Northumbria University and the Economic History Society

Sarah Hellawell

For the next year David Hope and I will hold the grand title of Economic History Society (EHS) Student Ambassadors for Northumbria University. For those not familiar with the EHS, the Society supports research and teaching in economic and social history, broadly defined, and is a premier community of scholars. I would like to stress that the Society is indeed broad in scope; I am by no means an economic historian!

Our role as Student Ambassadors is to facilitate communication between the EHS and students here at Northumbria, and to highlight funds and opportunities that the Society makes available. Notably, the Society offers a Research Fund for Graduates (up to £500), which some of our PGR community have successfully been awarded for overseas archival research.  Smaller grants are also available for those researching undergraduate dissertations – it’s not just for the postgrads! In addition, the EHS Annual Conference is a great opportunity for networking and showcasing research. 

We will keep students at Northumbria up-to date with EHS events throughout the year, including CfPs and funding deadlines – look out for our emails!  In the meantime, please note that the deadline for the Research Fund for Graduates closes on 1st November (there will be additional opportunities to apply in 2015), and the call for new researcher posters for the EHS Annual Conference closes 14th November.

Student membership of the EHS for one-year costs only £10.50. Membership includes access to the Economic History Review, opportunities for training, presentations, networking, research grants, and conference bursaries. You can find out more by visiting the EHS website — http://www.ehs.org.uk/http://www.ehs.org.uk/

Feel free to reach out to either of us in person or you can send enquires to ehs@northumbria.ac.uk.

Sarah Hellawell is a second year PhD candidate in History at Northumbria, working with Daniel Laqua and Nicole Robertson.  Her PhD research considers the relationship between feminism and peace activism in the international women's movement from 1915 to 1939, particularly focusing on the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom.

David Hope is a third year PhD candidate in History at Northumbria, working with Tony Webster and Joe Hardwick. He is very interested in the economic history of the long eighteenth century, especially in respect of commerce and consumerism. His PhD research focuses on Britain's fur trade between 1783 and 1821, and highlights the associated commodity exchanges and consumer behaviour in the North-Atlantic World.

Research Group Publishes Journal Issue on 'Transnational Solidarities'

Daniel Laqua

The following is a cross post from the Histories of Activism blog.

Earlier this year, members of the Histories of Activism research group published a themed issue of the Journal of Modern European History, discussing 'Ideas, Practices and Histories

of Humanitarianism' - you'll find the relevant information in one of our earlier blog entries. We are now delighted to announce our second publication for 2014: a special issue of the European Review of History: 'Transnational Solidarities and the Politics of the Left, 1890-1990'. Co-edited by Charlotte Alston and Daniel Laqua, this journal issue investigates campaigns and trajectories that transcended national boundaries. In this context, the authors consider forms of activism in which ideas or professions of activism featured prominently. The different articles can be accessed via the journal's website. There are altogether eleven contributions:

• Charlotte Alston (Northumbria University) frames the other articles by means of an introductory essay, drawing out various connecting themes.
• Robert Henderson (Queen Mary, University of London) sheds light on the wider context of the Hyde Park Rally of 1890; he considers how and why different groups – from British trade unionists to Russian exile activists – protested against the killing of Russian opponents of the Tsarist regime.
• Daniel Laqua (Northumbria University) traces the international mobilisation on behalf of Francisco Ferrer - a Catalan anarchist and educator whom the Spanish authorities sentenced to death in 1909 - drawing attention to the role of freethinkers, republicans and anarchists in the pro-Ferrer protests.
• Michael Goebel (Free University of Berlin) investigates the transnational trajectories of the revolutionary and anti-colonial activist M.N. Roy, with a focus on Roy's involvement in the foundation of the Mexican Communist Party in 1919.
• Gleb Albert (Bielefeld University) examines the case of Soviet citizens who sought to support Republican Spain in the struggle against Franco's Nationalists and who wrote to the secretary of the Comintern with the aim of being accepted as volunteers in the Spanish Civil War.
• Anne-Isabelle Richard (Leiden University) discusses the Congress of the Peoples of Europe, Asia and Africa (held at Puteaux in 1948), placing this event within its wider context, namely socialist visions of a united Europe and their relationship to anti-colonial stances.
• Jodi Burkett (Portsmouth University) analyses the internationalism of the National Union of Students of England, Wales and Northern Ireland (NUS) during the 1950s and 1960s, both with regard to its link to international student organisations and its involvement in transnational campaigns such as the anti-Apartheid movement.
• Sylvia Ellis (Northumbria University) studies the variety of British protest against the Vietnam War, shedding light on the perspectives of labour activists as well as the activism of groups such as the CND, the British Council for Peace in Vietnam, the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign.
• Eleanor Davey (Manchester University) sheds light on French Third Worldism and the creation of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), exploring the relationship between humanitarian and revolutionary discourses.
• Christian Helm (Hannover University) focuses on West German solidarity with the Sandinistas, tracing the motivations and experiences of Germans who travelled to Nicaragua and who organised solidarity events in their own country.
• Kim Christiaens (KU Leuven) considers the wider Nicaragua solidarity movement, with particular emphasis on the role of exile activism and the transnational strategies of the Sandinista Liberation Front (FSLN).