UC History update
After repairs, we are back in our ‘History Building’ – although, despite protest, it is now also known as the ‘Popper Building’ after a certain philosopher. Gone are the glorious days of three floors devoted to History. The Jim Gardner memorial tree was ‘accidentally’ felled during renovations. But fear not, the Canterbury Historical Foundation has placed a memorial bench in memory of Jim, and a second bench in memory of Neville Phillips. Commerce has colonised our previous floor space, and we are squashed into half of the 5th floor with others in the Humanities. Student numbers are stable, and our post-graduate numbers are strong. Unfortunately, mid-year colleagues voted to end the 0.5 New Zealand History teaching-only position, and at the end of 2015 we farewell Joanna Cobley, who has been a departmental mainstay over the past three years, including serving as the busy NZHA secretary. We have hosted many visitors in 2015 – in particular, Dr Jenny Macleod (University of Hull) as a Canterbury Fellow. Adjunct Fellow Chris Pugsley was shortlisted for the Ernest Scott Prize.
With her two year term over, Jane Buckingham is the out-going HOD and Katie Pickles is taking over as Professor and Head on 1 January.
Peter Field is off in the USA as the 2015-16 Garwood Professor at Princeton University.
David Monger’s latest article, ‘Familiarity Breeds Consent? Patriotic Rituals in British First World War Propaganda’, has recently appeared in Advance Access online in Twentieth Century British History (it is likely to appear in the print edition early in 2016). The article calls for greater attention to the organisation and structure of propaganda, alongside its content. A short article on the Union of Democratic Control was published in 1914-1918 Online: International Encyclopedia of the First World War, and David has been asked to write a longer article on Propaganda at Home (Britain and Ireland) for this scholarly, open-access publication. In July and August, David presented with Jenny Macleod as her visit was his idea.
Chris Jones spent January as a visiting scholar at the University of Heidelberg. While in Europe, he also delivered lectures at the universities of Münster and Mainz, and held a Scouloudi Award at the Institute of Historical Research. He is due to return to Münster as a visiting fellow in December. This year he has published two edited collections of essays, John of Paris: Beyond Royal & Papal Power (Brepols) and an exploration of medieval and Early Modern material in New Zealand, ‘A Road Less Travelled: Collections & Collecting in New Zealand’. The latter will appear as a special edition of the journal Parergon in December. He has also completed a series of articles on the medieval chronicler of Sens, Geoffroi de Courlon, two of which are scheduled to appear in the journals The Medieval Chronicle and Viator in 2015/16. He was elected President of the Australian and New Zealand Association for Medieval and Early Modern Studies in April.
In February, Evgeny Pavlov, who has a 0.5 cross-appointment in History, was invited to be one of the keynote speakers at the international conference Other Logics of Writing: in Memory of Arkady Dragomoshchenko at Smolny College, St Petersburg University, Russia. In October he was invited to speak at the international symposium “Mapping Early Soviet Union by Participant Observation in Literature, Film and Photography” organised and funded by the Institute of Slavic Studies at the University of Zurich, Switzerland where he presented the paper “Mapping the Caucasus (with Goethe and Kant): Andrey Bely’s Attempts at Soviet Travel Writing.” In November, Evgeny will be visiting scholar at Humboldt University, Berlin. He is also invited to present on his recent work on obsession with time in early Stalinist culture at the University of Sheffield, UK. He is currently in sabbatical leave in St Petersburg, Russia, completing his book manuscript on time travel in the Soviet culture of the late 1920s.
In April Katie Pickles spoke at the Canadian War Museum’s international speaker series as part of a panel on the Gallipoli legend. On the centenary of Edith Cavell’s execution, Transnational Outrage: the Death and Commemoration of Edith Cavell was published in paperback by Palgrave Macmillan. Katie and Cathy Coleborne’s edited collection New Zealand’s Empire is published by Manchester University Press, studies in imperialism, in December 2015 and a launch is happening at the NZHA conference. Katie is teaching her ‘Recovering Christchurch’ summer school again this year and Christchurch Ruptures, is due for publication in February 2016 with Bridget Williams Books. Katie was on study leave during semester one, 2015.
In April, Heather Wolffram was invited to the University of Queensland to give a public talk on the history of criminal profiling as part of a seminar series on the intersection of science and pseudoscience. In July, she was invited to speak at the Locating Forensic Science and Medicine Conference held at Notre Dame’s London campus, where she gave a paper on ‘Forensic Knowledge and Forensic Networks in Britain’s Empire’. In early October, Heather won the 2015 Jackson Prize, which is awarded for the best article in the History of Medicine and the Allied Sciences during the last three years. Forthcoming in History of Psychology, Heather has an article on forensic psychology, which will be published in November. In addition she is currently working on a book manuscript, which is the outcome of her Marsden-funded research on the history of forensic psychology.
Julian Vesty, History Department Masters student, co-authored his first academic paper with Joanna Cobley. Entitled ‘Southern Spirits: The case of the Christchurch Psychical Research Society,’ Records of the Canterbury Museum 29 (October 2015), the article extended his summer scholarship (2013/14) with Heather Wolffram as primary supervisor and Joanna as second. Julian examined objects from the Canterbury Museum and the Macmillan Brown Archive. In June Joanna, in collaboration with the Macmillan Brown Library and Archive, showcased her research into student engagement with primary sources at UC’s teaching week with this 10 minute video [https://youtu.be/dNZBHS9EWnY]
It has been our pleasure to host the NZHA executive during the past two years. We look forward to welcoming you to Canterbury, cradle of the NZHA.
The New Zealand Historical Association 