Current and Future Events at the Centre for Historical Studies

We have a calendar of exciting and enlightening events planned at the Centre for Historical Studies.

Centre for Historical Studies events

See below for our latest events.

We welcome submissions from researchers at all career stages, from master’s students to research professors. We are also especially keen to receive presentation proposal from professionals such as teachers, healthcare workers and independent educators and writers.

If you have any questions or queries about potential submissions, please contact Professor Mark Rothery (mark.rothery@northampton.ac.uk) and Professor Paul Jackson (paul.jackson@northampton.ac.uk).

  • Humour, Satire and Play in Researching and Teaching History

    All sessions will be in room LH014, Waterside Campus, University of Northampton

    Day 1: 27 June 2024

    10am – 11am: Welcome and Keynote talk by Dave Cohen, Comedian, Broadcaster, BBC TV writer, Novelist, and 8 times BAFTA winner:
    • ‘Make History Fun Again: How Horrible Histories Inspired a New Generation of Learner’
    11.15am – 1pm: Early Historical and Enlightenment-era Humour
    • Elizabeth Bull, University of Wales Trinity Saint David, ‘Laughing with our Ancestors: Humour in the Ancient World’
    • Matthew McCormack, University of Northampton, ‘Stick to your Last: Shoemakers and the Georgian Satirical Print’
    • Kerry Love, University of Northampton, ‘Selling Satire, The Role of Humour in Selling 18th Century Political Material Culture’
    • Dennis Meyhoff Brink, University of Copenhagen, ‘Molière’s Tartuffe and the Snowball Effect of Anticlerical Satire during the European Enlightenment’
    1pm – 2pm: Lunch
    2pm – 3.45pm: Humour and Conflicts
    • Toby Purser, University of Northampton, ‘Early English Warrior Communities: Beowulf, the Writings of Bede and other Poems and Chronicles’
    • Vincent Trott, The Open University, ‘Political Satire and the Peace Movement in the United States, 1914–1917’
    • Adrian Leibowitz, Independent Scholar, ‘Jester of Nazareth: The Comic Oeuvre of Palestinian Filmmaker Elia Suleiman – Humour in Dark Times’
    • Eduardo Katz, University of Porto, ‘Jojo Rabbit: Humour, History, and Cinema for an Irreverent Education’
    4pm – 5.45pm: Humour, Political Extremism and Challenging Racism
    • Daniel Jones, University of Northampton, ‘The Dark Side of Humour: The Role of Cartoons and Satire within Far-Right Print Cultures’
    • Clive Henry, University of Northampton, ‘Does Humour Belong in Fascism Studies’
    • William Hatfield, University of Northampton, ‘Kid-ding Around?: Far-Right Youth Culture and Humour in the Post-war Period’
    • Tara Kendall, UC Santa Barbara, ‘How do I Know what I Might Be if I Were a White Man?: The Black Comedian as Social Commentator’
    5.45pm: Reception and conference meal at Waterside Bar

    Day 2: 28 June 2024

    10am – 11am: Welcome and Keynote by Sharon Lockyer, Director of the Centre for Comedy Studies Research at Brunel University:
    • ‘From “Unprecedented Times” to “Business as Usual”: Making Sense of the COVID-19 Pandemic Through the Humorous Crisis Narratives’
    11.15am – 1pm: Autoethnography, Museums and Games
    • Jill Birrell, Northampton Museum and Art Gallery, ‘Humour, Satire and Difficult Histories’
    • Emily Bavellas, Northampton Museum and Art Gallery, ‘The Art of Comedy: Exploring the History of Humour in the Visual Arts’
    • Will Garbett, University of Lancashire, ‘A “Bizarre Euphoria”? Disgust and the Press Response to the 2001 Brass Eye Special’
    • James Allen, University of Northampton, ‘Boardgames, Accuracy and Pedagogy in History’
    1pm – 2pm: Lunch
    2pm – 3.30pm: Historical Humour and Satirical Literacy: York Research Unit for the Study of Satire
    • Adam J Smith, York St John University, ‘On Teaching Eighteenth-Century Satire: Centring Satire, Intertextuality, and Ideology’
    • Jo Waugh, York St John University, ‘On Teaching Nineteenth-Century Satire: Satire and Unlearning the Literature A Level’
    • Robert Edgar, York St John University, ‘On Teaching Twenty-First-Century Satire in Adaptation: Killing Stalin Again’
    3.30pm – 4.00pm: Roundtable Discussions, Outputs and Close

    To register, please contact Dr Siobhan Hyland at Siobhan.hyland@northampton.ac.uk.