by Talking Humanities | Jan 5, 2022 | Features, History & Classics, Politics & Law
Should historians talk to government? An apparently straightforward question that’s actually far from it – unpacking the position ‘not talking to government’ gets us started, writes Dr Alix Green, reader in history at the University of Essex. The simplest argument for...
by Talking Humanities | Jan 5, 2022 | Features, History & Classics, Politics & Law
Cambridge academic Professor Simon Szreter on two decades of the pioneering network for historians Why would professional historians not want their knowledge and expertise to be understood by policymakers, politicians and advisers? Why would any of the latter want to...
by Talking Humanities | Jan 5, 2022 | Analysis & Comment, Features, History & Classics, Politics & Law, Research & Resources
Courses and learning to compress complex stories are promising aids to communication for government and historians, writes Professor Patrick Salmon. How close should academic historians get to government? ‘Very close indeed,’ their universities would probably say,...
by Talking Humanities | Jan 5, 2022 | History & Classics, Politics & Law
Should historians talk to government? Professor of British and Commonwealth history, Philip Murphy, introduces the tensions underlying the relationship between historians and politicians. As an academic discipline, history can be thought of as something between a game...
by Talking Humanities | Jan 5, 2022 | Features, History & Classics, Human Rights, Politics & Law
Should historians talk to government? It’s tempting to turn this question around and ask instead whether government should talk to historians, writes Dr Charlotte Lydia Riley. Priya Satia, in her brilliant Time’s Monster, has made a compelling case that governments...
by Talking Humanities | Dec 7, 2021 | Analysis & Comment, Features, Languages & Literature
A ‘Global Britain’ needs to invest in upgrading and expanding its multilingual capacity and that should begin by showing respect for the array of languages used by members of our diverse communities, says Professor Li Wei, director and dean of the UCL Institute of...
by Talking Humanities | Dec 7, 2021 | Features, Languages & Literature
It is no secret that every area of the humanities is experiencing significant change. Questions concerning the coherence, identity, and purpose of modern languages are certainly the subject of a great deal of debate within the education sector. This edition of Talking...
by Talking Humanities | Dec 7, 2021 | Features, Languages & Literature
‘Gardening in a gale’ was the great language educator Eric Hawkins’s metaphor to describe practitioners’ experience of teaching languages. Ten years later, following Brexit and the pandemic, and in the midst of a hapless policy landscape, what was a gale now feels...
by Talking Humanities | Dec 7, 2021 | Features, Fellowships & Networks, Languages & Literature, Research & Resources
As long ago as 1492 a scholar pointed out ‘Language always escorted the empire’. It’s not enough to just recognise that: it’s time for action, write Durham academics Durham’s School of Modern Languages and Cultures (MLAC) launched its decolonisation initiatives in the...
by Talking Humanities | Dec 7, 2021 | Analysis & Comment, Features, Fellowships & Networks, Languages & Literature, Research & Resources
The Open World Research initiative (OWRI) has left rich legacies to build on, writes Professor Janice Carruthers, dean of research in arts, humanities and social sciences at Queen’s University Belfast I have just completed a four-year period as priority area...