History@Manchester

Two Manchester historians awarded prestigious Philip Leverhulme Prizes

Dr Alexia Yates, Senior Lecturer in Modern History, and Dr Stefan Hanß, Senior Lecturer in Early Modern History, have been awarded a Philip Leverhulme Prize 2020 worth £100,000 in recognition of their outstanding research achievements. With this prize, The Leverhulme Trust recognises ground-breaking “work of outstanding research scholars of proven achievement, who have made and…

‘Black women who have struggled to make our efforts possible’: Olive Morris and the Legacy of Black Power in Manchester

In the month of October we will be marking Black History Month by sharing a series of short essays written by four recent graduates of the History Department at the University of Manchester. These students were part of Kerry Pimblott’s third-year seminar on the Black Freedom Movement and were tasked with putting their new historical…

RESEARCH NEWS: “Opportunities and challenges in the sharing economy” Dr Alexia Yates discusses what Airbnb can tell us about nineteenth-century Paris.

As a historian of cities and economic life, I am interested in how markets transform our understanding and use of space, as well as how local governments grapple with the political and social consequences of those economic changes. Studying real estate as an object with a history offers useful insights for some contemporary urban issues….

RESEARCH NEWS: “Corpses of Mass Violence and Genocide”: Dr Jean-Marc Dreyfus discusses uncovering the ‘forensic turn’ in his recent ERC-funded project.

Skulls displayed at the Nyamata Memorial Site, Rwanda. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. What was the starting-point for this project? Histories of genocide have tended, to date, towards examining the aftermath of mass violence in relation to issues of trauma and memory, and how these factors shape the subsequent political, cultural, and social characterisations of…

STUDENT LIFE: “Manchester’s treasure trove” Dr Laure Humbert reflects on tips and treasures when using the John Rylands Library.

The interior of the John Rylands University Library. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. As a historian working on displacement and humanitarianism, I visited many archives in various countries over the course of my PhD. Research trips (particularly abroad) were often pleasant, but at times stressful: I had to find my way around different archival catalogues…

Manchester’s Transnational Friendship with France: James Connolly discusses the ‘adoption’ of Mézières.

The 1921 Lord Mayor’s pageant raising funds for Mézières. Image courtesy of Manchester Central Library: http://www.manchester.gov.uk/news/article/7160/central_library_exhibition_to_celebrate_the_link_between_manchester_and_m%C3%A9zi%C3%A8res My last post touched upon my recent side project on British towns adopting French towns and villages after the First World War. Here, I would like to briefly highlight how this transnational history also had a highly local and…

History@Manchester

Stokely Carmichael in London: The birth of the British Black Power Movement?