the US steel industry. It's one of the many cities where African Americans flocked to find better opportunities during the Great Migration, which they found alongside new forms of segregation. 
 
The project was coordinated by Dr Ben Houston. He directed the Remembering African American Pittsburgh (RAP) oral history project before he came to Newcastle. The exhibit matches digital audio clips from selected interviews with historic photos taken by the renowned Charles ‘Teenie’ Harris. He's a long-time resident whose archive of over 80,000 images constitutes one of the finest photographic archives of black urban life in the world. Taken together, the combination of spoken memories and the visual imagery serves as an example of how African Americans experienced and fought against racism. As part of this event, a companion app - meant to include members of the public in connecting the themes of the exhibit to their daily lives today - was available. It featured a virtual version of the exhibit alongside the chance for user reflection and feedback. 
 
The exhibition Not As It Is Written: Black Pittsburgh in Voice and Image ran at the Great North Museum: Hancock during Freedom City. A similar version ran at the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh (home of the Teenie Harris archive) from 28 July 2017 to 21 January 2018.