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alibennett.bsky.social
Historian of Br imperialism in EAfrica. Interests = material culture, collecting & the ivory trade. Hallsworth Fellow @Univ Manchester hist dept / Adjunct Lecturer @YaleinLondon
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So excited to see ‘Faith in the Town’ (co-authored my me, @kategibson Jeremy Gregory and Carys Brown & published in Open Access form (free to read) today by @oxfordunipress.bsky.social. Want to know how religious faith was woven through urban life in northern English towns 1740-1830? Then read on …

Manchester have posted 14 more postdoc positions in 'SHAPE' disciplines - 4x simon fellowships and 10(!) hallsworth fellowships. Simon eligibility is 'within 4 years of PhD award', except career breaks www.humanities.manchester.ac.uk/research/fun... Happy to discuss these via email

Such excellent and important work, @zoecormack.bsky.social and team!

A piece of Ethiopia's Maqdala plunder comes under the spotlight A diptych linking Dürer and Christian Ethiopia likely taken from Portugal to Ethiopia by Jesuit missionaries. Quotes @zoecormack.bsky.social @alulapankhurst.bsky.social @krebsverena.bsky.social www.theartnewspaper.com/2025/01/21/i...

Are you a postdoctoral (or equivalent) researcher in the UK within c. 10 years of your PhD? If so, the @britishacademy.bsky.social 's Early Career Research Network (ECRN) is designed & funded for you. North West & North Wales cluster is now live. 1/2 www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/news/early-c...

Call for papers for Port Cities and Maritime Cultures International Conference @portsmouthuni, 10-11 June 2025. Submit your 300-word abstract by 19 January 2025 to [email protected] for @UoP_Maritime's inaugural conference www.port.ac.uk/news-events-...

The German Maritime Museum invites applications for 3-9 month-long fellowships to work on interdisciplinary object-based research focussing on the cultural & political significance of the relationship between humans and the sea. Deadline 31 January 2025. More info: www.museumsbund.de/stellenangeb...

Ruling the World argued that governance of the British Empire should be examined everywhere & all at once. For example, the decision to make the East India Company sovereign and the Act Abolishing slavery in the Caribbean are usually examined in isolation, but they were directly connected:

Very pleased to share that my first article is now online www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Interested in the histories of material culture, museums, and/or East Africa? Our recent conference supported by @britishacademy.bsky.social & @paulmelloncentr.bsky.social is now available to view: www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8Zz... [youtube.com] www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMVf... [youtube.com]

carpet appreciation post

Funded PhD in photographic history: please share widely! With The Story, Durham and @durhamhistory.bsky.social, 'Images and Empire in British Military Collections' will examine the photo archive of the Durham Light Infantry regiment over its 90-year history. Apply by January 31st! 🗃️📜📷📸

This just out: Antoinette Burton in conversarion about Gender History: A Very Short Introduction #skystorians open.spotify.com/episode/53Nz...

Still perplexed by a letter I once found in which H.M. Stanley's agent writes to John Ruskin for a letter of support to Br customs to help him import Ruskin's 20 vols from New York & take them to Zanzibar. Ruskin refuses. Any thoughts Bluesky friends? Why would S want them? & why would R refuse?

It’s that special time of year where I tell you about 19th century Christmas cards being so batshit weird! Here’s a podcast I did with Dr Ferren Gipson - expect clowns assaulting cops, polar bears savaging men, giant wasps attacking kids, and more weird animal fun! artuk.org/discover/sto...

Very pleased to have been part of this roundtable on Catherine Hall’s Lucky Valley: Edward Long and the History of Racial Capitalism (CUP, 2024) With Herman L. Bennett, Kennetta Hammond Perry, Bill Schwarz and Catherine Hall herself www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

We've written a Researcher's Guide to Bluesky! It's a bit like all those other useful guides to Bluesky, but with several useful insights from University of York academics about using the platform, and we'd love it if it was reposted far and wide... >> blogs.york.ac.uk/library/2024... 🧵 below

JOB KLAXON: We are hiring a Lecturer in History of Medicine and/or Health (FT & permanent); we're encouraging applications from colleagues with expertise in history of mental health & mental illness. Please share and repost. www.jobs.manchester.ac.uk/Job/JobDetai... #HistMed #HistSTM #HistPsych

A quick peek at behind the scenes dress storage at Manchester Art Gallery’s costume collection in Platt Hall, Manchester

Just doubling up on this notice. I'd have to say that "adding" East Africa to our definitions of the #GlobalMiddleAges has been one of the biggest transformations in medieval studies of the past decade. Obviously, it was always there. But the work surveyed here shows how much we've been missing!

Really amazing account both of the 18th C Black scholar Francis Williams, and of Dr. Dabhoiwala’s sleuthing that led to a re-appraisal of the meaning of this portrait. (Significant page number of a book shown in the art! Dates of books shown on bookcase!) 🧪🔭 www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...

Nov 8-11 all the FindMyPast records, including the 1921 census which is otherwise behind a top-up paywall, which may have excluded many regular users. Something to add to the diary!

Nice to see the twinning partnership between Stourhead (National Trust) & the Semei Kakungulu Lwakirenzi heritage site in Uganda in my NT magazine this month. Glad to have played a v small part! www.nationaltrust.org.uk/membership/i...

“The Enlightenment room is acting as a bit of a trailer for the rest of my show,” says Locke. “It is a very important place – obviously – but seriously lacking in colour. And I’ve always found that whole concept of enlightenment,” he stretches the word out, sceptically, “shall we say, interesting."

Aware that I may be writing into the void as I am new here, but… If fellow historians can recommend good lit on any combination of the following, I’d be extremely grateful! Ports, colonial commodities, labour, material/embodied knowledge, space, & colonial imagination???

Aware that I may be writing into the void as I am new here, but… If fellow historians can recommend good lit on any combination of the following, I’d be extremely grateful! Ports, colonial commodities, labour, material/embodied knowledge, space, & colonial imagination???