LSRG Seminar on 8 December: Laura O'Brien on 1848

The Labour and Society Research Group (LSRG) is a research forum jointly run by academics from Newcastle University and Northumbria University's Histories of Activism group. 

We are delighted to announce our next event: on Monday 08 December, Laura O’Brien from Sunderland University will present her work. Dr O'Brien is a specialist in French history whose work has shed light on republican identity in nineteenth-century France. Her book The Republican Line: Caricature and French Republican Identity, 1830-1852 is under contract with Manchester University Press.

On Monday, she will discuss 'Histories as Activism: Writing the History of the 1848 Revolution in France’.  The seminar will take place at 5:00 pm in room 035 of Northumbria University’s Lipman Building. We hope to see many of you there!

Research group publishes journal issue on 'transnational solidarities'

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).

Death and Labour Workshop (18 April, Newcastle University)

Our colleagues at Newcastle University are holding a very interesting workshop on 'Death and Labour' this week. The initiative is tied to the 'Labour and Society Research Group', a joint research initiative by Newcastle and Northumbria.

Labour and Society Research Group,

Thursday 18 April, 11am-4pm

Panel one: Burial and Labour (11-12.30)

Felix Schulz: ‘The Flames of the revolution: the funeral and cremation of August Bebel’

Máire Cross: ‘Ideological transmissions in sickness and in death: valedictory treatment of Flora Tristan in Socialist and Feminist History’

Sarah Campbell: ‘Notable Irish republican deaths: bodies, funerals and martyrdom’

1.30-2.30 food

Panel two: Labour Deaths, Labour Martyrs (1.30-3.00)

Martin Farr: ‘ Comparing the deaths of Labour leaders: the cases of John Smith and Hugh Gaitskell’

Matt Perry: ‘The death of Red Ellen: Ellen Wilkinson, obituaries and the making of a Labour martyr’

Chris Bannister: ’Posthumous cult of personality of Buenaventura Durruti’

Keynote (3.00-4.00):

Paul Strangl, Associate Professor, Western Washington University. 

Please contact matt.perry@newcastle.ac.uk for further details