Muriel Pécastaing-Boissière, « Les biographies de Giordano Bruno par Annie Besant (publiées entre 1876 et 1911) : entre stratégie de justification et autobiographie occulte » (9 mars)

Jeudi 9 mars à 17h: Muriel Pécastaing-Boissière (Sorbonne Université), « Les biographies de Giordano Bruno par Annie Besant (publiées entre 1876 et 1911) : entre stratégie de justification et autobiographie occulte »

Le long parcours d’Annie Besant (1847-1933), libre-penseuse puis théosophe, socialiste, féministe, et anti-impérialiste en Inde, a longtemps décontenancé ses biographes, prompts à y voir fractures et inconsistance (cf. Arthur Nethercot, The First Five Lives of Annie Besant et The Last Four Lives of Annie Besant, 1960-3). Pourtant, si la quête intellectuelle et spirituelle de Besant connut plusieurs étapes, son développement n’en fut pas moins sous-tendu par une continuité de pensée, qu’un travail sur l’ensemble de ses écrits permet de retracer. Ainsi, parmi les textes de Besant négligés jusqu’ici par la recherche, se trouvent quatre biographies du philosophe de la Renaissance Giordano Bruno, mort au bûcher, à Rome, en 1600, publiées par Besant entre 1876 et 1911. Leur étude montre que la fascination de Besant pour Bruno forme une passerelle entre sa libre-pensée et sa théosophie. De plus, ces textes révèlent un fort processus d’identification, au point de pouvoir être lus comme des autobiographies occultes, qui permettent à Besant de prolonger les stratégies de justification de ses choix et de ses luttes, entamées dans ses Autobiographical Sketches (1885), et dans Annie Besant: An Autobiography (1893).

Muriel Pécastaing-Boissière est maîtresse de conférences en civilisation britannique (époque victorienne) à Sorbonne-Université. Son domaine de recherche actuel porte sur les liens entre le féminisme, le socialisme et le renouveau spirituel de la fin de l’époque victorienne. Sa biographie Annie Besant (1847-1933): Struggles and Quest a été publiée chez TPH, à Londres, en 2017.

Jane Humphries, ‘“The best job in the world”: breadwinning and the capture of household labour in 19th and early 20th-century British coal mining’ (8/12)

Jeudi 8 décembre 2022 à 17h (salle D421 à Serpente) :

Jane Humphries (Oxford / LSE ), ‘“The best job in the world”: breadwinning and the capture of household labour in 19th and early 20th-century British coal mining’

This paper, written with Ryah Thomas, explores the effects of gender inequality and women’s disempowerment in the context of historical coalmining. Across the US and Europe, ex-coalmining regions are characterized by significant deprivation. While there are many reasons for persistent problems, this study focuses on the restrictions imposed on women’s involvement in economic life. Families in mining communities exemplified the male breadwinner structure, in which men’s earnings supported wives and children who provided domestic services in return. This article, however, exposes a different reality of household economics and relations of dominance and subordination: All family members were integrated into the coalmining production process and the creation of profit. Women’s unpaid work did not simply provide domestic comfort; it transferred well-being from women and children to men and simultaneously contributed to the colliery companies’ profits. These findings revise accounts of mining families while providing insight into the intransigence of deprivation in ex-coalmining areas.

Frédérique Lachaud, Stéphane Jettot et Fabrice Bensimon : « Les ressources numériques en histoire britannique » 

Jeudi 24 novembre 2022 à 17h (salle D421 à Serpente) :

Frédérique Lachaud, Stéphane Jettot et Fabrice Bensimon (Sorbonne Université) : « Les ressources numériques en histoire britannique » 

Cette séance, à l’intention des étudiants de master et de doctorat, évoquera les principales ressources numériques en ligne en histoire britannique. Après une présentation générale, certaines collections en histoire médiévale, moderne et contemporaine seront plus particulièrement présentées.

Quentin Gasteuil : « Les travaillistes britanniques face aux questions coloniales durant l’entre-deux-guerres » (10 nov.)

Jeudi 10 novembre 2022 à 17h  : attention, séance sur Zoom uniquement (veuillez contacter l’équipe organisatrice pour le lien de connexion)

 

 

Quentin Gasteuil : « Les travaillistes britanniques face aux questions coloniales durant l’entre-deux-guerres »

 

Tout au long de l’entre-deux-guerres, les travaillistes britanniques sont confrontés aux questions liées à la domination coloniale exercée par le Royaume-Uni outre-mer : tentatives de gestion de l’Empire qui succèdent à sa phase d’expansion, projets de réformes ou encore contestations par les populations colonisées du sort qui leur est fait. Les occasions ne manquent pas pour que les membres du Labour Party, dont la place sur l’échiquier britannique a pris une importance nouvelle au lendemain de la Première Guerre mondiale, s’expriment et agissent vis-à-vis de ces enjeux. Selon quelles modalités le font-ils ? Qui sont ceux qui prennent ces sujets en main, personnellement et pour leur parti ? Par quelle pensée coloniale sont-ils guidés ? Durant cette intervention, c’est à un éclairage particulier de l’appréhension métropolitaine des questions coloniales qu’inviteront de tels questionnements, en même temps qu’ils donneront la possibilité de saisir certaines des spécificités du mouvement travailliste britannique.

Julia Laite, ‘Finding Lydia Harvey: reflections on global microhistory, creative non-fiction, and playing with scales in the The Disappearance of Lydia Harvey’ (27 oct.)

Jeudi 27 octobre 2022 à 17h (salle D421 à Serpente) :

 

Julia Laite (Birkbeck, University of London), ‘Finding Lydia Harvey: reflections on global microhistory, creative non-fiction, and playing with scales in the The Disappearance of Lydia Harvey

 

Lydia Harvey boarded a steamship in Wellington, New Zealand in January of 1910 bound for Argentina, where she was forced to sell sex in Buenos Aires by the people who had trafficked her there. They later brought her to London, where she was discovered by the Metropolitan Police and became the star witness in their case.  The Disappearance of Lydia Harvey traces this story, chases Lydia through the archive, and reveals the entangled lives of her traffickers, their prosecutors, and those who sold and used Lydia’s story for their own ends.

In this talk, Julia Laite will examine the digital methodologies that made this global microhistory possibly, explore the potential of creative non-fiction and storytelling in historical scholarship, and discuss the ethics and practicalities of rescuing someone from ‘the condescension of posterity’.

 

Julia Laite is Professor of History at the Department of History, Classics and Archaeology at Birkbeck, University of London. She researches and teaches on the history of women, crime, sexuality and migration in the nineteenth and twentieth century British world. Her latest book, The Disappearance of Lydia Harvey: A true story of sex, crime, and the meaning of justice (Profile, 2021) won the Crime Writer’s Association Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction and the Bert Roth Award for New Zealand Labour History.

LAURA KING : ‘The School Case of Poor Harold: Families’ multi-generational remembrance of deceased children in twentieth-century England’ (12 mai)

Jeudi 12 mai de 17h à 18h30 – Salle D040 à Serpente

 

LAURA KING (Leeds) : ‘The School Case of Poor Harold: Families’ multi-generational remembrance of deceased children in twentieth-century England’

 

‘Poor Harold’ died in 1931, aged nearly eleven, and left behind a school case. This paper examines the story of this ‘ordinary’ boy and his family, who have chosen to preserve his memory through the keeping of this object. The paper examines the case itself, and the story associated with it, as told by Harold’s niece Maureen. In doing so, the article explores remembrance culture in interwar England and inter-generational memory cultures since, focusing on emotional practices, attitudes to death, cross-generational family identities, and changing engagement with religion and faith.

 

Latest monograph : Family Men: Fatherhood and Masculinity in Britain, c.1914-1960 (Oxford University Press, 2015)

 

Contact : Stéphane Jettot jettot@yahoo.com



Emma Griffin, autour de son livre “Bread Winner. An Intimate History of the Victorian Economy” (21/04)

Séminaire franco-britannique d’histoire

https://sfbh.hypotheses.org/

Maison de la Recherche, 28 rue Serpente, Paris 6e, Salle D421, de 17h à 18h30

(La séance aura lieu en présentiel uniquement. Un enregistrement sera diffusé ultérieurement sur la chaine youtube du séminaire ).

 Jeudi 21 avril 2022 à 17h: Emma Griffin (East Anglia), autour de son livre Bread Winner. An Intimate History of the Victorian Economy (Yale University Press, 2020)

Abstract

Nineteenth century Britain saw remarkable economic growth and a rise in real wages. But not everyone shared in the nation’s wealth. Unable to earn a sufficient income themselves, working-class women were reliant on the ‘breadwinner wage’ of their husbands. When income failed, or was denied or squandered by errant men, families could be plunged into desperate poverty from which there was no escape.
Emma Griffin unlocks the homes of Victorian England to examine the lives – and finances – of the people who lived there. Drawing on over 600 working-class autobiographies, including more than 200 written by women, Bread Winner changes our understanding of daily life in Victorian Britain.

Emma Griffin is a Professor of Modern British History at the University of East Anglia. She is the author of several books, the editor of the Historical Journal, and the President of the Royal Historical Society.

Hugh McLeod, “Le déclin de la chrétienté en Occident. Autour de la crise religieuse des années 1960” (31 mars)

Séminaire franco-britannique d’histoire
Jeudi 31 mars 2022, 17h-18h30
Maison de la recherche
28 rue Serpente, Paris 6e, salle D421

Hugh McLeod (Birmingham), autour de son livre Le déclin de la chrétienté en Occident. Autour de la crise religieuse des années 1960 (traduit par Elise Trogrlic, Labor et Fides, 2021)

Dans cet ouvrage élevé au rang de « classique » par l’English Historical Review, McLeod revisite la crise religieuse des années 1960 dans une perspective européenne et nord-américaine. Son usage des sources orales rend son travail très original et la perspective comparatiste qu’il adopte est assez rare pour être soulignée. Le texte a pour particularité de situer les questions religieuses dans un contexte véritablement international, contribuant ainsi à une histoire internationale de la spiritualité et de la sécularisation, autour de la notion de «déclin» de la chrétienté (revisitée), de la montée de la société de consommation dans les années 1960, de l’année 1968, et des questions de sexualité et de genre. L’ouvrage explore ainsi les interrogations de la décennie des « sixties » pour nous aider à mieux saisir les questions religieuses et spirituelles qui agitent nos sociétés contemporaines.

Traduit de l’anglais par Élise Trogrlic. Préface de Guillaume Cuchet et Géraldine Vaughan

Thomas Jones, “The Foreign Jews Protection Committee: refugee protection and relief in First World War Britain” (17 mars)

Jeudi 17 mars 2022 à 17h_ Thomas Jones (University of Buckingham) “The Foreign Jews Protection Committee: refugee protection and relief in First World War Britain”. 

The First World War was a watershed moment in the history of political and religious asylum in Britain. Though now mostly remembered for the welcome given to Belgian refugees in 1914, the war years saw the permanent end to the legal framework of asylum and prevailing public attitudes towards refugees that had been shaped by the Victorian notion of a universal ‘right of asylum’. Refugees’ rights were significantly curtailed, and many deemed to be of hostile national origin or political orientation were interned and deported, with postwar legislation permanently embedding the new restrictionist dispensation. 

This paper will explore these developments by examining the Foreign Jews Protection Committee, a refugee organization that transformed itself several times in response to the shifting political landscape of these years. Alternatively a mass campaigning body, a registered ‘war charity’, and a conduit facilitating the flow of information and relief funds between the British state and resident refugee populations, the remarkably adaptive FJPC illustrated the bewildering and decisive changes to British asylum wrought in these years.

Thomas C. Jones is a Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Buckingham. His work focuses on exile, transnationalism, and political thought in modern Europe. He was a founding member of the AsilEuropeXIX network and is currently writing a history of asylum in Britain for Harvard University Press.

Florence Sutcliffe-Braithwaite, ‘No More Walls. Homelessness in London after 1945’ (17 fév.)

Séminaire franco-britannique d’histoire

Jeudi 17 février 2022 à 17h

Maison de la recherche

28 rue Serpente, Paris 6e, salle D421

 

Florence Sutcliffe-Braithwaite (University College London), ‘No More Walls. Homelessness in London after 1945’

 

This paper aims to sketch out changing state policy on “homelessness” and the changing ecology of homelessness in postwar London, as well as saying something about how this impacted on the experiences of Londoners who found themselves without a home in the three decades after 1945.

 

The Second World War intensified the emotional weight invested in “home” in British culture; it created mass homelessness in London (and in other cities), but it also ushered in the “people’s peace”, the final sweeping away of the Poor Law, and the beginning of a major push by Labour and Tory governments to build council and private housing. In the three decades after 1945, patterns of homelessness in London were shaped by those developments, as well as slum clearance, new commonwealth migration, racialized council-house allocation policies, full employment and the slow arrival of “affluence”. In this period, street-sleeping was reduced to very low levels in London – though the actual levels were contested – and, more slowly, homelessness and inadequate housing for families were reduced – though never eradicated. Remnants of the Poor Law remained, however, not least in the reception centres which dealt with homeless individuals and families, which were set up in old Poor Law buildings. Remnants of the pre-war way of thinking about homelessness also persisted, in the way policy was gendered, and in the way ‘vagrants’ – those without a ‘settled way of life’ – were thought about. The overview of the infrastructure for and policy about homeless people thus shows that older, moralised ways of approaching the issue persisted in the welfare state.

 

Florence Sutcliffe-Braithwaite est historienne, spécialiste de la Grande-Bretagne au XXe siècle. Elle est notamment l’auteure de Class, politics, and the decline of deference in England, 1968-2000 (Oxford University Press, 2018), et elle mène, avec Natalie Thomlinson,, un projet d’histoire orale sur les femmes dans la grève des mineurs de 1984-1985.

 

Christine Kinealy, ‘Maud Gonne (1866-1953). The Real Famine Queen’ (16 déc.)

Jeudi 16 décembre à 17h : Christine Kinealy (Quinnipiac University), ‘Maud Gonne (1866-1953). The Real Famine Queen’  

 

 Maud Gonne is frequently remembered as a society beauty who was the unrequited love interest of the poet, W.B. Yeats, while her contributions as a nationalist, artist, actor, lecturer, polemist, feminist, writer and social activist are often marginalized. In particular, Gonne’s engagement with the perennial poverty and intermittent subsistence crises that dogged Ireland in the final decade of the 19th century and into the 20th century has largely been ignored. Yet the visit of Queen Victoria to Dublin in 1900 prompted Gonne to write the polemical article, ‘The Famine Queen’, which first appeared in her journal L’Irlande Libre. The designation has proved to be enduring. 

A celebrity in Ireland, France and North America, this lecture will explore how Gonne used her fame and her connections to help rebuild a transatlantic republican movement following the demise of Charles Stewart Parnell. Moreover, it will show how Gonne’s commitment to social justice remained central to her political activities.  

 Christine Kinealy is professor of History at Quinnipiac University, where she is the founding director of Ireland’s Great Hunger Institute.

Charles-François Mathis: «Le charbon, un marqueur de civilisation pour l’Angleterre?» (25/11)

Maison de la Recherche, 28 rue Serpente, Paris 6e, Salle D421, de 17h à 18h30 (La séance aura lieu en présentiel uniquement. Un enregistrement sera diffusé ultérieurement sur la chaine youtube du séminaire).

Jeudi 25 novembre à 17h : Charles-François Mathis (Paris 1 – Panthéon Sorbonne), « Le charbon, un marqueur de civilisation pour l’Angleterre ? »

En Angleterre, du règne de Victoria à la Seconde Guerre mondiale, se met en place ce qu’on peut légitimement appeler une « civilisation du charbon », tant ce combustible modèle le paysage, les esprits, le rapport au monde et au temps. Moteur de l’industrie, certes, il est ici plutôt étudié sous l’angle de ses usages domestiques : comment se le procure-t-on à bas coût ? Comment modèle-t-il les intérieurs ? Quels gestes quotidiens nécessite-t-il et comment sont-ils transmis aux enfants ? Quelles sont les stratégies employées par les producteurs et les distributeurs pour défendre auprès des consommateurs cette civilisation lorsqu’elle est mise à mal dans l’entre-deux-guerres ?

Charles-François Mathis est Professeur d’Histoire Contemporaine à l’Université Paris 1 – Panthéon Sorbonne. Son ouvrage La Civilisation du charbon vient de paraître aux éditions Vendémiaire (2021).

Laura Carter, ‘Education, popular history, and everyday life in Britain, 1918-1979’ (28 oct.)

Maison de la Recherche, 28 rue Serpente, Paris 6e, Salle D421, de 17h à 18h30 (La séance aura lieu en présentiel uniquement. Un enregistrement sera diffusé ultérieurement sur la chaine youtube du séminaire).

Jeudi 28 octobre à 17h : Laura Carter (Université de Paris / LARCA), autour de son livre Histories of Everyday Life. The Making of Popular Social History in Britain, 1918-1979 (Oxford University Press, 2021)

Title: ‘Education, popular history, and everyday life in Britain, 1918-1979’

Abstract: This paper explores the argument put forth in my latest book, Histories of Everyday Life: The Making of Popular Social History in Britain, 1918-1979 (Oxford University Press, 2021). The history of social history in twentieth-century Britain usually begins in the 1960s, with the rise of ‘history from below’, emanating from universities. This paper presents an alternative, educational history of social history in modern Britain, focusing on popular publishing, the BBC, museums, and the state school classroom. It argues that after 1918 popular social history in Britain was primarily shaped by pedagogical ideas about how ‘ordinary’ people made sense of the past. This form of mass historical education defined mid-twentieth century attitudes to history, and gave female educators a prominent role in crafting historical narratives. It declined in the 1970s not because academics invented a better alternative, but because a more diverse educational public began to demand a different type of history, one that directly addressed issues of power.

Laura Carter est Maîtresse de Conférences en histoire britannique à l’Université de Paris et membre du LARCA.

 

 

Gareth Curless, “Labour, Decolonization and Class: Re-Making Colonial Workers at the End of the British Empire” (08/04)

Jeudi 8 avril 2021 à  17 h : Gareth Curless (University of Exeter), “Labour, Decolonization and Class: Re-Making Colonial Workers at the End of the British Empire”

The strikes and labour riots that swept through the empire during the late 1930s are widely regarded as a watershed moment in the history of British imperialism. According to conventional histories, the unrest was a catalyst for a major reorientation of not just colonial labour policy but colonial attitudes towards social and economic development in the empire. Gareth Curless reconsiders this established narrative, using comparative case studies from Singapore, British Guiana and the Gold Coast.

While accepting that colonial states intervened more directly in the social and economic spheres of colonial rule after the late 1930s, Gareth Curless argues that these policies emerged out of pre-existing policies and debates in both London and the colonies, which in some instances can be traced back to the late 19th century; as the civilising mission gave way to the language of modernisation, colonial labour regimes continued to be concerned with the control, regulation and reproduction of African and Asian workers. Curless shows that the power of the colonial state was not absolute, however, considering African and Asian workers who frequently practiced more subterranean or `everyday’ forms of resistance such as absenteeism, industrial sabotage, theft and go-slow protests. He emphasises the role of class and `ordinary’ Africans and Asians, focusing on the emergence of class identity and consciousness as a result of struggles between colonial workers and employers and the state.

 

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