History and Cultures (including African Studies)
• Edna Pearson Studentship (MPhilB, History; fees-remission)
• 4 fees-remission Scholarships in any Masters/MPhil programme in the School
• 1 fees-remission Scholarship for Contemporary History
• 1 fees-remission Scholarship for Medieval History
• 1 fees-reduction Scholarship to reduce overseas fees to the level of home/EU fees in any Masters/MPhil programme in the School
Over the last century, air power has proved to be one of the most complex and fascinating forms of military capability. It is full of contradictions and controversies. Its reach and versatility make it the most desirable of components; its lack of permanency equally offers real flexibility, but also potential drawbacks. Some issues, such as the strategic bombing of Germany continue to promote ‘savage’ debate. And much has been made of the rhetoric, and of the consequences, of warfare in the third dimension. This exciting new MA programme provides a really unique opportunity to study the theory, history and practice of air power within the context of War Studies at the University of Birmingham.
It is open to students from all backgrounds including the armed forces, industry, students from other disciplines and those who seek to expand their knowledge of this exciting subject within a structured academic environment.
The seventieth anniversary of the beginning for Britain’s involvement in the Second World War has passed on 3rd September 2009 and the recent deaths of Henry Allingham and Harry Patch and all the remaining veterans of the First World War mean that the time has come to consider Britain’s experiences of the World Wars during the Twentieth Century not simply as memory but as history.
The purpose of The Beyond Remembrance Fund is to raise resources for the War Studies Group in History and Cultures at the University of Birmingham to support and develop the historical understanding of the World Wars and to continue and extend that study into the Twenty-first Century.
Award winning Chika Unigwe will be reading from her new novel On Black Sisters' Street, on Tuesday 1 December, at the Centre of West African Studies.
Chika has won the BBC Short Story Competition, a Commonwealth Short Story Award for and a Flemish literary prize for "De Smaak van Sneeuw", her first short story written in Dutch. She was also shortlisted for the 2004 Caine Prize.
The author was the recipient of a 2007 Unesco-Aschberg fellowship for creative writing, and of a 2009 Rockefeller Foundation fellowship for creative writing.
On Black Sisters' Street (published by Jonathan Cape), is a tale of choices and displacement set against the backdrop of the Antwerp prostitution scene.
Her first novel, De Feniks, was published in Dutch by Meulenhoff / Manteau in September 2005, and it is the first book of fiction written by a Flemish author of African origin. The story, set in Turnhout, explores grief, illness and loneliness, subjects already touched upon in Unigwe’s earlier work.
The reading will take place at 5.10pm, in the Danford Room, Second Floor of the Arts Building.
The School of History and Cultures is pleased to announce that it is offering a new MA in Medieval History which builds on Birmingham’s research and teaching strengths in medieval studies. The School includes one of the largest groupings of medieval historians in the UK and an active postgraduate community. These form part of a newly established research centre, the Centre for the Study of the Middle Ages which will provide a strong focus for research projects and research-led teaching
Professor Matthew Hilton recently gave an interview about his latest book Prosperity for All: Consumer Activism in an Era of Globalisation
On 21 August, Dr Malcolm Dick, Director of the Centre for West Midlands History, was a key speaker at the annual Sandwell Slavery Remembrance Event at The Public, West Bromwich. Malcolm introduced a new website ‘Guns, Shackles and Chains’: www.sandwellslavery.org.uk which presents the connections between the slave trade, anti-slavery and the black presence in the West Midlands.
In the old language of Ecuador, Cotopaxi means the neck of the moon. One of the highest active volcanoes in the world, it is 14 miles wide at its base and rises up from a highland plain in the Andes – but it is the snow-capped cone of the mountain that grabs the attention and reveals the meaning of its name. Almost perfectly symmetrical it reaches into the skies and seems to strain towards the moon. Enfolded within huge swirling clouds for most of the day, that Monday morning 1 March a small gap of blue sky somehow pushed a small space between the enveloping whiteness. For a few minutes it opened up Cotopaxi into full and magnificent view. From a vantage point of a ridge several thousand feet below, I stood with other members of the Bobby Moore Fund Ecuador Project and was transfixed. In the distance a solitary condor flew, whilst a flock of buzzards rested close to fields where horses and cows grazed. The sight of sunshine on the snow of Cotopaxi drew us deeply into the spectacular landscape where we would camp for the next week as we renovated a school.
The results of the latest Research and Assessment Exercise for 2008 have been published.
View the highlights for the University of Birmingham
Read the University of Birmingham response to these results
Newton Fellowship Award 2008
Katrien Pype, a postdoctoral researcher from the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium, has won a prestigious Newton International Fellowship to work with CWAS colleagues on the significance and representation of the national past in current Kinshasa, Congo's capital city.
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Celebrating Black History Month 2008
Black History Month is national event that promotes knowledge of Black history, culture and heritage and celebrates the contribution of African, Caribbean and Asian communities to British society.This year it is in October. The University hosted a hosting a number of events to mark BHM 2008.
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Leverhulme Grant Success
Professor Matthew Hilton and Dr Nicholas Crowson have won £440,605 to research NGOs in Britain since 1945.
Professor Hilton and Dr Crowson of Modern History have won £440, 065 to research NGOs in Britain since 1945. The history of post-war Britain can only be properly understood with reference to the phenomenon of non-governmental organisations (NGOs). They have been right at the heart of every major socio-political initiative: from environmentalism to consumerism; from international aid to human rights and on social policy issue. NGOs as a sector have transcended the categorisations of left and right, progressive and reactionary, and have constructed networks of activism that reach from the face-to-face work of awareness raising groups, to major international lobbying organisations. Look to any major issue of the last sixty years, and NGOs will be there, mobilising supporters, shaping the terms of debate, and influencing policy outcomes.
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