Memory at

the Margins

7 – 8 June 2018
Richmond Building, Bristol Students’ Union
CONTENTS
Welcome to Bristol 2

Keynote speakers 3

Conference Programme 6

Organisers 9

Session chairs 10

Speakers’ abstracts 12

Poster abstracts 24

Discussion ground rules 28

It is imperative that we proclaim that asylum issues are an

index of our spiritual and moral civilisation. How you are
with the one to whom you owe nothing, that is a grave test
and not only as an index of our tragic past... I believe that
the line our society will take in this matter on how you are
to people to whom you owe nothing is a signal. It is the
critical signal that we give to our young, and I hope and pray
that it is a test we shall not fail.

Rabbi Hugo Gryn in his final speech (1996)

Photo acknowledgements: Rainbow Pilgrims exhibition photographs © Davide Olmeo

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WELCOME TO BRISTOL
We are pleased to welcome you to this year’s Memory Studies Research Cluster conference,
which will interrogate ideas around ‘Memory at the Margins’. The aim of this conference is to
widen the traditional understanding of memory through an examination of the voices that are
typically left out of local, national, and international narratives.

Much work has gone into creating the exciting and diverse programme for this conference. As
with our 2017 conference, this year’s programme showcases research from a truly international
network of delegates including scholars from Europe, America, Asia, and the Middle East. We
thank all of our participants for engaging with the conference theme in such diverse and
exciting ways. The variety of research on show is testament to the high quality of research
happening across the globe in the field of Memory Studies. We hope that the variety of panels
will ensure lively debate between panellists and audience members. Equally, the showcase
poster exhibition has been designed to spark one-on-one conversations between researchers.

The conference has been made possible due to generous funding from the South, West and
Wales Doctoral Training Partnership. This funding has enabled us to cover the overheads of
the event, so we have been able to waive registration costs for all participants.

The city of Bristol – which plays host to this year’s conference – has its own difficult past and
is an interesting case study of marginalised memories. The city is currently engaging in debates
about the renaming of prominent buildings and the removal of statues as the history of Bristol’s
transatlantic slave economy is re-examined.

During the conference we encourage the use of our hashtag: #memorySW

We hope all participants find the conference stimulating and rewarding.

With best wishes,

Amy King and Chad McDonald

Cluster directors

* Email: memorystudiesSW@gmail.com

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KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
Matthew Brown is Professor of Latin American History at
the University of Bristol. He works with Chaka Studio and
Karen Tucker on the Quipu Project (quipu-project.com), a
transmedia documentary about the unconsented sterilisations
of hundreds of thousands of Peruvians in the 1990s. After
almost 20 years of silence and injustice, their voices can finally
be heard through a free telephone line in Peru that connects
them to The Quipu Project. Matthew is also working on a
research project on the history of sport in South America in
the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, having
published his book From Frontiers to Football: An Alternative
History of Latin American since 1800 in 2014. His collective
biography of the men who fought at the Battle of El Santuario
in October 1829 – The Struggle for Power in Post-Independence
Columbia and Venezuela – was published in 2012. He blogs
about Latin American Independence, particularly its
international context (bolivariantimes.blogspot.co.uk), and
can be found on Twitter: @mateobrown.

Surat-Shaan Knan is a Diversity Consultant, LGBTQI+

heritage manager, and public speaker. Shaan is the founder
and manager of the landmark Heritage Lottery Fund-
supported projects Rainbow Jews, Twilight People, and
Rainbow Pilgrims. These projects are all hosted by Liberal
Judaism. Shaan is a proud member of the Stonewall Trans
Advisory Group, works as Trans Organisation Network
Worker for the LGBT Consortium, and is a trustee with
GIRES. Shaan has been a part of the AHRC-funded project
Ritual Reconstructed in collaboration with Buckinghamshire
New University, Portsmouth University, and Coventry
University. In 2016, he co-produced Through a Queer Lens, an
Arts Council England-supported portrait exhibition by
Ajamu and the Jewish Museum, London. Shaan organised the
first UK Trans* & Faith Symposium at the University of
Warwick in May 2016. He has spent more than two decades
as educator, performance artist, and project co-ordinator with
numerous international organisations including Sydney
Western University.

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Tony Kushner is Professor of the History of Jewish/non
Jewish Relations in the Parkes Institute and History
Department at the University of Southampton. Prior to
joining the University of Southampton, Tony was historian
for the Manchester Jewish Museum. For many years, he was
the Director of the Parkes Institute and helped it to become
one of the largest centres for Jewish studies in Europe. His
published works include The Holocaust and the Liberal
Imagination: A Social and Cultural History (1994);
Remembering Refugees: Then and Now (2006); Anglo-Jewry
since 1066: Place, Locality and Memory (2009); and The Battle
of Britishness: Migrant Journeys since 1685 (2012). His most
recent book is Journeys from the Abyss: The Holocaust and forced
migration from the 1880s to the present (2017). He is currently
working on a study of the construction of ethnicity in the
British armed forces. Tony is co-editor of the journal Patterns
of Prejudice and deputy editor of Jewish Culture and History.

Ruth Pickersgill is a Labour Councillor representing Easton,

a diverse inner-city ward in Bristol. She chairs the Inclusive
Cities Taskforce, Race Equality in Education Group, and
leads for the Labour Group on refugee and asylum issues.
Ruth retired in 2016 from a career in equalities and education,
which included work as a teacher, local authority officer, and
CEO of three disability charities. More recently, Ruth was a
senior leader in two further education colleges, where much of
her work was focused on safeguarding and equalities. Ruth
gained a Masters in Interfaith Relations in 2010. In 2011, she
was awarded an MBE for work on equality and diversity in
further education. Ruth is a longstanding trustee of Bristol
Refugee Rights and – more recently – Bristol City of
Sanctuary. She is Chair of Governors for the most diverse
secondary school in Bristol, where many children have
English as an additional language and are new to the UK.
Additionally, she is on a member of the HOPE Virtual School
governing body, which supports children in care, including
unaccompanied asylum seekers.

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Kathrin Pieren is the Collections Manager and Curator
(Social and Military History) at the Jewish Museum, London.
She has previously worked in research management and policy
in Switzerland and in several British museums, including as
the Curator at the Petersfield Museum in East Hampshire.
Kathrin has a Lizentiat in Italian Language and Literature
from the University of Bern and an MA in Museum Studies
from Newcastle University. She was awarded her PhD in
Modern History from the University of London in 2011, with
a thesis examining the early history of Jewish exhibitions and
museums in Britain. Her research interests are museums,
migration, and identities, and – in particular – the history and
role of Jewish museums. Kathrin’s publications include an
article on material culture and cultural identity published in
the journal Jewish History and Culture in 2012. Her most
recent article, ‘The Role of Exhibitions in the Definition of
Jewish Art and the Discourse on Jewish Identity’ was
published in Ars Judaica (Volume 13) in 2017.

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PROGRAMME
Thursday 7 June 2018
Bristol Students’ Union, Richmond Building, 105 Queens Road, Bristol, BS8 1LN

17:30 –19:45 RAINBOW PILGRIMS LAUNCH [Carpenter Room]

Chair: Chad McDonald
17.30 – 17.45 Ruth Pickersgill, ‘Can Bristol really be a City of Sanctuary for all asylum
seekers and refugees?’
17:45 – 18:00 Another Story: The Rainbow Pilgims Film
18:00 – 19:45 Opportunity to explore the Rainbow Pilgrims exhibition.

20:00 CONFERENCE DINNER

Address: Al Bacio, 95 Queens Road, Bristol, BS8 1LW

Friday 8 June 2018

Bristol Students’ Union, Richmond Building, 105 Queens Road, Bristol, BS8 1LN

9:00 – 9:25 REGISTRATION [Link Space]

9:25 – 9:30 WELCOME AND HOUSEKEEPING [Stephenson Room]

9:30 – 10:30 QUESTION TIME: MEMORY AT THE MARGIN [Stephenson Room]

Panel: Matthew Brown, Surat-Shaan Knan, Tony Kushner, and
Kathrin Pieren
Moderated by Amy King

10:30 – 11:00 REFRESHMENTS [Link Space]

11:00 – 12:30 SESSION 1

Panel 1 Emily Bridger, ‘Soweto’s female comrades: marginalised voices from

‘Missing voices’ apartheid South Africa.’

Chair: Grace Jack Crangle, ‘Interviewing the “other” in Northern Ireland: memory,
Huxford identity and racism in a sectarian landscape.’

[Stephenson Room] Sabrin Hasburn, ‘Memories into memoirs: the importance of alternative
sources to fill the gaps.’

Panel 2 Elen Caldecott, ‘Challenging myths: transnational historical fiction for

‘Narratives of time young adults.’
and space’
Kostas Kaltsas, ‘“And so I am real”: Personal and national history in
Chair: Josie Gill contemporary literature.’

[Odlum Room] Meera Shirodkar, ‘Partition Memories: their contemporary

representations and ensuing relevance in Indian Cinema.’

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12:30 – 13:45 LUNCH AND POSTER EXHIBITION [Link Space / Carpenter Room]

13:45 – 15:15 SESSION 2

Panel 3 Tot Foster and Ruth Myers, ‘The unforeseen consequences of gathering
‘Recovering local and valuing personal stories: positive outcomes from three local projects.’
stories’
Roger Panetta, ‘Carceral Memories: the Sing Sing Prison Museum.’
Chair: Josie
McLellan Chloe Wells, ‘(Post)memory at the margins: Finnish borderlands youth
remember a lost Finnish city.’
[Stephenson Room]

15:15 – 15:45 CONSENSUS WORKSHOP: ‘What practical steps can we take to

make academic conferences better and more inclusive?’
[Stephenson Room]
In this interactive session, conference delegates will be asked to
think about how conferences could be different.
Facilitated by Ghee Bowman

15:45 – 16:15 REFRESHMENTS [Link Space]

16:15 – 17:45 SESSION 3

Panel 4 Eluned Gramich, ‘History made present: creative and critical exploration
‘Sexual violence of the German expulsions (1945–1949).’
and abuse’
Michael Duffy, ‘Women’s Time, Sovereign Time and the Abductee in
Chair: Geetanjali Jamila Hashmi’s Exile and Amrita Pritam’s Pinjar.’
Gangoli
Rachel Ferguson, ‘Living memory: thinking critically about
[Stephenson Room] contemporary public inquiries.’

Panel 5 Clara de Massol, ‘Loss and decay in the Anthropocene: recording climate
‘Memory as politics’ change and endangered heritage in the present.’

Chair: Sumita Manon Nouvian, ‘Celebrating the memory of Thomas Paine in

Mukherjee nineteenth-century British popular radicalism.’

[Odlum Room]

17:45 – 18:45 DRINKS RECEPTION AND REFLECTIONS [Link Space]

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POSTER SHOWCASE
Alongside the Rainbow Pilgrims exhibition, we will be showcasing 8 research projects during our
Showcase Exhibition. These will be available all-day on Friday 8 June in the Carpenter Room.

o Sophie Campbell, ‘Is slavery still on the margins?’

o Thomas Cheetham, ‘An Analysis of British Army Veterans' Oral Testimony and the North-
West European Campaign, 1944–45.’

o Nina Fiches, ‘Language and identity in Of Arthour and Merlin: the geopolitics of memory.’

o Amy King, ‘Memories of the Old City Docks, Bristol.’

o Frédérique Manceau, ‘The silent memory: an anthropological essay on the shared memory of
female clothing industry.’

o Alice Morrey, ‘The forgotten builder: Abbot Ford and the beginning of Downside.’

o Mary Ryder, ‘The human cost of the drug war in Colombia: a missing memory.’

o TRAM Research Cluster, ‘Hybrid cultures and the colonial gaze.’

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ORGANISERS
Amy King is a final year PhD candidate in Italian Studies jointly
supervised at the University of Bristol and the University of Bath. She
holds an MA in Cultural Memory and is co-director of the Memory
Studies Research Cluster. Her research addresses secular martyrdom
in twentieth century Italy. She is currently spending six months
collecting oral histories about the former Bristol City Docks to create
a soundscape along the Bristol harbourside. She is also using these
interviews to co-write a piece of verbatim theatre and organise a
storytelling event with the Bristol Ferry Company. You can follow
the project: @bristoldockers.

Chad McDonald is co-director of the Memory Studies Research

Cluster. He is currently a third year PhD History candidate, based in
the Department of History at the University of Bristol and Parkes
Institute at the University of Southampton. Chad’s PhD research
explores how individuals have shaped Holocaust remembrance and
commemoration in London from 1945 until the present day. He has
recently had an article published in the journal Holocaust Studies
exploring the use of distance and rupture in oral history testimonies
given by Kindertransport refugees.

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SESSION CHAIRS
Josie Gill is a Lecturer in Black British Writing of the 20th and 21st
Centuries at the University of Bristol. Her research interests are in
contemporary literature, particularly Black British and African
American writing. Josie’s current research project examines the
relationship between scientific and fictional engagements with race in
Britain and the United States since the 1970s. Josie is Principal
Investigator of the AHRC funded project ‘Literary Archaeology’:
Exploring the Lived Environment of the Slave, which brings together
archaeological scientists, creative writers, and literary scholars to
develop a new approach to the study of the lives of enslaved people.
Her article ‘Science and Fiction in Zadie Smith’s White Teeth’ was
awarded an Honourable Mention in the Journal of Literature and Science
and British Society for Literature and Science Essay Prize (2013).

Geetanjali Gangoli is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Bristol.

She has worked on violence against women and feminist movements
in India with a special emphasis on legal activism. She has also
researched on issues around sex work, trafficking, and social policy in
South Asia. Geetanjali has taught at the University of Delhi (1995-7);
been a visiting research fellow at the London School of Economics and
Political Science (1999-2000); and worked as a Research Fellow at the
International Centre for the Study of Violence and Abuse, University
of Sunderland. Her recent work has been a comparative study of young
people's experience of violence and abuse within the family in China
and the UK and an assessment of domestic violence provisions in West
Newcastle.

Grace Huxford is a Lecturer in 19th/20th Century British History at

the University of Bristol and co-organiser of the Bristol Oral Histories
Research Cluster. She has interests in the Cold War, the history of
British forces in the Korean War, oral history, the interaction between
war, state and society, and the history of selfhood. In 2014/15, Grace
was Research Fellow in Oral History at the Institute for Advanced
Study (University of Warwick) and an Early Career Fellow. As
Research Fellow in Oral History, she co-ordinated the university’s oral
history project, ‘Voices of the University: Memories of Warwick, 1965-
2015’, to mark the University of Warwick's fiftieth anniversary. Her
monograph The Korean War in Britain: Citizenship, selfhood and
forgetting was recently published by Manchester University Press.

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Josie McLellan is Professor of History and Head of Department at
the University of Bristol, with particular interests in public history and
the co-production of research with people outside universities. Josie
began her career as a historian of East Germany, but her recent projects
have taken place closer to home, working with groups in Bristol and its
surrounding areas. Josie has worked with Single Parent Action
Network to put on an exhibition on the history of women in inner city
East Bristol, with Outstories Bristol to produce a digital map of the
South West’s LGBT+ history, and with Openstorytellers to explore the
history of learning disabilities through storytelling. From 2010-2014,
Josie was co-editor of the journal Contemporary European History and
is a member of the editorial collective of Gender & History. In spring
2014, she was a visiting professor at the Department of History,
Sciences Po.

Sumita Mukherjee is a Senior Lecturer in History at the University

of Bristol, specialising in transnational mobility of South Asians in the
imperial era (nineteenth and twentieth century). Her first monograph
– Nationalism, Education and Migrant Identities: The England-Returned
(Routledge, 2009) – discusses the politicisation of Indian students at
British universities in the early twentieth century and the impact their
return to India had on the nationalist movement. She has since co-
edited three books and published articles and chapters. Her next book
– Indian Suffragettes: Female Identities and Transnational Networks
(Oxford, 2018) – looks at the activities of Indian campaigners for the
female vote in Asia, Europe, USA, Britain and other parts of the
British Empire, and how they had an impact on campaigns in the
Indian subcontinent. Her personal website can be found at:
sumitamukherjee.wordpress.com.

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SPEAKERS’ ABSTRACTS
‘Soweto’s female comrades: marginalised voices from apartheid South Africa’
Key words: gender; violence; South Africa

In 1984, as South Africa’s struggle against apartheid entered its final decade, the country’s students
and youth rose to the forefront of the liberation movement, engaging in non-violent and violent
resistance against the apartheid state. In both popular and academic narratives of this period, the
‘comrades’ – as young activists were known – are overwhelmingly depicted as male, with no
attention paid to the experiences of politicised girls and young women. Drawing on interviews with
predominantly male comrades, previous historians have cast the struggle as an exclusively masculine
pursuit, believing that political activity was a matter only for men, because they said it was. When
female comrades are interviewed, however, they contradict the claim that township activism and
violence were inherently masculine activities.
Based on oral history interviews with male and female former comrades, this paper asks why
girls’ involvement in the liberation movement has been marginalised, and how these women
contend with their marginalisation in the post-apartheid period. At first it explores how and why
male comrades deny the involvement of young women in the struggle, arguing that narratives of
the struggle as exclusively and heroically masculine benefit these men in the present. It then
analyses how female comrades use oral history interviews to insert themselves into collective
memories of South Africa’s past, exploring which parts of their histories they celebrate, apologise
for, or silence in attempts to contest the marginalisation of their memories. As female comrades’
involvement in the struggle has been continuously neglected, their own memories have responded
by stressing agency over victimisation, gender equality over derision or abuse, physical strength over
weakness, and empowerment over trauma. This paper analyses how women leverage such
memories as currencies of legitimacy, as heroic narratives of resistance continue to hold political
salience in South African today.

Emily Bridger is a Lecturer in Global and Imperial History at the University of Exeter, having
completed her PhD there in 2016. Emily’s work explores issues of gender, youth, violence, and
memory in apartheid and post-apartheid South Africa. Her previous work has been published in
Gender & History and the Journal of World History. Her latest article will be published in the Journal
of Southern African Studies in Summer 2018.

‘Challenging Myths: transnational historical fiction for young adults’

Key words: historical fiction; transnational; young adults

Historical fiction for children and young adults is an important dissemination mechanism for the
myths we tell ourselves about our nations. From Rosemary Sutcliff’s barbarous Picts to Michael
Morpurgo’s innocent War Horse, the characters we meet often reflect or even shape our national

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identity. But what happens when writers for young readers take a transnational approach to their
historical fiction? Do the myths stay static, or is there room for hybridity, or even dissent?
This paper will look at three examples of transnational writing for children and examine the
opportunities and challenges it affords. My own historical novel, The Short Knife, has been the
subject of my practice-led research in the field and is an attempt to hybridise the Welsh and English
languages. G. R. Gemin’s Sweet Pizza is a fictionalised account of Italian internment in Wales
during the Second World War. The Curious Tale of the Lady Caraboo by Catherine Johnson
considers the effect of the British Empire on the imaginations of some of its Bristolian inhabitants.
All of these works use transnational tropes to challenge the accepted narratives of national identity
and do a little myth-making of their own.

Elen Caldecott is a writer for children and young people. She has a special interest in the
transnational paradigm and its role in creative writing. Elen likes to mix stories of adventure with
real-life situations, because she thinks that ordinary people can do extraordinary things. Her
practice-led PhD is jointly supervised by Aberystwyth and Bath Spa Universities.

‘Interviewing the “other” in Northern Ireland: memory, identity and racism in a

sectarian landscape’
Key words: migration; discrimination; identities

In twentieth century Northern Ireland it was sometimes claimed that people were ‘too busy being
sectarian’ to be racist. Migrant minorities – despite living in Ulster in their thousands – were
deemed unworthy of attention, with policymakers confidently asserting that, unlike Great Britain,
Northern Ireland had ‘no problem of racial discrimination’. Issues of minority rights were only ever
discussed within the context of the region’s ‘two communities’: Catholic nationalists and Protestant
unionists. Oral historians have tended to reinforce this traditional conception of identity, framing
the history of Northern Ireland in binary terms.
My paper will challenge this assumed dichotomy by engaging with the memories of migrants
who could not be neatly pigeonholed into one ‘side’ or another. Informed by over forty oral history
interviews conducted for my PhD thesis, I ask where ‘other’ groups fitted into this divided society.
What factors shaped immigrants’ national identity in a region where the receiving population was
divided over whether they were British, Irish, or Northern Irish? What influenced migrants’ choice
of neighbourhood or school – decisions which were often influenced by sectarian geography? I will
argue that, although migrants attempted to stay neutral to the conflict, long-term settlement meant
that they inevitably began to absorb local prejudices. My paper will challenge the narrative that the
‘Troubles’ deflected attention from ethnic minorities, instead suggesting that sectarian antagonism
could actively structure and fuel racial discrimination.

Jack Crangle is a final year PhD student at Queen’s University Belfast. His thesis uses oral
history to research the history of immigration to Northern Ireland, with a particular emphasis on
how immigrant identities functioned amidst the Northern Ireland conflict. He recently had an
article published in the journal Immigrants and Minorities, entitled: ‘“Left to Fend for Themselves”:
Immigration, Race Relations and the State in Twentieth Century Northern Ireland’.

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‘Loss and decay in the Anthropocene: recording climate change and endangered
heritage in the present’
Key words: Climate change, heritage, recording

This paper addresses the difficulties of remembering climate change in the present. It explores the
representational limits of recording endangered heritage and the political obstacles restricting
climate change commemorations. By examining two memorial projects, the paper will investigate
how climate change might be displayed and remembered in public spaces.
The first, Climate Chronograph, is a memorial project designed by the architects Erik Jensen
and Rebecca Sunter. The project was intended to be situated on the banks of the Potomac River
in Washington D.C. Though the work, a sloped park of cherry trees would gradually be submerged
by the rising river, thus creating a physical and visual record of climate change. But following the
2016 Presidential election, the project’s architects abandoned the idea of building the memorial in
Washington D.C. and are now looking for a new site to welcome their project. This paper
investigates the institutional boundaries preventing the formulation of cultural narratives exploring
climate change and its memorial implications.
The second case study, Switching Heads: Sound Mapping the Artic, is a film project created by
Holly Owen and Kristine Pulejkova shown at the 2015 artCOP21 in Paris. The film documents
an anthropomorphic sculpture made of Artic snow and ice that was placed in Tromsø, Norway.
The sculpture ‘listened’ to and recorded stories from the local population, whose culture and
identity are being lost to anthropogenic climate change. The ‘switching head’ exposed the frailty of
immaterial heritage and cultures in the face of climate change and became a public record of a
decaying present. It investigated through storytelling how endangered cultures adapt and react to
the physical disruptions of climate change.
Climate change redefines the ways humans construct and imagine temporality. In a neoliberal
age defined by restless capitalism and socio-environmental injustice, climate change poses
representational challenges. Looking to memorial practices, this paper will identify alternative
strategies better suited to represent the ‘slow violence’ of climate change.

Clara de Massol is a PhD candidate at King’s College London in the department of Culture,
Media, and Creative Industries. She is funded by LAHP (London Arts and Humanities
Partnership), an AHRC-funded doctoral training partnership. Clara completed an MA in
Comparative Literature at La Sorbonne Paris IV University and an MA in Cultural and Creative
Industries at King’s College London, both with distinction. Clara’s doctoral research investigates
how memorial practices are formulated in the Anthropocene: she surveys cultural responses to
climate change and their attention to memory to understand how climate change transforms our
perception of temporality.

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‘Women’s Time, Sovereign Time: the abductee in Jamila Hashmi’s Exile and Amrita
Pritam’s Pinjar’
Key words: memory; sovereignty; time

In The Other Side of Silence, Urvashi Butalia estimates that there were 75,000 female victims of
abduction and rape during the Partition of India in 1947. Butalia presents testimonies by people
who experienced and witnessed this violence between and within Sikh, Hindu, and Muslim
communities. In this paper, I will approach one of the testimonies from Butalia’s oral history
alongside two fictional narratives that speak to the issues of memory evoked therein. Jamila
Hashmi’s Exile and Amrita Pritam’s Pinjar both narrate the abduction of a woman by a man of
another community, and their lives after Partition. The narratives prompt us to think about what
it means to be abducted, and where this positions victims in relation to the sovereign state of
Pakistan, invested as it was in the gendered rhetoric of honour.
This paper will ask how these two protagonists’ experiences of abduction are silenced within
their family, and how their survival and resistance also serve to exclude them from the patriarchal
nationalist historiography of the nation. If Pakistan’s postcolonial rhetoric of sovereignty stresses
the protection of honour, abduction is to be understood as a sign of shame. This shame undermines
the patriarchal symbolic economy of honour; this in turn shoring up an idea of sovereignty over
family, territory, and the domestic sphere. In this paper, I will argue that the memory of abduction
destabilises both these notions of sovereignty and makes explicit the subordination of victims’
experience to patriarchal national concerns.

Michael Duffy is a PhD student at the University of Southampton studying representations of

sovereignty and time in Pakistani literary fiction. His research explores the way sovereignty is
shored up by the silencing of certain voices and intends to shed light on the narratives of those who
are excluded in the patriarchal nationalist historiography of the postcolonial state. For one recently
completed thesis chapter, this approach has meant exploring women’s oral testimonies of India’s
Partition alongside short stories about migration, abduction, and forced marriage. Michael argues
that literary fiction offers a space for such narratives – and their absence – to be articulated.

‘Living memory: thinking critically about contemporary public inquiries’

Key words: unheard memories; truth; subjectivity

Memory as testimony of past, marginalised, child sexual abuse at recent UK Inquiries is broadly
accepted in scholarship as a means of acknowledging, documenting, and redressing apparent
failures in the past. This past – it is acknowledged – differs from the present, but the previously
hidden harms perpetrated there are no less potent and relevant today. The question then, and the
predominant research focus, is how we can use past failures to continue to improve, as we have
since the turn of the twenty-first century, the protections of criminal law for children. Yet, this
leaves interesting aspects of the Inquiries ignored and many questions unanswered. Such questions
may provide more productive and radically critical means for emancipating and protecting those in
society: through law or beyond it.

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 The Inquiries have arisen near simultaneously with those in other nations. Aiming to
document past failings through personal testimonies and aggregate data from experts in order to
theoretically inform the future, they mirror truth and reconciliation commissions associated with
transitional justice, which typically seek to ameliorate change from one mode of governance to
another.
This presentation will outline the nuanced relationship between memory, history, truth,
subjectivity, and law at UK Inquiries. Exploring how we might understand recent and novel
demand for civil inquiries of this particular form as a source of justice, the role of memory as a
reliable source of information about the past, how we might think critically about historical
interpretation, and what this tells us about modern subjectivity. This will foreground discussion
about the contemporary role of the law and the possibility for legal scholarship to think differently
about the conditions of the present using a study of the past, our relationship to and novel interest
in memories of it.

Rachel Ferguson is a doctoral researcher at The University of Glasgow, funded by the Economic
and Social Research Council. Her work focuses on social theory, legal theory, and the development
of the criminal law. She is currently investigating the criminalisation of adult-child sexual relations
from the nineteenth century to present day in the jurisdictions of Scotland and England and Wales.
As part of her project, Rachel has become interested in developing a theoretical framework in order
to critically assess the demand for and role of contemporary inquiries into historic child sexual
abuse.

‘The unforeseen consequences of gathering and valuing personal stories: positive

outcomes from three local projects’
Key words: Oral histories; inclusion; unheard

This paper focuses on some of the unforeseen positive outcomes resulting from the gathering and
utilisation of memories in three local history community projects in Bristol. We then describe how
reflecting on the wider benefits of giving value to personal anecdotes has helped our practice evolve.

The three projects are:

• Recent Arrivals (2015) featuring oral history recordings of immigrants to St Pauls, which
informed public artwork at the Bearpit in the city centre of Bristol.
• Meadows to Meaders (2017), a play performed live by residents in the streets of one of Bristol’s
inter-war council estates, with a script based on local memories.
• In Someone Else’s Shoes (2018), an exhibition focusing on the first post war English/German
city twinning in 1947, featuring personal recollections from both sides.

We have observed, and had reported to us, positive outcomes at a number of levels associated with
the oral history aspects of these projects. For individuals, examples include improved confidence
and new friends. In the local community, recordings are used to teach refugees English, and a

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writing group has been created for the elderly focusing on memories. In the city, press and radio
coverage prompted the sending in of even more stories.
On reflection, we would argue that the act of valuing these memories has created opportunities
for these projects to extend their benefit beyond their formally stated aims. Our practice has evolved
to approach projects with this in mind, developing strategies that serve to privately and publicly
demonstrate the importance of personal contributions. For example, we hold launches and
celebrations for the contributors, we make sure that they have a role in driving the overall project
editorial, and that every single person interviewed is represented in some way in the project outputs.
We also talk about archiving all contributions. Our practice continues to evolve as we continue to
look for new ways to enhance the value of gathering memories for the communities with which we
work.

Tot Foster is a PhD student at the Open University researching grassroots charity videos. Her
background is in TV documentary, lecturing, and media production. Ruth Myers is co-director of
a CIC delivering local history community projects in Bristol. She collaborates with a wide range of
creatives to engage difficult to reach communities in telling their own stories. Tot and Ruth have
worked together on 7 projects funded by organisations including the Heritage Lottery Fund and
the Arts Council. They have collected over 200 oral history recordings and trained participants in
oral history methodologies. Their materials have been used in plays, booklets, exhibitions,
performances, and websites with schools, colleges, and communities across Bristol.

‘History made present: creative and critical exploration of the German expulsions
(1945–1949)’
Key words: German expulsions; creative writing; war writing

Between 1945–1948, millions of East Germans were forcibly expelled from their homeland.
Although largely unknown in Britain, the expulsion (Vertreibung) has long been the focus of debate
in Germany, from the immediate post-war era through to the 1980s Historikerstreit (the Historians’
Debate) and the ongoing controversy surrounding the proposed Centre Against Expulsions in
Berlin. These debates have revealed conflicting narratives in the commemoration of the Second
World War and Nazi atrocities – rifts in historical interpretation that have been exploited by right-
wing parties such as the Alternative für Deutschland, who made unprecedented gains in the 2017
election following the refugee crisis.
My doctoral novel explores the effects of the expulsion on contemporary German culture by
considering the role – or suppression – of contested narratives in the creation of a national history.
Specifically, my creative-critical research considers how women’s memory of sexual violence in the
immediate post-war period has been portrayed, hidden, or forgotten. The presentation will be
informed by postmodern theory, engaging in particular with Linda Hutcheon’s work on
historiographical metafiction, as well as with historians Elizabeth Heineman and Robert G.
Mueller. It will also draw on contemporary literary works by Günter Grass, Dörte Hansen, Kazuo
Ishiguro, and Walter Kempowski.

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Eluned Gramich is a SWW DTP funded Creative Writing PhD researcher at Aberystwyth and
Cardiff Universities. She graduated from Oxford with a BA in English Literature, before
completing a Creative Writing MA at the University of East Anglia. As a 2012-2014 Daiwa
Scholar, she studied and worked in Tokyo before teaching English at Braunschweig Technische
Universität, Germany. Eluned was shortlisted for the Wales Book of the Year 2016 for a memoir
on Japan, entitled Woman Who Brings the Rain. She is currently working on a novel set in modern-
day Germany, exploring the German Expulsions and the refugee crisis.

‘Memories into Memoirs: the importance of alternative sources to fill the gaps’
Key words: memoirs; traditional folklore; involuntary testimony

The ethical issues arising from the use of memories to build non-fiction memoirs have been highly
debated in recent years. In the creative writing research field, this problem has often been reduced
to the risk of disrupting the reader’s trust by inserting fiction inside what is expected to be purely
non-fiction. The question, however, has much deeper implications, especially when the memoir’s
material deals with minorities, disadvantaged communities, or vulnerable groups.
In this paper I will address this issue by looking at alternative sources that non-fiction writers
can use to give an exhaustive account to their readers, without presenting a misleading picture of
the historical facts and cultural background of their narration. More specifically, my focus will be
on the use of traditional folktales as ways to retrace history and integrate memories. I am interested
in the way traditional folktales absorb historical and social changes, especially inside communities
where orality is an important tool of information and dissemination. In other words, I will look at
folktales as more or less involuntary testimonies when other evidence is lacking or corrupted. From
a creative writing point of view, that means that folktales can help non-fiction writers to
compensate for missing or controversial material in the memories they collect, and ultimately to
give the reader a more comprehensive narration instead of a deceptive one. In conclusion, I will
show how folktales – used as a creative tool as well as an alternative resource – can help the writer
give a stronger voice to marginal realities.

Sabrin Hasburn is an Italian-Palestinian transnational writer and blogger. She has always had to
mediate between two cultures and every day for her is a kind of journey across borders. Italy and
Palestine are her two countries and form the focus of her writing. In the last few years Sabrin has
lived in France, Japan, and the United Kingdom. She has been part of the academic worlds of the
University of Pisa in Italy, the Sorbonne University of Paris, and Bath Spa University – where she
is currently undertaking her PhD in Creative Writing, funded through the South, West and Wales
Doctoral Training Partnership (AHRC). Sabrin’s experiences can be followed on her personal
website: www.sabrinisnothere.com.

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‘Celebrating the memory of Thomas Paine in nineteenth-century British popular
radicalism’
Key words: popular radicalism; commemoration; Thomas Paine

One of the most famous political thinkers of the late 18th century in Great Britain, Thomas Paine
died a lonely man on 8 June 1809 in the United States. He was buried in a corner of his farm at
New Rochelle with the greatest indifference – largely unnoticed by a world he had once helped to
shape through his works. Burnt in effigy by the loyalist crowds in the early 1790s, his name had
become anathema and synonymous with treason and blasphemy by the time of his death. Paine’s
legacy and the influence of his thought on the popular radical movement that emerged in the post-
Napoleonic war period, however, made him hard to forget. As a radical reformer, Thomas Paine
remained a hero of political reform well into the nineteenth century, while the Rights of Man figured
predominantly in the ‘canon’ of British popular radicalism. This paper will analyse the ways in
which Thomas Paine was commemorated in British radical circles throughout the nineteenth
century. It will show how the radical memory of Paine, and the meaning ascribed to it, evolved as
each group appropriating it emphasised a different aspect of the posterity of their hero.

Manon Nouvian is an Irish Research Council Scholar and second year PhD student at Trinity
College, Dublin. She graduated with a Master’s degree in History and English at Paris-Sorbonne
Université (Paris IV) in 2015. Manon’s research focuses on memory and commemorative practices
in nineteenth-century British popular radicalism.

‘Carceral Memories: The Sing Sing prison Museum’

Key words: prison; museums

Construction of the Sing Sing prison began in 1825 using prison labour. It was completed in 1828
and contained 800 single cells. The original Sing Sing – which survived for a century – was replaced
in 1925 with a new structure. The surviving ruin, now cleared of its interior elements, is a hollowed
shell enclosed by the whitened bare outer walls of the original – a stark unadorned reminder of the
horrors of this notorious prison. Plans are now underway to create a museum centred in the original
1825 cell block, adjacent to the present operating correctional facility. What memories of
incarcerated experiences contained in the 100,000 years of imprisonment are locked within this
ruin? How do we reconstruct these memories, repopulate the ruin with individual stories, and
engage the public? How can we encourage the thousands of anticipated visitors to engage in more
reflective encounters with this enduring carceral space?
Time complicates the recovery of these lost memories. Sing Sing admission registers, inmate
memoirs, fictional histories, newspaper stories, and our imaginings may help restore the average
inmate whose life history has remained outside the standard penal memory. The ruin of the original
cell block also functions as a meditative space which allows us to not just see the architectural design
and explore its hallowed interior, but to link the past and the present in new ways by calling up the
tracings of memories it holds. The challenge here is to animate the lost memories of some of the
thousands of Sing Sing’s inmates – silenced and invisible – and enable the public to hear their

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voices in the setting of a new museum, anchored in the ruin of the original nineteenth century
cellblock.

Roger Panetta is a Visiting Professor in the History Department at Fordham University in New
York, USA. He is Curator of the Hudson River Collection, which is deposited at Fordham
University and Adjunct Curator of History at the Hudson River Museum. Roger is a founding
member of the Friends of the Sing Sing Prison Museum. His research has focused on Dutch New
York, the American Suburb, the Hudson River, and local New York history. His publications
include: Westchester: The American Suburb (2006); Dutch New York: the roots of Hudson Valley culture
(2009); and The Tappan Zee Bridge and the Forging of the Rockland Suburb (2010).

‘Partition Memories: their contemporary representations and ensuing relevance in

Indian Cinema’
Key words: migration; digital memories; identities

The division of India in 1947 along sectarian lines was a pivotal moment in the history of the
subcontinent that has had far reaching consequences. Analysing the treatment and exploration of
these memories in select mainstream Indian (Hindi) films forms the crux of my theses. In
particular, my research explores the way the films have experimented with the incorporation of
Partition memories and themes within their narratives. On a slightly personal note my own interest
in the Partition started as a child who grew up listening to the engrossing accounts of my
grandmother and great-grandmother who migrated to India from Pakistan.
For this paper presentation I focus on the Indian (Hindi language) films: Filmistaan (2012)
and Bhaag Milkha Bhaag (2013) for their diverse representations of the Partition. I have chosen the
film Bhaag Milkha Bhaag (2013) for its simultaneous adherence to the conventionalities of
mainstream ‘Bollywood’-style storytelling as well as its utilisation of flashbacks as a cinematic device
for the representation of the past. In contrast, Filmistaan (2012) can be categorised as an
independent film with an offbeat premise, relatively unknown ensemble cast, and modest
production value. Both films present diametrically opposite audio-visual treatments of their scripts,
demonstrate different production values, and experienced different critical and commercial success.
As such, these films provide inclusive, nuanced, and striking case studies.
The theoretical framework for this analysis draws on scholar Gaston Roberge’s Indian Film
Theory that aims to specifically understand Indian dramatic aesthetic through its indigenous
cultural tradition. It is supported by Alison Landsberg’s concept of prosthetic memory that focuses
on the digital transformation and circulation of memories of conflicts, trauma, and violence over
time. The themes of memory, migration, unheard/hidden memories, digital memories, and
identities are all relevant aspects are relevant to this study that will be featured in my paper.

Meera Shirodkar completed her undergraduate studies in English Literature, followed by a

Masters in Audio-Visual Production. She subsequently gained proficiency in the various aspects of
filmmaking during a stint at a film production house. Later drawn toward academia, Meera
qualified as a lecturer and has taught undergraduate and postgraduate students in India. She is
currently a second-year postgraduate research student at the University of Southampton

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completing a PhD in Film. Her thesis explores the memories of the Partition of India in 1947, its
contemporary representations, and enduring relevance in Indian Cinema.

‘(Post)Memory at the margins: Finnish borderlands youth remember a lost Finnish city’
Key words: postmemory; borders; youth

This paper presents the results of my doctoral research project. The object of study is the ways in
which the formerly Finnish borderland city of Viipuri (since the Second World War Vyborg in
Russia) is collectively remembered in Finland. When Viipuri was ceded to the Soviet Union (in
1940 and again in 1944) the Finnish population (c. 80,000 people) left the city, taking their pre-
war memories of Viipuri with them as they re-settled elsewhere in Finland. These personal
memories joined in a reciprocal relationship with Finnish media discourses to create a collective
postmemory of the city. The presentation of Vyborg in Finnish media is not neutral. It can prompt
feelings of nostalgia, grief, and bitterness, and can be tied to revanchist ideas of historical injustice
and nationalist conceptions of the ‘correct’ borders of Finland.
I have conducted focus groups with High School students across Finland to uncover what
Vyborg means to this group. What do those coming of age in Finland today – over 70 years after
Vyborg ceased to be a Finnish place in reality, if not in imagination – make of the circulating
collective postmemory of Vyborg? In this paper I present the results from focus groups with youth
living on or close to the Finnish-Russian border. This group occupies a double marginality: as a
subaltern group and as borderland dwellers. As such, their voices are typically left out of both local
and national narratives. My research aims to correct this marginality. Feedback from my focus
groups showed that the participants enjoyed being involved in research and valued being able to
discuss these issues. The participants also reside in geographically marginal places: small, peripheral
cities on border of Finland and on the edge of the European Union. They live close to Vyborg – in
Karelia, a transborder area – a region crossed by the Finnish-Russian border. My paper shows the
impact of this marginal positioning on their memories.

Chloe Wells is a PhD student of Human Geography at the University of Eastern Finland. Her
PhD research project examines the persistence (or not) of (post)memories of the lost Finnish city
of Viipuri (since the Second World War Vyborg, Russia). She has worked with high school
students across Finland to explore how and if collective (post)memories of Viipuri have been
adopted by this group. Her work draws on theories from Memory Studies, Human Geography,
Border Studies, as well as being grounded in Finnish History. Chloe’s doctoral thesis, provisionally
titled ‘Vyborg is ours': the memory and postmemory of a borderland town’, will be published as a
monograph by the University of Eastern Finland in 2019.

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‘Strangers on a tram: space, time, power, and performance in Franz Kafka's On the
Tram and Ruth Klüger's Still Alive’
Key words: space; time; memory

In her autobiography, Still Alive (1992), Ruth Klüger recounts her survival of the Holocaust. One
scene recalls an encounter with a stranger on a tram in Vienna after the Anschluss of Austria. The
scene appears to echo Franz Kafka’s short story, On the Tram (1913). Both show active male agents
imposing identities onto passive female objects. Kafka tells the story from the man’s perspective;
Klüger from the girl’s. There are notable similarities in the modes of description: Klüger and Kafka
describe bodies and space through changing topographies of light and darkness, shape and colour
– they shift times and convey ambivalence. Yet such a description gives the impression of a
straightforward set of binaries: male and female, old and young, subject and object, viewer and
viewed. Such descriptions belie the complexities of the scenes. Although it may seem as though
these scenes tell similar stories from contrasting perspectives, they display intricate tensions
between marginalised identities and recollected experiences to different effect.
This paper proposes that the narrative construction of space and time opens a dialogue
between the recollected self and the recollecting narrator. The spaces are performative; they do not
simply reflect gendered identity, but also constitute it. But the narration of time alters these
performances, suggesting a subjective experience that retrospectively challenges recollected notions
of power. This paper will propose a new way of reading space and time in narrative. It argues that
these concepts do not form the background, context, or scene setting; but rather are extra agents, a
means of entering into the silence, and a way of depicting what is not and cannot be said in
traditional modes of articulation.

Erica Wickerson is a Research Fellow at St John’s College, Cambridge. Her first book, The
Architecture of Narrative Time: Thomas Mann and the Problems of Modern Narrative, was published
by Oxford University Press in 2017. She is currently working on her second book, Kafka's
Kaleidoscope: Space-Time in Word and Image, which explores the ways in which the narrative
construction of space and time reflect performances of identity and embody subjective experience.
The book compares works by Kafka with a range of other writers, graphic novelists, and
filmmakers.

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POSTER ABSTRACTS
‘Is slavery still on the margins?’
Key words: slavery; collective remembrance; silence

This poster examines the marginalisation of Transatlantic Slavery in British collective

remembrance. It provides explanations for why this history has been previously silenced and
considers what these explanations reveal about the nature of public memory. The poster will also
provide examples of how slavery has moved away from the margins since the 1990s, including the
establishment of official museums and the growth of public debate, such as those around Edward
Colston. Through this approach, the poster asks whether these acts of collective remembrance
mean that the history of enslavement has moved from the margins of Britain’s national memory.

Sophie Campbell is in the first year of her AHRC-funded doctoral research at the University of
Nottingham. She is undertaking this research after achieving a First in my BA (Hons) in History
at Lancaster University and a Distinction in her MA in Art Galleries and Museum Studies at the
University of Leeds. Sophie’s current research looks at contemporary collective remembrance of
Transatlantic Slavery in Britain and its former colonies in the Caribbean and the United States of
America. Her research focuses on analysing museums and memorials. She also examines other
forms of commemoration, including ceremonies, debates and other public activities.

‘An Analysis of British Army Veterans’ Oral Testimony and the North-West European
Campaign, 1944–45’
Key words: memory; silences; veterancy

Oral history and memory studies techniques have rarely been applied to armies and warfare, aside
from examinations of individuals’ lives. However, the genre of ‘war stories’ and the large personal
experience archives amassed since the 1970s at institutions such as the Imperial War Museum are
prime subjects for such analysis. This study uses the interviews of thirty-three British Army
veterans to assess – on the one hand – war narratives, negotiations with popular memory, the effects
of trauma, and the construction of veteran identity in retrospect and – on the other – military
experience, morale, combat motivation, and doctrine during the Second World War itself.

Thomas Cheetham is a third-year doctoral candidate at the University of Wolverhampton. He

previously completed his BA in War Studies and MA in War, Media and Society at the University
of Kent.

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‘Language and identity in Of Arthour and Merlin: the geopolitics of memory’
Key words: legends; romances, identity

The legend of King Arthur and his Knights has survived the ages, and seems to get stronger over
time. The Arthurian legend is used by authors as a medium to convey their own representations
and ideas on the world in which they are living. For the Arthurian authors of 14th century England,
when the relationship between England and France was particularly tense, the Arthurian Legend
emerged as a political weapon. Moreover, romances have proved to be a useful format for the
diffusion of ideas about history and politics, and the 9938-verse Of Arthour and Merlin was no
exception to the rule.

Nina Fiches is a doctoral researcher in English at the University of Bristol. She holds an MA in
History of Sciences and Religions as well as a MA in French and Comparative Literature, both
from the University of Montpellier, in the south of France. Her research focuses on Arthurian
manuscripts in the 14th century England, analysing them as a medium to convey the political,
economic, social, poetic, and linguistic preoccupations of the writers of the time, through the story
of King Arthur and his court.

‘Memories of the Old City Docks, Bristol’

Key words: oral history; digital

The Old City Docks were the heart of Bristol until they closed in the mid-1970s. My project,
generously funded by the SWW DTP, uses oral history interviews with former dockers to bring
back the missing voices to the Bristol harbourside. Visitors to the harbourside stretch from M Shed
to Underfall Yard will be able to scan QR codes to hear the original voices. I am also writing a
piece of verbatim theatre with a local playwright, and organising an event with the Bristol Ferry
Company.

Amy King is co-director of the SWW DTP Memory Studies Research Cluster. For further
biographical details, see page 8.

‘The silent memory: an anthropological essay on the shared memory of female

clothing industry’
Key words: gender; memory; tradition

In France the clothing industry relies heavily on notions like tradition, savoir-faire, or cultural
patrimony to present itself as an invaluable component of society. Little attention, however, is given
to most of this industry. The fame of designers is a stark contrast against the shadow in which
seamstresses are kept. For me, the constitution of sewing as a feminine craft is the reason why little
attention has been given to the workers. Either taught at school or through apprenticeship, sewing
gives seamstresses a feeling of belonging to a community that shares a collective memory about the
clothing industry.

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Frédérique Manceau is an MRes student in Anthropology at the University of Aberdeen. Her
current research examines the making of high-end lingerie in France. In the past, she has worked
on the female body and her dissertation was about medicinal cannibalism in Modern England.

‘The forgotten builder: Abbot Ford and the beginning of Downside’

Key words: marginalised; monastic; architecture

In the creation of the Abbey of St Gregory the Great, Abbot Ford is often a marginalised figure in
key literature surrounding the Abbey’s foundations. Recent archival discoveries, however, dispel
this narrative, with personal accounts presenting him as ‘the maker of modern Downside’. In this
poster, I wish to express this motion by looking at the impact of Abbot Ford’s efforts on the
building of the Abbey Church.

Alice Morrey is a MA History candidate at the Bristol University with an interest in nineteenth
century monasticism, architectural memory, and the history of Downside Abbey. She is currently
working on the life of Dom Edmund Ford and his personal perception of the building of Downside
Abbey.

‘The human cost of the drug war in Colombia: a missing memory’

Key words: unheard/hidden memories, creative methods, memory and conflict

Memory projects in Colombia are trying to uncover the country’s recent history as a prerequisite
for peace. Nonetheless, engagement with the drug war is over-simplified, if not missing completely.
This poster will argue that the drug war is responsible for much of the violence that has occurred
during the contemporary conflict, and therefore, it is striking that it is rarely remembered in this
way. The poster explores why the drug war is a cultural blind-spot in Colombia’s historical memory.
In my future research, I intend to source testimonies that may contribute to building an alternative
counter-memory about the impact of the drug war in Colombia.

Mary Ryder is currently studying for an MPhil in Latin American Studies at the University of
Bristol. Her research focuses on the human cost of the global drug war in Colombia and how it is
represented in memory seeking initiatives. Mary also work part-time at the Transform Drug Policy
Foundation as the Anyone’s Child: Families for Safer Drug campaign co-ordinator and researcher.
This campaign uses memory to intervene in the public debate about narcotics prohibition in order
to stimulate long-term social and policy change.

‘Hybrid cultures and the colonial gaze’

Key words: hybridity; culture

Recently the TRAM Research Cluster held a cluster meeting exploring the ideas of ‘Hybrid
Cultures and the Colonial Gaze’, which included contribution pieces on Spanish-Chinese identity,
the hybrid gaze as manifested in guide-books, and transnational artwork. As part of the Memories
at the Margin conference, we will be showcasing an interactive poster exhibit based on these

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research ideas. We hope that participants will contribute their thoughts during the conference.
Additionally, we are keen to explore and discuss research intersections that we share with
conference delegates.

TRAM Research Cluster is one of the South, West and Wales Doctoral Training Partnership
research clusters. The cluster aims to explore ideas of translation, representation, adaptation, and
mobility. The Cluster will be represented by three of its members. Steph Clayton is a third year
PhD student. Her thesis focuses on eighteenth-century literary patronage and epistolary
performance. Catherine Garry is a second year PhD student studying domestic performance in
Georgian Britain, focusing on aspects of cultural transfer and elite identity. Delphi May is a second
year PhD student. Her thesis focuses on representations of Chineseness and Chinese immigration
in Spanish film and television.

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DISCUSSION GROUND RULES
We hope that the events and conversations at the conference feel welcoming to different voices.

Research into inclusivity in academic settings suggests that small, practical changes can
encourage a wider range of participation, so we ask that you assist our panel chairs by following
these ground rules in discussions

1. Each panel session will include a two-minute thinking break between presentations and
questions.

2. The chair has discretion to take questions out of order. Questions are not addressed on a
first-come-first-served basis.

3. If you have a new question, please raise your hand. If your question follows immediately
from something that is being said, raise one finger.

4. Please only ask one question at a time. There is no automatic right to a follow-up question!

5. Please think carefully about the tone and length of questions and comments. The shared
goal of the team behind the conference is to have an open, stimulating, but respectful
dialogue.

These suggestions were adapted from the British Philosophical Association website. The original
version is available at: http://bpa.ac.uk/resources/women-in-philosophy/conferences-seminars.

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