CFP: PAINTING THE CARIBBEAN, University of Essex, 6-7 May 2011

See below the announcement of a symposium which will take place next May. Offers of papers (title and short synopsis) should be sent to Peter Hulme [phulme@essex.ac.uk] by 15 January 2011. Please feel free to circulate the announcement.


PAINTING THE CARIBBEAN

A symposium at the University of Essex, 6-7 May 2011
Sponsored by American Tropics, UECLAA, and the Centre for Latin American and Caribbean Studies

For centuries the Caribbean has both attracted and produced artists who have represented the lineaments of its landscapes and cultures. Agostino Brunias, Paul Gauguin, Winslow Homer, Chris Ofili, and Peter Doig are among many who have visited and painted. Others born in the region, such as Camille Pissarro and Frank Bowling have remained haunted by their childhood memories. Yet others have returned again and again to paint the places and spaces of their islands: Isaac Belisario, Wifredo Lam, Michel-Jean Cazabon, Aubrey Williams, Gesner Armand, Pétion Savain, John Dunkley … And the tradition remains vibrant, as for example in the map-based works of Rafael Ferrer, José Bedia, and Ibrahim Miranda.

Derek Walcott, the St Lucian nobel laureate, has always been a keen painter of his island and an astute interpreter in his poetry of other painters. St Lucian painters such as Dunstan St Omer and Llewellyn Xavier are among the most distinguished in the region. So, in association with his time at Essex as Professor of Poetry, the AHRC-funded American Tropics project, along with the University of Essex Collection of Latin American Art and the Centre for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, is organising a two-day symposium called Painting the Caribbean. In keeping with the place-based approach of the American Tropics project, this symposium will focus on how the places of the Caribbean have been represented—its landscapes, its cities, its light, its sea.

Featured speakers will include distinguished Caribbeanists and art historians Lisa Paravisini (Vassar) and Judith Bettelheim (SFSU).

Opening hours - Xmas period 20th Dec - 3rd Jan

Monday 20 December to Thursday 23 December: The Library will operate vacation hours


Monday 20/12/10 - Thursday 23/12/10: The Library will open at 9.00am and close at 6.00pm. Last entry into the Library will be at 5.45pm.


The Library will be closed over the Christmas holidays, from Friday 24 December to Monday 3 January, inclusive.



The Library will reopen at 9.00am on Tuesday 4th January 2011.

Archive of Rwandan genocide

Last week the Guardian reported on the Genocide Archive of Rwanda. The archive will be located atthe Kigali Genocide Memorial and has gathered 1,500 recordings and over 20,000 documents and photographs relating to the 1994 massacres. Material has come from a range of sources including Rwandan media outlets and museums, court reports, foreign institutions and from survivors.
A digital archive is being developed, initially to be made available onsite and then online. The project has been dweveloped by the Aegis Trust and the National Commission for the Fight Against Genocide in Kigali, with assistance from the University of Tecas Libraries.

Fighting for Britain : African soldiers in the Second World War

Recently I attended a seminar hosted by the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, where David Killingray discussed his recent book Fighting for Britain: African Soldiers in the Second World War.

David Killingray's book has been reviewed favourably and presents a history of African's at war and the African contribution to the war effort, between 1939 and 1947, looking at questions including recruitment, experiences of war, discipline and indiscipline, the retuirn home and demobilisation, and the social impact of service. The book is concerned with presenting 'history from below' and sources include oral evidence, written accounts, soliders letter, newlspapers and official sources.

I was pleased to note that one source used were letters included in the Commonwealth Studies Archives, including in the Michael Crowder papers (ICS123), and collated as part of Michael Crowder's research on the Bechuanaland Protectorate the Second World War, carried out as part of his study for the biography of Tshekedi Khama.

Travelling Librarian: Schomburg Centre for Black Cultural Studies

The final stop on my visit was to the Schomburg Centre for Black Cultural Studies, a New York Public Library Research Library, which collects, preserves and makes available material on peoples of African descent. For over 80 years the Center has been an important focus for collecting within the United States, and its collections include materials from Africa and the Caribbean.

Some particular archive collections of interest include collections relating to US organisations opposing the South African apartheid system, and archives of the American West Indian Ladies Aid Society, the Bermuda Benevolent Association, the British Virgin Islands Benevolent Association, George Padmore letters, Claude McKay letters and manuscripts, and a collection of letters written by C.L.R. James to his former wife and political associate, Constance Webb.

CFP: 35th Annual Conference of the Society for Caribbean Studies

35th Annual Conference of the Society for Caribbean Studies


International Slavery Museum
Albert Dock
Liverpool

Wednesday 29th June - Friday 1st July 2011

The Society for Caribbean Studies invites submissions of short abstracts of 250 to 400 words for research papers on the Hispanic, Francophone, Dutch and Anglophone Caribbean, and on Caribbean diasporas for this annual international conference. Papers are welcomed from all disciplines and can address the themes outlined below. We also welcome abstracts for papers that fall outside this list of topics, and we particularly welcome proposals for complete panels, which should consist of three papers.

Those selected for the conference will be invited to give a 20-minute presentation and will be offered the opportunity to publish their work as part of the Society's online series of papers.

Abstracts should be submitted along with a short CV by 7th January, 2011. Proposals received after the deadline may not be considered.

PROVISIONAL PANELS

• Liverpool and the Caribbean
• The Fall of the Plantation Complex
• Museums and Caribbean Histories
• Slavery, Commemoration, and Representation
• Ports and Cities
• Health, Social Policy, and Disability
• Environment and Natural Disasters
• The Challenges of Democracy
• Childhood and Education
• Theatre, Dance, and Performance
• Food and Material Culture
• Colonial Governance and Decolonisation

To submit an abstract online, please visit our website: http://www.caribbeanstudies.org.uk/

The Society will provide a limited number of Postgraduate Bursaries for presenters to assist with registration and accommodation costs. Postgraduate researchers should indicate that they are seeking a bursary when submitting their abstract, but please note that travel costs cannot be funded.

Arts researchers or practitioners living and working in the Caribbean are eligible to apply for the Bridget Jones Award, the deadline for which is also 7th January, 2011. For more information on the Bridget Jones Award, contact Kate Quinn at kate.quinn@sas.ac.uk, or visit our website: http://www.caribbeanstudies.org.uk/

For further queries, or alternative methods of abstract submission, contact Lorna Burns at societyforcaribbeanstudies@gmail.com, or by mail at The Department of English Literature, 5 University Gardens, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, G12 8QQ.

CFP: Extended deadline - Peace and (In)security: Canada's Promise, Canada's Problem - British Association for Canadian Studies

PEACE AND (IN)SECURITY: CANADA'S PROMISE, CANADA'S PROBLEM?
BACS 36th Annual Conference
The University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK
4–6 April 2011

 

CALL FOR PAPERS - EXTENDED DEADLINE!

The British Association for Canadian Studies (BACS) is pleased to announce that their 36th annual conference will take place on 4–6 April 2011 at the University of Birmingham. Founded in 1900, the ‘Redbrick’ university is located within the United Kingdom’s second largest and most diverse city.

 

Reflecting one of the explicit priorities of the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (Government of Canada), the conference aims to interrogate the historical legacies, contemporary realities and cultural myths of the ‘peaceable kingdom'. What constitutes peace in the context of economic instability and political insecurity? Which discourses, images and texts circulate in a time of environmental crisis and social anxiety? How do the actions, events and conflicts of the Canadian past inflect the policies, politics and imaginings of future security?

 

The British Association for Canadian Studies invites paper proposals related to notions of peace and (in)security pertaining across, within and beyond the field of Canadian Studies. Proposals for 20-minute papers, to be presented in either English or French, are invited from any single disciplinary or multidisciplinary perspective. Multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary and comparative panel proposals, including those from postgraduate students, are welcome.

 

Paper proposals will be especially appreciated in the following areas:

• identities and insecurities
• surveillance and security: histories, institutions, discourses, practices
• cultures of dissent: texts, policies, movements, communities
• internal or external threats, conflicts, and instabilities
• histories, visions and narratives of peace
• geographies, representations and economies of (in)security

Enquiries and proposals to:

Jodie Robson, BACS Administrator

Email: canstuds@gmail.com

Website: http://sites.google.com/site/bacsconference2011/

 

Proposals (panel and individual) and deadline:

Email abstract(s) of 200–300 words and brief CV (please do not exceed one side of A4) which must include your title, institutional affiliation, email and mailing address by 10 December 2010. Submissions will be acknowledged by email. Postgraduate students are especially welcome to submit a proposal and there will be a concessionary conference fee for students. BACS regrets that it is unable to assist participants with travel and accommodation costs

Important Notice: The libraries in Senate House will be closed Wednesday 24th and Thursday 25th November

Due to operational difficulties beyond our control the libraries in Senate House including the Commonwealth Studies Library will be closed Wednesday 24th and Thursday 25th November.


Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience this may cause.

Fines accrued on 24th and 25th will be waived.

Travelling Librarian: New York University

New York was the final destination on my tour and I started with a visit to New York University. The Bobst Library is NYU's main library and was built in 1972 to a design by architects Philip Johnson and Richard Foster. A noticeable feature is the large internal atrium.

NYU's Centre for Latin American and Caribbean Studies began in the 1960’s but in depth collecting in the Caribbean region started later in the mid 1980s. Despite this more recent interest NYU houses a strong collection of material, aided in part by the donation of the Research Institute for the Study of Man. Library, archive and vertical file material up to 1985 was donated to the NYU Library to improve access and help preserve this material. All the library material has been added to the NYU catalogue and other collections listed. Details about the RISM collections are available in a guide to the collections.

It was interesting to spend a little time with the collections - noting that some of the RISM volumes had originally been sent from the Institute of Commonwealth Studies Library, as duplicates from the West India Committee Library collections. In my conversations with Angela Carreno, the subject specialist, we dicussed collaboration between New York libraries, sources for Caribbean materials, and the NYU ongoing renovation programme.

CFP: New Zealand History, O.E.

Call for papers

New Zealand History, O.E.

 

History about 'home' from historians 'away'

Proposals are sought for a seminar exploring aspects of Aotearoa/New Zealand history to be held in London on Saturday 11 June 2011 at Richmond, the American International University, Kensington, London.

Aotearoa/New Zealand's changing relationships with the wider world along with the now established nationalist and rising post-national and post-colonial theories and epistemologies have also meant that historians working on topics relevant to Aotearoa/New Zealand's histories have had to grapple with new ways of thinking about old topics as well as the emergence of new topics and approaches. For European (including the UK) based researchers there are additional challenges caused by, in many cases, being the only Aotearoa/New Zealand focussed local researcher, often in any discipline area.

We are interested in proposals from any branch of history where researchers might want to explore aspects of their work with others whose research is either Aotearoa/New Zealand focussed or who discuss aspects of Aotearoa/New Zealand in their teaching and research. We would also welcome more methodological and reflexive papers that explore, but are not limited to,

• The expatriate historian
• Viewing the 'periphery' from the 'centre'
• New questions about old relationships
• Creative methodologies away from main/major sources

We are interested too in exploring the possibilities for a network of European-based historians whose work focuses or examines Aotearoa/New Zealand.

Please send proposals jointly to both:

Prof. Dominic Alessio, Richmond, the American International University at mailto:ALESSID@Richmond.ac.uk

AND

Dr Malcolm MacLean, The University of Gloucestershire at mmaclean@glos.ac.uk

Closing date: 21 March 2011

Foreign Broadcast Information Service of the United States (FBIS)

Highlighting a recent e-resource of use to readers interested in the Commonwealth and beyond.

The Foreign Broadcast Information Service of the United States (FBIS) has gathered and translated information from worldwide sources. The original mission of FBIS was to monitor, record, transcribe and trans-late intercepted radio broadcasts from foreign governments, official news services, and clandestine broad-casts from occupied territories. These translations, or transcriptions in the case of English language mate-rials, make up the Daily Reports


Translated into English from more than 50 languages - from Amharic to Urdu - these comprehensive media reports from around the globe include news, interviews, speeches, editorial commentary and other ma-terials. FBIS provides verbatim translations, abstracts or summaries of original broadcasts or written texts.
 
The FBIS database has been created from fiche using OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technology to digitize the content. Each page is produced in a manner that provides the highest quality possible image from the fiche. This includes deskewing and cropping every page image. When the computer cannot recognize or misinterprets some of the letter shapes on the page this can result in searches providing false reports.


FBIS Daily Reports, 1974-1996 is comprised of EIGHT separate regional Daily Reports whose mnemonic abbreviations and coverage include the Middle East and [North] Africa (MEA), 1974-1987; Near East and South Asia (NES), 1987-1996; South Asia (SAS), 1980-1987; Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), 1974-1980 and (AFR), 1987-1996; China (CHI), 1974-1996; Asia and the Pacific (APA), 1974-1987; East Asia (EAS), 1987-1996; Latin America (LAT and LAM), 1974-1996; Eastern Europe (EEU), 1974-1996; Soviet Union/Central Eurasia (SOV), 1974-1996; Western Europe (WEU), 1974-1996. The FBIS Daily Reports included in this collection were published from April 1974 through September 1996.

Foundation Day Thursday 25th November 2010 - partial closure

Foundation Day 25/11/10: Senate House Library South Block closing at 3.00pm


To accommodate University of London's Foundation Day the South Block of Senate House Library will close at 3.00pm. Close down procedure to clear the Library will begin earlier. The North Block (including ground Floor Library) of Senate House Library will remain open as usual (until 9.00pm, last entry 8.45pm).
 
The open access Commonwealth Studies collection will be available - but do note that items held in Stack and Archives and Special Collections will not be available during this closed period.

Travelling Librarian: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana (total population 180,000) in east-central Illinois. It is situated about 140 miles south of Chicago, 125 miles west of Indianapolis, and 180 miles northeast of St. Louis, and I travelled to and from the university by train, on an Amtrak service.

The Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (CLACS) at UIUC is a Title VI National Resource Center in consortium with the University of Chicago Center for Latin American Studies, funded by the U.S. Department of Education. (Most of the libraries visited were linked to centres included in this funding scheme, either individually or in consortia.)


The University Library is one of the largest public university libraries in the United States, with more than 24 million items in the main library and over 35 departmental libraries and divisions. The Latin American and Caribbean Library is one of those libraries - but is soon to merge with other area studies collections. UIUC Libraries hold one of the largest collections of Latin American and Caribbean materials in the United States. Materials are located in the Main Stacks and in the various UIUC departmental libraries, including the Music and other libraries.

During my visit we spoke about collections and services generally. One interesting and useful resource I discussed with the current interim Librarian for the LAC collection was the Bibliographic Guide to Black Caribbean Literature - compiled by Thomas Weissinger and Nelly Sfeir v. de González.  

Travelling Librarian: University of Illinois Chicago

My person in visiting the Library at the University of Illinois Chicago was to spend time with staff from Special Collections and Digital Projects with whom I'd been working with 18 months ago on a joint digitisation bid, and to look at some of the collections we'd been talking about.

The University of Illinois Chicago holds three collections that were of interest: one collection of archives and two book collections.

•The Sierra Leone manuscripts collection consists of items related to the British administration of Sierra Leone, including public and private papers of British officials in the colony of Sierra Leone, 1792-1825. The collections includes reports and hand-drawn plans of the settlement and diaries and correspondence from Lt. John Clarkson (1973-1828) - Governor of Sierra Leone, 1792-1793; and from Captain Edward H. Columbine (d. 1811) - Governor of Sierra Leone, 1809-1811; an early collation of laws of Sierra Leone; Journals of various West African voyages  ( Lt. George Mitchener, Commander of the Brig, "Protector" - Reports of a cruise to Whydah and Benin, 1811; Lt. George W. Courtenay, Commander of H.M.S. "Bann." describing his experiences as a member of the anti-slavery patrol on the West African Coast, including visits to Sierra Leone and Liberia, 1823-1825; Richard M. Jackson, "Journal of a Voyage to Bonny River on the West Coast of Africa in the Ship Kingston from Liverpool" discussing a trading voyage, a trip to the Cameroons and the West African slave trade, 1825-1826; and John and Richard Lander, correspondence from their expedition in West Africa which led to the discovery of the mouth of the Niger River, 1830-1834

•The Atlantic Slave Trade Collection consists of over 200 years of legal, religious and secular publications documenting the Atlantic slave trade, including works issuing from Spain, France, Portugal, England, Africa and the Americas.



•The H.D. Carberry Collection of Caribbean Studies contains almost 1,000 volumes of English language literature and non-fiction by Caribbean authors. The works in this collection are generally first editions, published in Britain during the second half of the twentieth century. Note also: Images of the Caribbean Diaspora: Book Jacket Art from the H.D. Carberry Collection of Caribbean Studies.

Trove Australia

Trove: Australia


The National Library of Australia's Trove search service is a new discovery experience focused on Australia and Australians. Material covered includes include digitised materials from Australian archives, academic institutions and museums as well as resources about Australia produced by overseas institutions.
Material indexed includes multimedia, images, photographs, maps, music and sound, diaries. letters and archives, newspapers, books, journal articles, theses and archived websites.

All subject areas of the sciences, social sciences and humanities are covered; with a particular emphasis upon Australian political, social and economic history; Australian political parties and politics; and the economy and culture of Australia.

Many items can be accessed in full online. Bibliographic information is offered for other items.

Free access to archives

We're pleased to announce that ALL users will now have free access to archive collections held in Senate House Library, including Commonwealth Studies collections.

Archives users and reminded that archives and manuscripts are available for consultation by appointment only, and at one full working day's notice. Advance notice is needed to ensure material can be made available for your visit. Do check the archives catalogue.


The cut-off point for making appointments is 4pm. Any messages after this time will be dealt with the following working day (and archives therefore produced for the day after that).

Material may be ordered in advance by email shl.specialcollections@london.ac.uk, telephone: 020 7862 8470, letter or in person.

Travelling Librarian - University of North Carolina and Duke University

The University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill and Duke University in Durham are separated by a short bus journey. Although one is a state funded and one a private university the two institutions have for many years co-operated in Latin American and Caribbean Studies, both in terms of academic departments and between libraries. Both libraries have strong collections developed over many years and under their co-operation agreement Duke has a responsibility for research level material covering the English-speaking Caribbean.

One of my reasons for visiting these two libraries was to explore how co-operation in collection worked in practice. I was also interested in seeing digitisation initiatives at UNC and the Haiti Lab at Duke, a multidisciplinary humanities research laboratory bringing together resources, faculty, graduates and undergraduates in one space to develop collaboration and the exchange of ideas, as well as working on projects such as women's rights in Haiti, post traumatic stress, translating and transcribing historic documents, alongside a visiting artist and a project looking at mapping conspiracies and resistance across the Atlantic world.

Call for Papers - Development and Empire, 1929-1962

Call for Papers

Development and Empire, 1929-1962

University of York (UK)

Saturday, 2 July 2011

The global foreign aid budget, which has risen significantly in the first decade of the twenty-first century, is controversial. Although aid has the potential to facilitate capital formation and knowledge transfer, the development economics literature divides into optimists and pessimists, who argue that aid is allocated ineffectively with pernicious effects on long term growth. Despite a voluminous literature on aid, dating back over half a century, historians have only made fleeting contributions to these debates. Historians of the British Empire, however, have access to excellent data that can provide useful insights.

British aid policy dates back to the 1929 Colonial Development Act (CDA), which set up a Colonial Development Fund (CDF) for development projects. Before then, infrastructure projects were financed using international loan finance supplemented by colonial public expenditure. In 1940, the CDA was succeeded by the Colonial Development and Welfare Act (CDWA), which included the development of social services and increased the sum in the CDF from £1 million to £5 million. Official accounts and specialists academic studies have confirmed that British policy was affected by geo-strategic and domestic macro-economic concerns and that its implementation was constrained by the contingencies imposed by post-war austerity. With some notable exceptions there have been far fewer studies of how aid was actually used within colonies.

This one-day conference will extend the literatures on colonialism and development by: tracing the origins of British aid policy; exploring metropolitan and colonial political economies of aid policy during the epoch of decolonisation; considering the impact of aid in British dependent territories; and evaluating how aid policy affected the meanings given to ‘development’.

We are seeking proposals for a 20-minute paper on British colonies in South East Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa or the Caribbean that will consider one or more of the following questions:

• How did local bureaucrats, business and other social elites respond to the opportunities provided by an augmented aid budget?

• Did colonial elites collaborate or compete? How were colonial agendas set?

• How did financial-cum-institutional constraints as administrated by the British Treasury affect public capital formation in London and overseas?

• How did scarcities affecting international, British and colonial product markets, and discriminatory imperial commercial policies, affect the allocation and expenditure of aid?

• How was aid administered on the ground: by whom; for whom; and with what effects?

We may offer a limited number of Postgraduate Bursaries to assist postgraduate presenters with registration and travel costs. Those seeking a bursary should state so on their submission.

Submission:

Proposals must include the following:

- Title

- Summary of proposal of maximum 250 words

- 1 page c.v. including author’s name, address, email , institutional affiliation

All proposals must be sent to Dr. Henrice Altink (ha501@york.ac.uk) or Dr. David Clayton (dwc1@york.ac.uk) no later than 17 December 2010. Notifications will be sent by 14 January 2011.

Travelling Librarian - University of Florida: Gainesville, North Florida

Despite intentions to update this blog while travelling, the intensity of meetings, travelling, note taking and preparation for each day prevented these best laid plans. Over the next few days I hope to make up for this by short descriptions of each stop.

The University of Florida, based in Gainesville, north Florida is a land-grant state university, set in a landscape of largely oak trees and spanish moss, as well as a few palm trees. The library is the strongest for Caribbean material in the state, and collects across the English speaking, Spanish speaking and French speaking Caribbean.  Due to the university's land grant status the library has a particular interest in areas such as tropical agriculture, sugar, citrus fruit, rural anthropology and sociology, and environmental issues. material from the Caribbean is bought for both the Latin American and Caribbean collection and other parts of the library system.

The collection is notable for its collections of newspapers (on microfilm and increasingly in digitised format). As well as newspapers the library also holds material such as the Bahamas Government records on microfilm and the Leeward Islands Gazette - now digitised. 

The University of Florida hosts the technology and equipment for the Digital Library of the Caribbean.

Call for Papers: 35th Annual Conference of the Society for Caribbean Studies

35th Annual Conference of the Society for Caribbean Studies

International Slavery Museum, Albert Dock, Liverpool

Wednesday 29th June - Friday 1st July 2011

 The Society for Caribbean Studies invites submissions of short abstracts of 250 to 400 words for research papers on the Hispanic, Francophone, Dutch and Anglophone Caribbean and their diasporas for this annual international conference. Papers are welcomed from all disciplines and can address the themes outlined below. We also welcome abstracts for papers that fall outside this list of topics, and we particularly welcome proposals for complete panels, which should consist of three papers.

Those selected for the conference will be invited to give a 20-minute presentation and will be offered the opportunity to publish their work as part of the Society's online series of papers.

Abstracts should be submitted along with a short CV by 7th January, 2011.

Proposals received after the deadline may not be considered.

PROVISIONAL PANELS

• Liverpool and the Caribbean
• The Fall of the Plantation Complex
• Museums and Caribbean Histories
• Slavery, Commemoration, and Representation
• Ports and Cities
• Health, Social Policy, and Disability
• Environment and Natural Disasters
• The Challenges of Democracy
• Childhood and Education
• Theatre, Dance, and Performance
• Food and Material Culture
• Colonial Governance and Decolonisation

To submit an abstract online, please visit our website: http://www.caribbeanstudies.org.uk/

The Society will provide a limited number of Postgraduate Bursaries for presenters to assist with registration and accommodation costs.

Postgraduate researchers should indicate that they are seeking a bursary when submitting their abstract, but please note that travel costs cannot be funded.

Arts researchers or practitioners living and working in the Caribbean are eligible to apply for the Bridget Jones Award, the deadline for which is also 7th January, 2011. For more information on the Bridget Jones Award, contact Kate Quinn at kate.quinn@sas.ac.uk, or visit our website: http://www.caribbeanstudies.org.uk/

For further queries, or alternative methods of abstract submission, contact Lorna Burns at societyforcaribbeanstudies@gmail.com, or by mail at The Department of English Literature, 5 University Gardens, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, G12 8QQ.

Institute of Commonwealth Studies Human Rights Seminar Series 2010-11

Human Rights Seminar Series 2010-11


Unless otherwise indicated seminars will take place at 5.30pm in Room G32, Senate House,School of Advanced Study, University of London

For maps and directions: http://www.sas.ac.uk/maps.html

For further information, please contact Par Engstrom (par.engstrom@sas.ac.uk)


Wednesday, 17 November
The Judicial Protection of Social Rights: An Incrementalist Approach
Dr Jeff King, Fellow and Tutor in law, Balliol College, and Research Fellow, Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, University of Oxford


Wednesday, 24 November
Public Security or Social Defence? Explaining Change and Continuity in Brazil's Public Security Policies
Prof Anthony W. Pereira, Director Brazil Institute, King's College London
Note change of venue: Stewart House, Seminar Room 274/5


Wednesday, 1 December
Civilian Social Networks and the Social Construction of Genocide Victims: A Topology of the Unión Patriótica (Colombia)
Andrei Gomez-Suarez, Lecturer in International Security, University of Sussex


Wednesday, 26 January
Lawfare and Palestine
Dr Michael Kearney, Fellow in Law, LSE


Wednesday, 9 February
Including ‘Caste’ in the UK Equality Act (2010)
Meena Varma, Executive Director of Dalit Solidarity Network UK


Wednesday, 2 March
Title tbc
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri, Co-director, Centre for the International Politics of Conflict, Rights and Justice, SOAS, and Co-chair, London Transitional Justice Network (LTJN)


Wednesday, 30 March
Legitimacy and Supranational Human Rights Courts
Dr Başak Çali, Senior Lecturer in Human Rights and Principal Investigator European Court of Human Rights Project, UCL

African Journal Archive

http://www.sabinet.co.za/?page=african-journal-archive

The African Journal Archive is a retrospective digitisation project of full-text journal articles published in Africa, in the Sciences, Social Sciences and Humanities, providing access to a multi-disciplinary, multi-country digital archive of Africa’s research and cultural heritage contained in its journal literature.

This project is hosted by Sabinet Gateway with funding from the from the Carnegie Corporation. It offers free access to historic backfiles of a collection of journals published in Africa from a range of subject areas covering the sciences, social sciences and humanities.

Topics covered in the most detail are agriculture, botany, zoology, history, law, education, politics, medicine, geology, most recently published issues are not hosted on the African Journal Archive links are provided to publishers websites.


This is a complement to the African Journal Online website http://ajol.info/ which also offers links to African published materials. This is an independent project again covering all subject areas. Although there may be some overlap the sites does seem at the moment to have distinct content.

Travelling Librarian - visits Miami

That Florida is a centre of expertise and scholarship in Latin America and the Caribbean should not be a surprise. The geography of Florida in relation to Latin America and the Caribbean, the impact of migration and familial connections, and the role of Florida as a gateway to trade between the US and Latin American and the Caribbean all contribute to the strengths of academic study (and library resources) in Florida.

Visiting Miami one can't help but be aware of the links between Florida and Latin America and the Caribbean. Whether it is eating at Cuban and Haitian rsetaurants, listening to people speak Spanish on the bus, or seeing the range of passports on display at the airport you can not but be aware that this is in many respects a Caribbean city.

I spent time at two universities in Miami - Florida International University and the University of Miami. Florida International University (FIU) is a relatively new university, chartered in 1967 and opening in 1972. FIU is a state university with a student body of nearly 40,000. I visited staff at the Latin American and Caribbean Information Center, a department of the University Library, as well as staff in Special Collections and Reference services.The Library collects material across Latin America and the Caribbean, and also hosts the co-ordinator for the Digitial Library of the Caribbean (dLOC) . (I'll be posting more on dLOC soon).

The University of Miami, founded in 1925, is a private research university with more than 15,000 students. I spoke with the Latin American and Caribbean subject specialist, staff at Special Collections and staff at the Cuban Heritage Collection. Cuban collections have been strong since the foundation of the university and enhanced by strong links with the local Cuban communities, since the 1920's. The library also collects across Latin America and the Caribbean. The Library's special collections include holdings relating to the history of Florida and the Caribbean Basin, including the West Indies; the northern coastal regions of South America, Central America, and Mexico. The holdings include all but three of the dozens of books published in or about Jamaica between its conquest by the English in the 1650s and the end of plantation slavery in the British Empire in 1834, and travel narratives and other first-hand accounts which describe the societies and histories of the major West Indies islands as well as the smaller countries like Barbados, Antigua, Trinidad, and St. Lucia. The department also contains a number of rare titles on Guyana and Surinam. The Library has been involved in a number of digitial initiatives and has a number of online exhibits available.

Canadas rich documentary filmmaking heritage

The Hot Docs Doc Library celebrates Canadas rich documentary filmmaking heritage

and is supported by the Department of Canadian Heritage. It provides free access to a large growing collection of documentary films from Canadian film makers. These include materials from the National Film Board of Canada.

Materials can be searched or browsed by topic. There are also playlists for films by young film makers and a section designed for school and college use. A wide range of topics relating to social, political, economic and world events are covered. They include an emphasis on the history, culture and society of Canada, the anthropology of Canadian ethnic groups and Canadian perspectives on world events. Information on copyright and technical requirements is given on the website.

New archives list - Gallagher papers on education and Lesotho

Continuing to highlight collections for which we have added detailed handlists to the ULRLS archives catalogue this post introduces the Gallagher collection.

Jack Gallagher worked as a teacher and education adviser in Lesotho during the 1980s and 1990s. He accumulated the material in this collection during this time: some relates directly to his work and personal interests, while other items were collected by him. Gallagher also donated a substantial collection of printed material on Lesotho to the Institute of Commonwealth Studies Library.

The Gallagher collection (ICS114) includes papers relating to the Univeristy of Lesotho and education in Lesotho, 1984-1991; records of the Teyateyaneng Centenary Committee, 1985-1986; photographs and slides for exhibitions, c.1985; papers concerning Basutoland law, 1951-1952; a copy of a published history of Basutoland, written in Sotho, 1917; and other miscellaneous items including personal correspondence.

2010 Trevor Reese Prize Awarded

The Institute of Commonwealth Studies is delighted to announce that the 2010 Trevor Reese Prize has been awarded to John Darwin, Nuffield College - University of Oxford for his publication The Empire Project: The Rise and Fall of the British World-System, 1830-1970 (CUP, 2009),
The prize will be awarded by Mrs Hilary Reese at an event scheduled for December 2010. Further details will be made available shortly.

For any queries relating to this prize please contact Troy Rutt

Travelling Librarian

David Clover, the Commonwealth Studies Librarian, leaves tomorrow on a trip to the United States, on an itinerary including visits to universities and libraries in Florida, Illinois, North Carolina and New York. David's trip is funded by the ESU/CILIP Travelling Librarian Award, an annual award intended to encourage US/UK contacts in the library world and the establishment of permanent links through a professional development study tour. The award is funded by the English Speaking Union and the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals.

David's application was entitled: “Servicing Caribbean Studies – learning from United States experiences” and the objectives of this trip are to:

• Expand knowledge of major collections relating to Caribbean Studies in the United States,


• Make personal contact with United States librarians and archivists with Caribbean Studies responsibilities,


• Learn about current projects relating to Caribbean collections, in particular relating to collaboration and digitisation.

This blog will host some brief reports from David's study tour, as well as the usual mix of content.

Policing the Caribbean: Transnational Security Co-operation in Practice: Panel and Book Launch

Wednesday 20th October:

Ben Bowling, Policing the Caribbean: Transnational Security Co-operation in Practice Oxford University Press, 2010

VENUE: Chapters, King’s College London, Strand, London WCR 2LS
TIME: 6PM

Panel:

Ben Bowling, Professor of Criminology & Criminal Justice, King's College London Robert Reiner, Department of Law, LSE
Amanda Sives, Department of Politics, Liverpool University

Chair: Philip Murphy, Director, Institute of Commonwealth Studies

Please RSVP to jessica.necchi@oup.com

The panel will be followed by a wine reception. Abstract & bio below.

Abstract:
Policing the Caribbean examines how law enforcement is migrating beyond the boundaries of the nation state. Perceptions of public safety and national sovereignty are shifting in the face of global insecurity and as the police respond to transnational threats like drug trafficking and organised crime. Transnational policing is one of the most significant recent developments in the security field and is changing the organisation of criminal law enforcement in the Caribbean and other parts of the world. Drawing on interviews with chief police officers, Customs, coastguard, immigration, security, military and government officials, Policing the Caribbean examines these changes and provides unique insight into collaboration between local security agencies and liaison officers from the UK and USA. This book considers the impact of a restructured transnational security infrastructure on the safety and wellbeing of the Caribbean islands and beyond. It concludes that as the “war on drugs” has been fought, transnational law enforcement has displaced drug trafficking to new locations across the north Atlantic rim and with it, the associated harms of money laundering, corruption and armed violence.

Ben Bowling is Professor of Criminology & Criminal Justice at King's College London. He has published widely in the fields of policing and international criminal justice. His books include Violent Racism (OUP 1998) and Racism, Crime and Justice (with Coretta Phillips, Longman 2002). He has served on the editorial boards of the British Journal of Criminology and Policing and Society. He has been a consultant to the United Nations and Interpol, and regularly addresses senior security sector practitioners from around the world.

Sponsored by the Institute for the Study of the Americas, The Institute of Commonwealth Studies, the British Society of Criminology and Oxford University Press

Central Bank of Barbados statistics

CENTRAL BANK OF BARBADOS ANNOUNCES MAJOR CHANGES TO THE PRESENTATION OF ITS ON-LINE STATISTICS

Users of the Central Bank of Barbados’ statistics can now access them more easily.

The Bank has recently announced that anyone can download from its website – http://data.centralbank.org.bb/ – most of its statistical data in Excel format. The longest series at the highest frequency is posted on the site, so that persons can more conveniently download information on a range of frequently-requested information.

In announcing this change in the presentation, the Bank said that the new format is in keeping with international standards. The statistical information on the website is definitely more user-friendly and much easier to manipulate. The use of Excel, rather than pdf, facilitates maneuverability, and the inclusion of graphs definitely enhances the presentation.

Yet another feature of this enhancement is the more timely publication of the information, as it is uploaded as soon as it becomes available, rather than monthly or annually as occurred in the past.

The data in the Economic and Financial Statistics (EFS) is available in the new format and cover more than 600 variables, pertaining to the monetary authorities, commercial banks, non-bank financial institutions, interest rates, securities, public finance, foreign trade and general statistics. Persons downloading the data can choose variables by selecting the period of interest and/or the preferred frequency, i.e. monthly, quarterly or annually.

And very soon the statistics contained in the Statistical Digest (ASD) and the Balance of Payments (BOP) Survey will be integrated into this format.

Historically, this information was prepared and published in hardcopy in the monthly Economic and Financial Statistics, the Statistical Digest or the Balance of Payments, both of which are produced annually. The Bank has discontinued the hard copy publication of these statistics and instead is publishing all of the statistical information on-line.

Yesu Persaud Centre for Caribbean Studies Seminars - Autumn 2010

University of Warwick

YESU PERSAUD CENTRE FOR CARIBBEAN STUDIES

Seminars - Autumn 2010

Tuesday, 12th October 2010
Donald Barnard
"Metaphor and the Use of Puns in Derek Walcott's Omeros"
5.00pm
Venue: Humanities H0.44


Tuesday, 26th October 2010
Maya Jaggi (The Guardian)
“The British Media and the Caribbean”
5.00pm
Venue: Humanities H0.52
(reception following)


Tuesday 16th November 2010
In conjunction with the Early Modern Seminar Leslie Theibert (Yale) “Smugglers and Privateers: Competing Imperial Ideologies in Later Seventeenth Century Jamaica.”
5.00pm
Venue: Humanities H3.03


Tuesday, 23rd November 2010
Leah Gordon
"Kanaval: Vodou, Politics and Revolution on the Streets of Haiti”
(followed by book sale/signing)
5.00pm
Venue: Humanities H0.52

Tuesday 7th December 2010
In association with the Institute of Advanced Studies and the Leverhulme Foundation Laura Doyle (University of Masachusetts, Amherst) “Between Cores: Cultural Dialectics in a Wider Historical Frame”
5.00pm
Venue: Milburn House, Institute of Advanced Studies. Reception following

All Welcome

For further details please contact Kerry Drakeley at k.j.drakeley@warwick.ac.uk

New archives list - Commonwealth Press Union

A detailed list for the Commonwealth Press Union (ICS121) and its predecessor the Empire Press Union has been added to the ULRLS Archives catalogue.

The collection contains records and publications of the Empire Press Union, later called the Commonwealth Press Union. The Commonwealth Press Union (CPU) was an association composed of 750 members in 49 countries, including newspaper groups (with several hundred newspapers), individual newspapers, and news agencies throughout the Commonwealth. They were represented within the CPU by their proprietors, publishers or senior executives.
The aims and objectives of the organisation were to uphold the ideas and values of the Commonwealth; to promote, through the press, understanding and goodwill among members of the Commonwealth; and to advance the freedom, interests and welfare of the Commonwealth press and those working within it by i) monitoring and opposing all measures and proposals likely to affect the freedom of the press in any part of the Commonwealth, ii) working for improved facilities for reporting and transmitting news, and iii) promoting the training of all involved in the Commonwealth’s press.

The CPU offered some of the Commonwealth's most prestigious awards, including the Commonwealth Press Union Fellowship in International Journalism and the Harry Brittain Fellowships.

The origin of the organisation went back to 1909 with the staging of the first Imperial Press Conference. This led to the creation of the Empire Press Union, which later became the Commonwealth Press Union. The CPU was wound up on 31 December 2008. The Commonwealth Media Trust was established to continue some of the work established by the CPU. Its primary concerns are supporting media freedom and media rights, the training of journalists in the skills necessary for them to enable their work and a thorough understanding of media law and the establishment and support of self-regulatory bodies throughout the Commonwealth


Papers include a limited number of official records relating to the administration of the organisation (reports, financial statements, rules, correspondence etc., several items being mounted in a volume entitled 'The Empire Press Union Guard Book') 1909-1998; circulars and bulletins covering the periods 1911-1924, 1929-1939 and 1964-1986; a good series of Conference papers and reports, 1909-1973, together with associated albums of news cuttings, 1919-1946, and photographs, c1950-1985; a few publications, 1911-1978; a small series of Fellowship Scheme leaflets, 1965-1970; and papers relating to Sir Harry Brittain (the founder of the Empire Press Union) with other papers on the history of the organisation.


A more recent donation of further material from the Commonwealth Press Union has been received by the Institute of Commonwealth Studies Library and we are seeking funding to have this material listed. The Library also holds the archives of the Commonwealth Journalists Association (ICS150).

New archives list - Australian Bicentennial Celebrations

Another new collection for which a detailed handlist has been added to the ULRLS Archives Catalogue is a collection relating to the Australian Bicentennial Celebrations (ICS113)

Australia held a year of celebrations in 1988 to mark the 200th anniversary of the "founding" of the country. Events were co-ordinated by the Australian Bicentennial Authority, with individual states, cities and other organisations mounting their own celebrations. the collection includes material produced by the Australian Bicentennial Authority; the Australian Bicentennial Authority: Arts; the New South Wales Bicentennial Council; the Bicentennial Festival of Sydney; Miscellaneous leaflets; and material produced for events in the UK.

The Library also holds the archives of the Britain Australia Bicentennial Committee (ICS 144), which was set up in 1984, initially by the British Government through the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, to supervise the British involvement in the Australian Bicentennial. Initially a steering committee was set up, which later became the BABC. In 1985 the Britain Australia Bicentennial Trust was set up to deal with the public money raised, at this time the BABC also set up a number of National Task subcommittees and regional subcommittees. This collection has had some listing work done, but awaits detailed cataloguing.

New archives lists - Ceylon

Two new collections for which we have added details to the ULRLS Archives catalogue are part of our collection of papers of former colonial civil servants in Ceylon.

The W T Stace Autobiography (ICS 100) consists of a typescript draft, comprising chapters 7-16 inclusive of the Autobiography of W T (Walter Terence) Stace, as a civil servant in Ceylon, from 1910-1932. It is not known whether the work was ever published, no record of publication has been found to date.


Born into a military family, Walter Terence Stace (1886-1967) first went out to Ceylon as a young civil servant in 1910. Beginning as a cadet in Galle, he gradually rose in the administrative hierarchy to become a police magistrate, private secretary to the Governor (Sir Robert Chalmers), district judge at Negombo, and an official (ultimately, the head) of the Land Settlement Department, as well as mayor of Colombo. During his last ten years in the colony, while working on land settlement, Stace divorced his first wife (who had returned to Britain) and married Blanche Beven; and he spent an increasing amount of time writing on philosophy which from an early age had been a significant personal interest.

He resigned from the civil service in 1932 to become a teacher of philosophy at Princeton University, USA. Stace published several works on philosophy, including 'A critical history of Greek philosophy' (1920), 'The philosophy of Hegel: a systematic exposition' (1924), 'The meaning of beauty: a theory of aesthetics' (1929), 'The theory of knowledge and existence' (1932), 'The concept of morals' (1937), 'The destiny of western man' (1942), and 'Mysticism and philosophy' (1961).

The ME Westrop papers (ICS104) relate to education in Ceylon. Miss M E Westrop was an Inspector of Schools in Ceylon from 1928-1948. No other biographical details are available. the collection of papers held by the Institute of Commonwealth Studies Library include information for Inspectors, including an Inspectors' Manual, dated 1945; papers on syllabuses and training courses on the teaching of English as a second language, adult education and the Practical Teaching Test; and papers on broadcasts to schools from the Colombo Radio Station, 1939-1942, including synopses of talks by Miss Westrop 'Great Britain at War' and typescript of farewell broadcast by Miss Westrop, 1948 'Girls' Education in Ceylon, covering a period of 20 years'.

Maps of Africa to 1900

The Maps of Africa to 1900 digital collection contains images of maps listed in the bibliography Maps of Africa to 1900: A Checklist of Maps in Atlases and Geographical Journals in the Collections of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (Bassett & Scheven, Urbana: Graduate School of Library and Information Science, 2000).

As such, this collection mines not only the Library’s map collections, but also its extensive collection of 19th century atlases and geographical journals, including the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society (United Kingdom), the Bulletin de la Société de Géographie de Paris (France), and Petermanns Geographische Mittheilungen (Germany).


Bassett’s and Scheven’s original bibliography lists 2,416 maps of which nearly 78 percent date from the 19th century. Africanists and historians of cartography are drawn to this century because the map of the continent changed so rapidly in the wake of European explorations, conquests, and colonization (Bassett & Scheven, p. iii). About a quarter of the collection dates from the sixteenth century, 9 percent from the seventeenth, and 13 percent from the eighteenth century.

The Library is digitizing as many of the maps as possible, condition permitting. Maps are added to the collection as they are completed.

Australian Studies (journal)

The UK published journal  Australian Studies has been in abeyance for a couple of years, but was recently successfully relaunched as a free online resource under the aegis of the National Library of Australia.


The first issue of the newly relaunched journal can be accessed here:

http://www.nla.gov.au/openpublish/index.php/australian-studies/issue/current

This first edition of Australian Studies as an electronic journal comprises two special groups of articles. The first, by current and recently completed postgraduate students, began as a call for papers in May 2007 for what was then envisaged as a themed edition of Australian Studies, focusing upon the topic of ‘captivity’. The choice of subject was prompted in part by postgraduate research interests at the Menzies Centre for Australian Studies (King’s College London) in convict-era Australia, when captivity – or avoidance of it – was a defining characteristic of life for thousands of men and women. But the five ‘captivity’ essays included here escape from these initially narrow conceptual confines, and instead investigate the theme of captivity from the 1830s to the present day.


The second group of articles is a selection from papers submitted for the 2007 BASA Essay Prize. This is a prize awarded on an occasional basis for current and recently
completed postgraduate students who have submitted papers, on any topic relevant to Australian studies broadly defined, to the BASA journal, Australian Studies. The first BASA Essay Prize was awarded in 2007 to Eddy Rogers, now at the University of Guelph in Canada. His prize-winning essay is published here for the first time, along with a selection of other papers submitted during that year.

In subsequent (2010) editions of Australian Studies, the focus will shift from the recent work of postgraduate students to the significant body of material generated by recent BASA conferences – the ‘Australian Lives’ conference held at the University of Exeter’s new Cornwall Campus, near Falmouth, in September 2006, and the ‘Changing Australia’ conference at Royal Holloway College, University of London, in September 2008. Articles from these two major international conferences will appear in the two editions of Australian Studies scheduled for 2010, along with a number of other articles ‘in the queue’ awaiting publication.

New archives list - The Buganda Constitution 1954

Newly added to the ULRLS Archives Catalogue is the handlist of a collection of papers relating to the Buganda Constitution, 1954 (ICS110)

The collection comprises of proceedings, evidence, documents and the judgement in the case of Mukwaba and others v. Mukunbira and others in the Uganda High Court. The case was brought to test the legality of the withdrawal by the Protectorate Government of recognition of the Kabaka Mutesa II as native ruler of the Province of Buganda, and actions by the Government affecting the Constitution, 1954. Judgement was in favour of the Protectorate Government

In November 1953, the Protectorate Government of Uganda withdrew recognition of Mutesa II as native ruler of the Province of Buganda. This status had been held by the Kabaka under the Buganda Agreement of 1900, following the establishment of a British Protectorate in 1894. The Agreement also provided for the withdrawal of recognition, as occurred in 1953, should the Kabaka no longer remain faithful to the protecting authority. Following the withdrawal of recognition of the Kabaka, he was deported to Britain. The court case, heard in 1954, tested various constitutional questions arising from this and subsequent actions, and found in favour of the Protectorate Government.

Because of the constitutional difficulties arising at this time, the Protectorate Government set up a Conference to consider the situation further. This took place in 1954 also, and was headed by Sir Keith Hancock (then Director of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies in London). The Conference made various recommendations regarding the future Constitution of Buganda. The implementation of the agreed recommendations of the Conference, and the outcome of the court case, ultimately led to the return of Mutesa II two years later as a constitutional monarch.

Papers relating to the Hancock Commission into Buganda constitutional issues are in Sir (William) Keith Hancock papers ICS29/1.

CFP: Caribbean Studies Association

Caribbean Studies Association - 36th Annual Conference

May 30 – June 3, 2011

World Trade Center, Curaçao

The CSA is calling for papers for its 36th annual conference. The theme is “Building a New House: Towards New Caribbean Futures in an Age of Uncertainty.” We are seeking scholarly papers from individuals spanning the broadest disciplinary and methodological range whose work focuses upon the Caribbean and its Diasporas. While we consider individual papers, we encourage submissions of entire panel proposals. We also welcome graduate student submissions.

The program committee encourages paper and panel proposals that address the
conference theme, although it will also consider other topics. More information on the conference theme is available at the CSA website, ww.caribbeanstudiesassociation.org.

All submissions must be made via the online submission form at http://www.caribbeanstudiesassociation.org/. The deadline for submissions is December 15, 2010.

CSA is able to offer a limited number of travel grants to assist selected participants. For further information, please see our website or our Newsletter where the full Call for Applications to the Travel Grant will be published soon in English, Spanish and French. As CSA is striving to develop its travel fund, we greatly appreciate any donation made to it. The travel grant application should be submitted by December 15, 2010, to Dr.
Samuel Furé Davis at sfuredavis@flex.uh.cu.

New archives list - Graham Mytton papers - the media in Africa

Another new archives list recently added to the ULRLS Archives Catalogue is the papers of Graham Mytton (ICS115).

As part of his postgraduate studies in the mass media, Graham Mytton undertook practical research into the media in Tanzania, spending a year as a research associate at University College, Dar es Salaam in 1967-1968. After completing his studies in Manchester in 1970, Mytton became the Zambia Broadcasting Services Research Fellow at the Institute for African Studies, University of Zambia, a post he held until 1973. Much of the material in this collection was accumulated during these research projects. 

Mytton later worked for the BBC, eventually becoming Controller of Marketing for the BBC World Service. He is now an independent market and audience research consultant and trainer.

The archive collection is comprised of papers accumulated by Graham Mytton in the course of research into the press and broadcasting in Tanzania and Zambia. The material comprises files on the press in Tanzania, including notes of interviews with staff, readership statistics and other literature about newspapers; files concerning broadcasting in Tanzania, including copies of relevant speeches in Parliament, material on the Ministry of Information, Tanganyika Broadcasting Corporation and Radio Tanzania, and papers on educational and adult education broadcasting; files concerning broadcasting in Zambia, including documents on Zambia Broadcasting Services, educational and rural broadcasting; papers for the Ninth Commonwealth Broadcasting Conference in Kenya; and some miscellaneous items.

The Library also holds Mytton's book published in 1983, entitled Mass communication in Africa , copies of reports on the mass media audience survey he carried out in Zambia, and interviews by Mytton with members of the TANU Publicity Section.

New New Zealand digital resource - Appendices to the Journal of the House of Representatives

The Speaker of the NZ House of Representatives recently launched a website containing the first 24 volumes of the Appendices to the Journal of the House of Representatives. Covering the 1860s and 1870s, it includes more than 1600 reports, and it is just the start.

The Speaker noted:

"We have only just begun to lift the curtain on the hidden treasures in the A to Js. We now need to digitise the whole period 1854 to 1999 when the modern-day Parliamentary Papers begin. It is hoped that this pilot website will provide a launching pad through which further digitisation of the A to Js can be achieved with the support of other stakeholders, and to date, some have indicated their financial support to enable this to happen.

"The first 24 volumes will eventually become an estimated 600 volumes, though the speed at which that happens will depend on available funding. In a recent on-line poll, conducted by Digital New Zealand on candidates for digitisation, the A to Js were voted one of the top information source priorities."

 

The website for this resource is at: http://atojs.natlib.govt.nz/

The Appendix to the Journals of the House of Representatives (AJHR), sometimes known as "the A to Js", is a collection of government-related reports published every year from 1858. The reports cover many subjects, documenting the work of government departments and a wide range of other activities carried out by, or of interest to, the government of the day. The AJHR is one of the most valuable tools for understanding how New Zealand has developed from its earliest colonial beginnings to the present. It provides a wealth of information for researchers working across many fields.

 

All papers tabled before Parliament are considered appendices to the Journal. The House orders some of these papers to be printed, and these are published annually in a separate series of volumes as the Appendix to the Journals of the House of Representatives. The Legislative Council (or Upper House of Parliament) also published a separate volume of papers, the Journal of the Legislative Council (not included on this website), before it was abolished in 1951. The Council's Journal includes appendices at the end of some volumes.

 

The AJHR is arranged into broad themes. The following list provides a broad outline of the themes since the late nineteenth century:

 

•A: legislative, political, and foreign affairs

 

•B: public finance

 

•C: Crown lands, mines, forests, primary production, environment

 

•D: immigration, public works, energy

 

•E: education, welfare, and justice

 

•F: post office, broadcasting, communications

 

•G: Maori affairs

 

•H: miscellaneous, commissions of inquiry

 

•I: reports of select committees

 

•J: petitions

 

Each theme includes a series of reports grouped by "shoulder number" — a letter of the alphabet followed by a number. For example:

 

"General report on lunatic asylums in New Zealand (by Dr. Paley)", AJHR, 1874, H-1

 

This indicates that the report was published in 1874 and was the first document in the "H" theme that year.

 

What's in the AJHR?

• Annual reports of government departments
• Reports of commissions of inquiry
• Reports relating to broader government work
• Images and maps

 

  

Start of term - welcome to our new Human Rights students

We'd like to wish all our new students a warm welcome to the Library. Students at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies are either starting the MA in Understanding and Securing Human Rights, or studying for a PhD in a wide range of topics and regions.

The teaching collection in human rights is focused on supporting the MA in Understanding and Securing Human Rights, and has been built up over the course of this programme to be an important and up to date collection of material on human rights, that is well supplemented by collections at the Institute for Advanced Legal Studies and elsewhere in the Senate House Library.

The general Commonwealth Studies collections reflect the interest of the Commonwealth as an organisation in human rights issues, as well as the issues that have impacted on and within various Commonwealth nations - including recognition of indigenous peoples' rights, genocide and war, apartheid, cultural rights and the environment, globalisation and development, and reconciliation.

Both collections are available to consult on a reference-only basis for any library member not on the MA programme. Library staff are always willing to help and support your research and study.

Mandela: the man and his legacy

Mandela: the man and his legacy: Rt. Hon. Peter Hain, MP for Neath

Monday 29th November 2010

Lecture to start promptly at 5.30pm and to be followed by a wine reception

Beveridge Hall, South Block, Senate House
Malet Street, University of London
London WC1E 7HU

Peter Hain, MP for Neath, will deliver the lecture ‘Mandela: the man and his legacy’ based on his recently published biography of Nelson Mandela simply entitled ‘Mandela’.

Mandela tells the life and legacy of one of the twentieth centuries most influential statesmen. Charting his development as a lawyer, a protester, and a political leader, Peter Hain MP takes an in-depth look at Mandela’s rise through the ranks of the African National Congress (ANC) and subsequent imprisonment on Robben Island, where his increasingly vocal protests against the injustices of Apartheid brought his struggle against overwhelming prejudice and fear to the eyes of the world.

Encompassing his inauguration as South Africa’s first black president, his “retirement” campaigns for a solution to AIDS, poverty, and human rights, and above all his humanity and compassion, this book shows how Mandela has truly become a legend for our time.

Copies of this book will be available to purchase on the day of the lecture.

RSVP to Troy Rutt (troy.rutt@sas.ac.uk or 020 7862 8853)

http://www.commonwealth.sas.ac.uk/

Opening Hours

As of today the library returns to term-time opening hours:

Monday 27 September 2010 - Friday 17 December 2010


Monday - Thursday 09.00 - 21.00

Friday 09.00 - 18.30

Saturday 09.45 - 17.30

New archives list - Sir Ivor Jennings - education and constitutional law across the Commonwealth

We're pleased to announce another handlist added to the ULRLS Archives Catalogue.

The Sir Ivor Jennings papers (ICS125) are a vaulable resource for the history of, and hiostory of education in, Sri Lanka, and for constitutional history across many nations within the Commonwealth.

Sir (William) Ivor Jennings, constitutional lawyer and educationalist, was born in Bristol on 16 May 1903 and died in Cambridge on 19 December 1965. Jennigs held academic appointments at Leeds University in 1925-1929, and the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), where he was first lecturer, (1929-1930) and then reader in English Law (1930-1940). His publications in this period included works on the poor law code, housing law, public health law, town and country planning law and laws relating to local government. He also wrote on constitutional matters in The Law and the Constitution (1933), Cabinet Government (1936) and Parliament (1939).

Appointed principal of University College, Ceylon in 1940, he was its first Vice-Chancellor (1942-1955) when it became the University of Ceylon. He described his life there in Road to Peradeniya, an unpublished autobiography, which was posthumously published in 2005 (ref: C/14); see also Jennings' The Kandy Road (ed. H.A.I. Goonetileke, University of Peradeniya, 1993). He was frequently consulted on constitutional, educational and other matters and was Chairman of the Ceylon Social Services Commission (1944-1946), a member of the Commission on University Education in Malaya (1947), a member of the Commission on the Ceylon Constitution (1948), President of the Inter-University Board of India (1949-1950), Constitutional Adviser and Chief Draughtsman, Pakistan (1954-1955), a member of the Malayan Constitutional Commission (1956-1957), and Chairman of the Royal University of Malta Commission. He was also Professor of Political Science, University of British Columbia, in 1938-1939 and Visiting Professor, Australian National University in 1950.

As the colonial period ended, he became particularly interested in the Commonwealth and the newly independent nations and was valued as a commentator on the subject. He delivered the 1948-1949 Wayneflete lectures at Magdelen College, Oxford on `The Commonwealth in Asia', the 1950 George Judah Cohen Memorial Lecture at the University of Sydney on `The Commonwealth of Nations', the 1957 Montague Burton lecture on International Relations at the University of Leeds on `Nationalism, Colonialism and Neutralism' and a series on `Problems of the New Commonwealth' at the Commonwealth Studies Center at Duke University, North Carolina, USA in 1958. He re-published an earlier work on laws of the empire as Constitutional Laws of the Commonwealth (3ed. 1956) and published The Approach to Self-Government (1956) and works on Ceylon and Pakistan. In 1954 he became Master of Trinity Hall, Cambridge and Downing Professor of the Laws of England in 1962, holding both posts until his death. In later life he returned to his study of the British constitution, with the publication of Party Politics (1960-62). He was knighted in 1948, made a QC in 1949, and awarded the KBE in 1955.

The collection of papers held at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies comprises of material relating to both the legal and educational career of Jennings.

• 
  
  A. Education: material collected by Jennings as Vice-Chancellor of Ceylon University, Chairman of the Royal University of Malta Commission and a member of other educational bodies in or relating to Hong Kong, Jamaica, Kuwait, Malaya and Uganda.
• 
  
  B. Constitutional issues: material on constitutional and legal issues in Australia, Canada, Ceylon, Cyprus, Eritrea, Gambia, Ghana, Gibraltar, Japan, Malaya, Maldives, Malta, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, Singapore, South Africa, and Sudan;
• 
  
  C. Books and other writings: including material relating to British Commonwealth of Nations, Colonial Constitution Law, Laws and Liberties of England, Road to Peradeniya (unpublished autobiography);
• 
  
  D. Other material: material outside previous other categories, including British government publications and volumes of press cuttings.

 

Institute of Commonwealth Studies Decolonization Research Seminar

The Institute of Commonwealth Studies

Decolonization Research Seminar

Autumn Term 2010

5.30-7.00 pm
Room G35, Senate House, Malet Street, London

Mon. 11 Oct:
Rory Cormac (King’s College, London) ‘The Joint Intelligence Committee and Colonial Counterinsurgency at the End of Empire’

Gregor Davey (King’s College, London) ‘Professional factors affecting the activity and machinery of the 'Imperial' intelligence system 1948-1956’

Mon. 25 Oct:
A discussion of Defeating Mau Mau, Creating Kenya: Counterinsurgency, War and Decolonization (CUP, 2009) by Daniel Branch. Discussants: Dr Joanna Lewis (LSE) and Professor David Anderson (University of Oxford). Response by Dr Daniel Branch

Mon. 22 Nov:
Professor Martin Thomas (University of Exeter) ‘Oil and Order: Repressive Violence in Trinidad’s Oilfields before 1939’.

Commonwealth Research Seminar Series, 2010-11

Commonwealth Research Seminar Series, 2010-11


Time: 1.00-2.00 pm, always Wednesday

Venue: Room 104, 1st Floor, Senate House

Convenors: Shihan de Silva and Susan Williams, Institute of Commonwealth Studies

Autumn Term

Wednesday 20th October 2010

‘Domestic Migration in India: a Gujarat-Southern Rajasthan Remittance Corridor Study’
Howard Jones (Institute of Commonwealth Studies)


Wednesday 17th November 2010

‘Bombs, burdens, and book reviews: Africans at war 1939-47'.
David Killingray (Institute of Commonwealth Studies/Goldsmiths)


Wednesday 15th December 2010

‘Nkrumah and Pan-Africanism’
Marika Sherwood (Institute of Commonwealth Studies)


Winter Term

Wednesday 19th January 2011

‘Militant philosopher of the third world revolution: Frantz Fanon 50 years on’.
Leo Zeilig (Institute of Commonwealth Studies)

Wednesday 16th February 2011
Title: TBC
Mary Turner (Institute of Commonwealth Studies)

Wednesday 16th March 2011

‘Transnational Education in the Commonwealth’
Balasubramanyam Chandramohan (Institute of Commonwealth Studies)


Summer Term

Wednesday 20th April 2011

‘Education in Cyprus during the 1940s’
Antigone Heraclidou (Institute of Commonwealth Studies)

Wednesday 18th May 2011

‘Zimbabwe - state failure’
Richard Bourne (Institute of Commonwealth Studies)

Wednesday 15th June 2011

"We want new settlers of British stock": Race and the Politics of Migration to
Southern Africa, 1939-1960”
Jean P Smith (Institute for Historical Research).

Black and Asian Britain seminars

Institute of Commonwealth Studies, in conjunction with the Black and Asian Studies Association

Black and Asian Britain seminars

Seminars September to November: 6 to 7.30 pm, Senate House, University of London, Russell Square, London WC1. Everyone is welcome. You do not have to pre-book/register.

Tuesday, September 14 (Room G37)

Marika Sherwood, Malcolm X’s visits to Africa and Britain.
Historians of Malcolm usually almost ignore these visits: I shall outline his activities and question reasons for these omissions. My book Malcolm X: visits abroad April 1964 – February 1965 will be available at a reduced price.

Tuesday, October 12 (room G34)

Rev. Israel Oluwole Olofinjana, History and Contributions of African Churches in Britain.
The seminar will trace the history of African Churches in Brittan, explore why Africans are starting churches in the UK and their contributions to the British society. Rev. Olofinjana’s recent book Reverse in Ministry and Missions: Africans in the Dark Continent of Europe will be available at a reduced price. (Rev. Olofinjana is the minister of the Crofton Park Baptist Church, Brockley Grove, Lewisham)

Wednesday, 17 November (room G34)

Stephen Bourne will talk about his new book Mother Country which acknowledges the wartime contributions of Britain's Black community to the Home Front in WW2.

Linguistic Human Rights: Policy/Practice in the Commonwealth and Symposium 2010-11

Institute of Commonwealth Studies, School of Advanced Studies

University of London

Linguistic Human Rights: Policy/Practice in the Commonwealth and Symposium 2010-11

Theme (2010-11): Language, Communication and Culture in the Commonwealth

Time: 5.30-7.30 PM


Organiser:
Dr Balasubramanyam Chandramohan PhD (Shef), FHEA, FRSA
bala.chandra@sas.ac.uk
Phones: 020 7862 8866/07779 162674

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The Seminar Series and Symposium examine issues of language policy and practice in the Commonwealth. The Seminars aim to provide an overview of the situation in different areas of Commonwealth, both the ‘new’ and the ‘old’ Commonwealth, by highlighting evolving/current policies and practice that impact on the use of language in a range of domains.

The Symposium in July 2011 will focus on language issues in relation to the work of specific institutions and/or initiatives that cover the Commonwealth as a whole.

The presentations and discussions will be of interest to attendees who have specialist interest in the Commonwealth and also to those with academic and/or general interest in areas such as linguistics, literature, culture and society in the Commonwealth and beyond.

Seminar Series: Autumn Term 2010-11

14th October 2010
Venue: Room G22

Portuguese linguistic legacies in the Indian Ocean Commonwealth: Mozambique, Tanzania, Kenya, India, Sri Lanka, Maldives and Malaysia

Speaker: Dr Shihan de Silva, Jayasuriya, Senior Research Fellow, Institute of Commonwealth Studies

18th November 2010
Venue: Room 275

Balancing Monolingual and Multilingual Imperatives: a policy/practice challenge for the Commonwealth

Speaker: Dr Balasubramanyam Chandramohan, Council for Education in the Commonwealth/Kingston University/Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London


9th December 2010
Venue: Room G34

Language and Globalization of Higher Education: A Practitioner's Viewpoint

Speaker: Elizabeth Thussu, Director of Administration, Heythrop College, University of London.

New seminar series on 'International Refugee Law'

New seminar series on 'International Refugee Law'

The Institutes of Advanced Legal Studies and Commonwealth Studies in collaboration with the UNHCR are pleased to announce a new seminar series on 'International Refugee Law'. The series has been inaugurated to mark the 60th anniversary of the UNHCR and the Refugee Convention.


Mr Roland Schilling, the UNHCR Representative to the UK, will open the seminar series on Monday 25 October at 5.30pm at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies. Following Mr Schilling's opening speech, Dr Alice Edwards (University of Oxford) will give the first seminar of the series on 'Rethinking the detention of asylum-seekers and other migrants: exploring the alternatives - a comparative perspective'.


All seminars are free to attend. All welcome. For further information on the series and forthcoming seminars please contact ials.events@sas.ac.uk

British Library’s Endangered Archives Programme

The British Library’s Endangered Archives Programme


Call for applications


The Endangered Archives Programme at the British Library is now accepting applications for the next round of funding. Detailed information on the timetable, criteria, eligibility and procedures for applying for a grant is available on the Programme’s website. Applications will be accepted in English or in French. The deadline for receipt of preliminary grant applications is 5 November 2010.

Since it was established six years ago, the Programme has so far funded 137 projects in 57 countries in grants totalling £3.7 million. The Programme is funded by Arcadia, in pursuit of one of its charitable aims to preserve and disseminate cultural knowledge and to promote education and research. The aim of the Programme is to contribute to the preservation of archival material worldwide that is in danger of destruction, neglect or physical deterioration.

The Programme’s objectives are achieved principally by awarding grants to applicants to locate relevant endangered archival collections, where possible to arrange their transfer to a suitable local archival home, and to deposit copies with local institutions and the British Library. Pilot projects are particularly welcomed, to investigate the survival of archival collections on a particular subject, in a discrete region, or in a specific format, and the feasibility of their recovery.

To be considered for funding under the Programme, the archival material should relate to a ‘pre-modern' period of a society's history. There is no prescriptive definition of this, but it may typically mean, for instance, any period before industrialisation. The relevant time period will therefore vary according to the society. The endangered archival material will normally be located in countries where resources and opportunities to preserve such material are lacking or limited.

For the purposes of the Programme, the term ‘archival material’ is interpreted widely to include rare printed books, newspapers and periodicals, audio and audio-visual materials, photographs and manuscripts.

The Programme is keen to enhance local capabilities to manage and preserve archival collections in the future and it is essential that all projects include local archival partners in the country where the project is based. Professional training for local staff is one of the criteria for grant application assessment, whether it is in the area of archival collection management or technical training in digitisation.

The Programme is administered by the British Library and applications are considered in an annual competition by an international panel of historians and archivists.

For further details of EAP projects and collections as well as application procedures and documentation, please visit the Programme’s new website: eap.bl.uk

Web: eap.bl.uk

Email: endangeredarchives@bl.uk

West India Committee archives - handlist now available

Another newly added handlist added to the ULRLS Archives catalogue.

The West India Committee was formed in the 18th century, by London merchants, engaged in the West Indian trade, and absentee owners of West Indian estates. The Committee acted as a pressure group for West Indian interests, principally in the support of the sugar and rum trades and, in the first decades of its existence, in opposition to the abolition of the slave trade and then slavery. Following the abolition of slavery the Committee shifted its work firstly towards the encouragement of immigrant labour from India, China and Africa, and then from the 1840s to 1856 to opposing the removal of preferential sugar duties for West Indian sugar. Later in the 19th century, there were further moves to support cane-sugar grown in the West Indies against the new threat of beet sugar which was now being grown in Europe. The West India Committee mounted a strong anti-bounty campaign, as well as seeking alternative markets for West Indian cane sugar in the United States.


When bounties were eventually abolished throughout Europe in 1902, a concerted effort was made to widen the interests of the Committee beyond sugar alone, to the promotion of West Indian trade in general. The organization grew to include many members residing in the West Indies, and the Committee turned to representing their interests. The West India Committee was succeeded by the Caribbean Council for Europe, active also on trade issues, for example in relation to the Lome Agreement, in which the European Union granted some preferential terms to countries within the ACP (African Caribbean and Pacific States) group.

The Commonwealth Studies Library holds a microfilm copy of the early records of the West India Committee

M915 West India Committee minutes 1769-1924 [microfilm] contains:

Minutes and papers of the West India Committee and its predecessors, sub-committees and related organisations, including:

• West India Merchants
• West India Planters and Merchants
• Admiralty Committee of the West India Merchants
• Sub-Committee of the West India Planters and Merchants Appointed to Oppose the Abolition of the Slave Trade
• Literary Sub-Committee of the West India Planters and Merchants
• Merchants, Owners and Masters of Ships
• Jamaica Planters and Merchants
• Country Committees and Proprietors’ Groups: eg. Demerara and Berbice (later British Guiana), Jamaica, Trinidad, and Importers of West Indian Cocoa committees
• British and Colonial Anti Bounty Association
• Board of Commissioners of Grenada and St. Vincent
• Meeting of MPs Interested in the West Indian Colonies

(microfilm copy of original at the University of West Indies, Trinidad)

and two collections of archives from the West India Committee

West India Committee: Acquired Papers ICS96 1750-1988

This collection was acquired with the West India Committee Library and includes reports and accounts and lists of members; the Chinese Emigration Committee Rough Memorandum Book, 1857-1859; Library catalogues; and albums of press cuttings and othe rpapers relating to the work of the West India Committee, its members and events in the West Indies (including albums relating to sugar bounties and free trade, the 1907 earthquake in Jamaica, the West Indian Contingent Committee and the British West Indies Regiment, visits by Sir Algernon Edward Aspinall, Secretary of the West India Committee, to the West Indies, the Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture, Trinidad, royal tours, the West India Club, Hurricane Janet and the West Indies Hurricane Relief Fund, constitutional crisis in British Guiana 1953-54, and elections in British Honduras 1954). The collection also includes watercolours and sketch maps of Tobago, St Vincent and Antigua, by Sir William Young [1749-1815], Governor of Tobago [1807-1815] and a number of photograph albums.

West India Committee: Official Archives ICS97 1799-1999
This collection was donated by the West India Committee in 1999. It contains offical records of the West India Committee from about 1900. These include minutes of Annual General Meetings, Executive Committee, Management Committee and various Sub-Committees; minutes of the West Indian Contingent Committee 1915-1919; minutes of the War Services and Ladies' Committees 1939-1940; minutes of the Merchants' and Shippers' Standing Committee, and of the Passage Accommodation Sub-Committee 1949-1954; minutes of the Committee for Exports to the Caribbean, later the West Indian Trade Advisory Group 1965-1980; meeting papers, Annual Reports, lists of members, financial records and extensive files of correspondence and general files on topics including Post Lome negotiations, the rum trade, the rice trade, the banana trade, and tourism. The collection includes photographs relating to Caribbean personalities and countries.