Thursday 7 October 2010

Forthcoming lectures

The Richard Burton Centre seminar series for 2010–11 is entitled ‘Global Wales / Cymru’r Byd’. Seminars take place every other Monday at 4pm in the Arts and Humanities Conference Room, Ground Floor of the James Callaghan Buidling. A full programme will follow shortly, but we begin in October with two different accounts of Wales’s relationships with India.

‘Cymru’r Byd / Global Wales’ fydd teitl cyfres seminarau Canolfan Richard Burton ar gyfer 2010 – 11. Bydd y seminarau yn cymryd lle am yn ail ddydd Llun, gan gychwyn am 4 o’r gloch, Hydref 11eg, yn ystafell Gynhadledd y Celfyddydau a’r Dyniaethau, Adeilad James Callaghan. Bydd rhaglen gyflawn yn dilyn, ond byddwn yn dechrau gyda dau sessiwn gwahannol ar berthynas Cymru a’r India.


October / Hydref 11: Nigel Jenkins, Department of English

"Gwalia in Khasia: Welsh Missionaries in North East India"


October/ Hydref 25: Professor Huw Bowen, Department of History

"Wales and the British Empire: A Missing Link"

Tuesday 8 June 2010

Hear Prof Chris Williams discuss the donation of Richard Burton's papers, diaries and photographs

Access the interview here.

BBC report on the inaugural Richard Burton Lecture

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/walesarts/2010/04/inaugural_richard_burton_lecture_swansea.html

New paper reviewing Welsh historiography

Welsh identity has often centred on tensions between labour and political/cultural nationalist traditions. Those tensions have influenced writing about the history of modern Wales to the extent where Welsh historiography might even be thought to be justifying different interpretations of Wales. But both nationalist and labour interpretations of Wales actually overlap and both have played their part in strengthening a sense of Welsh identity. This paper explores the main themes in the historiography of twentieth-century Wales and how they relate to the contexts in which they were produced and read.

Access the paper here

Friday 4 June 2010

What are academic historians for?

Some reflections on history, impact and public engagement in Wales.

Swansea and the Second World War

A one-day conference to mark the publication of The Swansea Wartime Diary of Laurie Latchford, 1940-41, edited by Kate Elliott Jones and Wendy Cope and published by the South Wales Record Society.

Date: Saturday 12 June 2010
Venue: Swansea Museum (Gallery One)
Event sponsored by: South Wales Record Society; Swansea Branch, The Historical Association; The Richard Burton Centre for the Study of Wales, Swansea University.

PROGRAMME

0930: Welcome
0945-1100: Session One: The War in Context• Martin Johnes (Swansea University): ‘Wales, Welshness and the Second World War’• Gillian Clark (Swansea University): ‘The Home Front, memory and British national identity’

1100-1130: Coffee

1130-1245: Session Two: Swansea and the Blitz•

John Alban (Norfolk Record Office): ‘Swansea’s air raids’
David Thomas (Royal Commission for the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales): ‘The Swansea Blitz viewed from the air’

1245-1345: Lunch Break

1345-1530: Session Three: Reactions and Responses•

John Goodby (Swansea University): ‘Dylan Thomas and the Blitz’
Robert McCloy (Swansea University): ‘Local government and the challenge of the Blitz’
Dinah Evans (Bangor University): ‘The reconstruction of Swansea following the Blitz’

1530-1630: Tea and launch of The Swansea Wartime Diary of Laurie Latchford, 1940-41 (South Wales Record Society, 2010).