Archives mensuelles : novembre 2019

Dr. Jackie Uí Chionna: “Family Networks in the Revolutionary Generation: The Ryans of Tomcoole, A Case Study.” (28/11)

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Dr. Jackie Uí Chionna, de National University of Ireland, Galway, présentera sa communication “Family Networks in the Revolutionary Generation: The Ryans of Tomcoole, A Case Study.” le jeudi 28 novembre de 17h à 18h30. Maison de la Recherche, 28 rue Serpente, Paris 6e, salle D421.

‘The story of the Ryan girls is a fabulous family saga about a group of young women who were liberated by education and their own affirmative personalities in the early years of the 20th century…The standard biographies of Irish lives often ignore spouses and family connections, but these women were clearly influential on that revolutionary generation around them.’ Mary Kenny. Belfast Newsletter, 7 October 2014. Mary Kenny is an author, broadcaster, playwright and journalist.

Mary Kate (Kit), Josephine Mary (Min), Christina and Phyllis Ryan were sisters, and part of a close family circle, the Ryans, from Toomcoole, Co. Wexford, Ireland. Brought up in a strongly nationalist family, all of the sisters progressed to university, and their education, relationships and social circles placed them at the very heart of the revolutionary movement in the period 1912-1922.  Three of the sisters were in relationships with leading figures in the 1916 Rising – Phyllis and Min themselves served as messengers during the Rising. But they were also bright young women, who studied abroad, and whilst studying in London and Paris, they communicated with each other by way of a writing book or jotter, which was then circulated from one sister to another. They also wrote copious amounts of letters to each other, comparing notes on everything from political movements to their latest boyfriends and social lives. This will examine the correspondence of the Ryan sisters as a case study in the significance of family networks for the revolutionary generation in British and Irish history.

Sheila Rowbotham : “Memories of the  beginnings of  Women’s Liberation groups  in Britain  in  1969” (21/11)

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Sheila Rowbotham présentera sa communication “Memories of the  beginnings of  Women’s Liberation groups  in Britain  in  1969” le jeudi 21 novembre de 17h à 18h30. Maison de la Recherche, 28 rue Serpente, Paris 6e, salle D421

Sheila Rowbotham, who helped to start the women’s liberation movement in Britain, has written widely on the history of feminism and radical social movements, her most recent books are Edward Carpenter: A Life of Liberty and Love (2008) Dreamers of a New Day (2010) and Rebel Crossings: New Women, Free Lovers and Radicals in Britain and the United States. (2016) Formerly a professor at Manchester University. She is now an   Honorary Fellow  at  Manchester  and  has  received  an  honorary  doctorate  from  the  University of  Sheffield.

Pierre Purseigle : “Reparation, reconstruction, and remembrance. The reconfiguration of the transatlantic alliance in the aftermath of the First World War” (14/11)

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Pierre Purseigle (Université de Warwick et IEA Paris Seine) présentera sa communication “Reparation, reconstruction, and remembrance. The reconfiguration of the transatlantic alliance in the aftermath of the First World War” le jeudi 14 novembre 2019 de 17h à 18h30. Maison de la Recherche, 28 rue Serpente, Paris 6e, salle D421

Abstract : “Based on a work-in-progress on the comparative and transnational history of urban reconstruction after 1918, this paper sets out to explain why the Allied powers, and specifically Britain and the USA, never lived up the expectations of the “sinistrés.” This story however is not simply that of the dissolution of a wartime coalition. This paper will place the process of reconstruction in the wider context of wartime mobilisation and post-conflict demobilisation. It will seek not to reprise the long-lasting debate over peace-making and reparations, but to supplement conventional approaches to the consolidation of Western Europe after the conflict. It will highlight a long-underestimated circulation of representations, people and funds as well as the transnational networks of sociability that contributed to the reconstruction of Belgium and France.”

Elise Smith: “Skulls, Nation and Empire: The Rise and Fall of British Craniology, 1800-1939” (07/11)

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Elise Smith, Assistant Professor en histoire de la médecine à l’Université de Warwick, présentera son ouvrage à paraître chez Cambridge University Press, Skulls, Nation and Empire: The Rise and Fall of British Craniology, 1800-1939, le jeudi 7 novembre 2019 de 17h à 18h30. Maison de la Recherche, 28 rue Serpente, Paris 6e, salle D421

Abstract :

“In the nineteenth century, craniometry, the study of skull measurements, became one of the most commonly employed tools of anthropologists, anatomists, biologists and statisticians as they investigated human racial variation and development. This paper charts the mature development of craniometry as a quantitative enterprise in Victorian Britain, examining efforts to transform racial anthropology into an objective ‘science of man.’ In the process, it reveals how the collection and measurement of skulls operated as a complementary enterprise, requiring an advanced infrastructure of specimen collection, instrumentation, and institutional support. Although craniometry was employed both a basis for classification and a means by which peoples could be ranked according to their perceived cognitive abilities, its ostensible neutrality was undermined by an internal lack of standardization and increasingly sophisticated statistical techniques that challenged its core assumptions. The history of craniometry’s ‘rise and fall’ thus shows how shifting criteria for scientific acceptance shaped understandings of human difference against a backdrop of imperial expansion and professional anxieties”.