'Hand in Hand: Design History and Victorian Studies'

I'm delighted to have been invited as keynote speaker for the British Association for Victorian Studies annual conference at the Centre for Victorian Studies, at the University of Exeter, 29-31 August 2018. The conference theme is 'Victorian Patterns' which will no doubt be of interest to historians of all kinds, and especially my fellow design historians. My keynote talk is titled 'Hand in Hand: Design History and Victorian Studies'. 

Although industrialisation had gained momentum during the 17th and 18th centuries, it was during the C19th that the effects of the industrial revolution were most apparent throughout British society and culture. The successes of mass production in equipping a massively expanding Victorian population were accompanied by far-reaching failures ranging from inhumane labour conditions, and social inequality to compromised aesthetics and quality. These failings were lamented by the design reformers of the C19th in a relay race of aesthetic guardianship from A.W.N. Pugin, to John Ruskin, William Morris and his followers in the Arts and Crafts and Aesthetic Movements. This period is therefore hugely significant for the history of design, and for design history. (Indeed, industrialisation has been so central to the design historical project that those nations to have industrialised late, or little, have been neglected by design historians, who have preferred to focus on the first industrial nations, chiefly the UK, the USA, and Germany. This Western bias has only recently been challenged and addressed through efforts to internationalise design history.)

Design historians have much to learn from Victorian Studies, therefore, and vice versa. While Victorian Studies focuses on a period of study, and the various area studies explore geographical domains, design history is concerned with the history of design both as a practice and as a series of outputs. In using design to find out about the past, and in using various kinds of history to find out about design, design historians research inclusively across neighbouring fields including - in addition to Victorian Studies and area studies - heritage studies, material culture studies, cultural studies, the histories of technology, architecture, culture and craft, gender and women’s studies, and environmental humanities. Design history’s interface with some of these neighbouring fields has recently been considered, but the commonalities and distinctiveness of design history and Victorian Studies have yet to be comparatively explored.

In this talk, I will reflect on the methodological and historiographic implications of a comparative, or collaborative, approach to and through these sister fields using the case study of hand making and machine manufacture in the Victorian age. This is drawn from my current research on the hand in design history, including discourses on craft and mechanization, the Victorian design reformers, and modes of displaying industrial heritage, for publication in my forthcoming monograph The Hand Book (The MIT Press 2019). 

I am looking forward to the BAVS conference already. I hope to see you there. The call for papers is as follows:

Poster Designed by Marc Ricard

Celebrating the Design History Society at 40, and the Journal of Design History at 30

In 2017, the Design History Society (DHS) is celebrating its 40^th anniversary. At the same time, the Society’s journal, the Journal of Design History, is in its 30^th annual volume. Rather than reflecting on these landmarks with reference to canonical or well-known work from the past, the DHS agreed to mark these occasions through a call for new work which examines design history, past, present and future. This work was presented in a dedicated anniversary strand at the Society’s annual conference, Making and Unmaking the Environment, which took place from 7^th-9^th September at the University of Oslo in Norway. The conference was convened by Prof Kjetil Fallan who, among his many activities, was one of our annual TVAD Visiting Researchers. TVAD researcher Claire Jamieson attended the conference to give a paper about her research into NATØ. The anniversary strand comprised three panels, each with three presentations.

Making and Unmaking the Environment Conference brochure.  Photograph: Kjetil Fallan.

The first panel, ‘New Approaches to Design History’, began with Professor Ben Highmore (University of Sussex) recuperating connoisseurship for design history in his paper ‘Design History and Cultural Studies: Conjunctures, Tensions and Potentials’. Connoisseurship has been associated with art history and the decorative arts, but it has a function within contemporary design history, Highmore argued. Søren Rosenbak, a student at Umeå University, followed this with a short report on his project Design Research Failures, and asked what design historians might have to contribute to this work. Rosenbak assumes that design research has failed as a field, but the audience in Oslo were keen to recommend reflection on its successes as well.

The strand attendees. Photo: DHS Ambassadors, twitter.

The final paper in this first panel ‘The Environment as “Context” in Design Historiography’ saw Joana Meroz, of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, seek to move design history beyond regarding politics as a human affair, to capture the workings of a broader notion of politics and its sites including, especially, the political agency of materials and things. She explained how the inherent qualities of objects may determine the histories we share about them. For example, heavy machinery which cannot physically fit into galleries exhibiting examples of Dutch design may be erased from the history of Dutch design as a result of such exhibitions. This panel offered three quite different presentations which contribute in different ways to how we think about design history now. As the panel progressed, each paper appeared to engage around points of tension. For Highmore, the distinction between criticism and connoisseurship was key. Rosenbak’s talk engaged distinctions between success and failure and design research and design history. For Meroz, the relationships between people and things, and things natural and man-made, were salient.

Our second panel explored the ‘Places and Spaces of Design History’. Trond Klevgaard (Royal College of Art) shared some of his doctoral research in a presentation entitled ‘On Writing about New Typography from the Margins: Problems and Approaches’. He looked at how modernism in design resonates differently in different regions, and how it has been negotiated and adapted. Next, Dr Fredie Floré (University of Leuven) and Dr Javier Gimeno Martínez (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) presented jointly their call for ‘Making Room for Design History in Belgium’. Javier was a TVAD Visiting Researcher when he was preparing his book Design and National Identity (Bloomsbury 2016). His paper with Fredie Floré shared many parallels with the following one, ‘Learning from History – but how? Design History in Swiss Design Education’ by Meret Ernst (Hochschule für Gestaltung und Kunst, Basel). Both were concerned about the lack of a strong and distributed national base for design history, in Belgium and Switzerland respectively, and how this might impact on the development of design history in those nations. 

Sorcha O'Brien introducing her work on Irish design history. Photo: Grace Lees-Maffei.

The strand’s last panel, ‘Making and Unmaking National Identity: Design “In”, “Of” and "From" Ireland’ continued and increased the focus of the examination of national design histories with a trio of presentations. ‘Made in Ireland’? National Narratives and Global Networks in Irish Design History’ by Dr Sorcha O’Brien (Kingston University) explored the ways in which one lamp has been presented as part of the canons of both Irish and Scandinavian design, and what that might tell us about the importance of mediation in ascribing national identity in design. Dr Lisa Godson (National College of Art and Design, Dublin) shared her project work on ‘Irish Design in Africa: Practices of the Transnational National’, with a case study of churches built in Africa to Irish designs and specifications. Godson countered the idea that Ireland has simply absorbed external notions of modernity with a case study of a design dialogue between Ireland and Nigeria. These churches contribute to the histories of architecture in Ireland and Nigeria at once. The final presentation in this panel, and the strand, was ‘Putting the “Irish” into Irish Design 1950-2015’ by Mary Ann Bolger (Dublin Institute of Technology). Bolger examined the ways in which Irish design and manufacturing have been promoted overseas. For example, she outlined the decision-making process to name the butter known as Kerrygold and its associated imagery.

Mary Ann Bolger discussing Irish stamps. Photo: Grace Lees-Maffei.

The strand as a whole told us that the geography of design history remains critically important as a focus for the development of the field. It was a privilege to chair such a rich strand at the Design History Society’s 2017 conference. The audience were engaged and contributed many useful questions and comments for developing the research we heard still further. This anniversary strand showed that design history’s future is bright.

Prof Grace Lees-Maffei, University of Hertfordshire, UK.

DHeritage student successes at History Department Annual Conference

The DHeritage Programme at the University of Hertfordshire is now in its third year, with three cohorts of part-time students working in heritage roles professionally and working, too, on new research into heritage-related issues for their professional doctorates. Campus-based DHeritage students meets for four or five bespoke heritage workshops during each academic year, and in addition they are encourage to attend three residential programmes: the Spring and Summer Schools hosted by the Doctoral College's Researcher Development Programme, and the annual History Department conference held each year in February at Cumberland Lodge in Windsor Great Park. This year, DHeritage was very well represented at the conference and what follows gives a flavour of the proceedings.

Dorney Court at dusk, February 2017.

We began with a pre-conference tour of Dorney Court, kindly organised by third-year DHeritage student Helen Casey. Dorney Court is one of England's finest Tudor manor houses and remains in private ownership. Our tour guide explained the layers of history and material culture contained within this extraordinary family home and the problems of upkeep. The tour offered a special glimpse into an often hidden world and a life very different to that of most of us.

The academic sessions began with Prof John Styles' talk ‘Fashion to a Timetable: The Origins of the Modern Fashion System’. Prof Styles opened by noting that writing on fashion has proliferated as a result of Berg’s (now Bloomsbury's) publishing activity, and that much of this writing has focussed on identity. He traced this intellectual tendency back to the influence of Stephen Greenblatt’s book Renaissance Self-Fashioning: From More to Shakespeare (1980). Identity is not the only lens through which to view fashion, however. Another way to think about the history of dress and textiles is as indicative of fashionable change based on innovation and trade in textiles. Fashionable change in western dress of the early modern period is perceived as being in contrast to a sense of staticity in the rest of the world. The amount of choice allowed even to poorer women is indicated by, for example, the c. 1000 printed cottons in the Foundling Hospital collection for the years 1758-9 alone. There were annual changes in woven silks in Lyon, c. 1700 and annualised fashion made timing crucial for sales success. In 1681, the directors of the East India Company were aware that European women would prefer to buy and wear inferior silks than last year’s silk, while making a single silk could take more than four months.

The annualised fashion cycle arose in the 17th century for three reasons:

1. Mercantilism - Colbert promoted French manufacturing in three ways, including the removal of tax barriers, and capturing foreign markets with monopolies with the intention that Lyon would supplement Italy as the major fashion centre.
2. Court Dress - Louis XIV's ceremonial approach to dress involved a court dress code, rituals such as the levee and the couchee, and an insistence that members of the court bought French goods. Staff who kept the King's wardrobe were interested in fashionable change because they sold the king's old clothes for personal profit.
3. Magazines and the fashion press - It was expensive to print images, although they were the best medium for the dissemination of fashion.

Next, Dr Ceri Houlbrook presented her fascinating project 'Concealed Revealed: Material Objects Hidden in Walls':

A hidden shoe up a chimney breast. A mummified cat in the roof space. A child’s cap in a wall cavity. A horse skull under the floorboards. These are just some of the secret objects people have discovered when renovating their homes – undoubtedly quite surprising finds considering the odd (indeed, sometimes quite disturbing) nature of the objects, coupled with their unusual locations.

Read more about Ceri's research in her project blog: https://theconcealedrevealed.wordpress.com 

Saturday morning began with two presentations, Emma Battell Lowman & Adam J Barker's 'Writing History in the Settler Colonial Present' and Paul Lynch, ‘Behind the Curtain: A Glimpse of Life in East Berlin.' Paul's talk ranged from details of the complex security of the Berlin Wall, to amazing archive of photographs taken by the Stasi so that after searching people's homes, they could put the things back in the same places and erase any evidence of their searches. Photographs in this archive include a Western coffee maker, which was at once grounds for suspicion and a source of refreshment, a US serviceman’s coat, posters of the pop star Madonna, and an unmade bed. Lynch also discussed the Oscar-winning 2006 film The Lives of Others, writer-director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's story of Stasi officer Gerd Wiesler. 

The presentations continued with Simon Langsdale's 'St Albans is dying in a blaze': Bribery, Corruption, Theft and Embezzlement in a Hertfordshire Market Town 1835 - c.1853' and Bridget Long's, 'London Asylum for Girls (Asylum for Orphans and other Deserted Girls of the Poor) and their needlework training in the second half of the eighteenth century.' Long began with the observation that the weaver could weave thread faster than the spinner could spin. Spinning was therefore the biggest occupation for women in early modern England, occupying 1.5 million women. Impoverished girls taken in by the Foundling Hospital were taught to spin, while their male counterparts were sent off to the Navy. Economic historians have had difficulty quantifying the amount that spinners spun, and we don’t know how well they were paid. Trimmer, writing on the 'oeconomy of charity' had a school of industry in which industry meant spinning.

The Spinstress, 1782-6, by George Romney, of Emma Hart, later Lady Hamilton, Lady Nelson

Saturday afternoon saw two DHeritage sessions punctuated by Dr Friedrich (Rudi) Newman's talk '"Hoy, Hoy, Where are you coming to?" – The Great Thames Disasters', in which he shared research which forms a chapter of his new book and made the audience concerned about the safety of their own excursions on the water!  

Memorial card for the Princess Alice which sank near Woolwich, September 3rd, 1878

Four DHeritage students presented their doctoral research in the final panel of the day: first years Sarah Buckingham and Janine Marriott, second year student Charlotte Reynolds, and Helen Casey, who is in her third part-time year of study.  

DHeritage students (L-R) Charlotte Reynolds, Helen Casey, Janine Marriott and Sarah Buckingham

In her presentation, 'Public Engagement with and attitudes to sites of memorial, death and remembrance. A toolkit for Public Engagement' Janine Marriott explained how sites of burial, memorialisation and remembrance have long been associated with learning and public engagement, from the Victorian Garden Cemetery and its ‘improving influence’ through to modern day visits to battlefields for enthusiasts, or school trips to Auschwitz for study of world history. Although increasingly popular and acceptable heritage destinations, such sites are not always included when research is undertaken or studies are published in the heritage field. These sites are not traditional heritage venues like stately homes, museums, galleries or archives but often comprise elements of these and heritage models can be partially applied to them. Increasingly sites of remembrance such as cemeteries, battlefields, prisons, former concentration camps, or even places where an event like the September 11th attacks occurred, are becoming firmly established as part of the heritage landscape.

Janine's study of a range of memorialisation sites seeks to gather together the different ways that people learn and experience these sites and how they interact with what can be extremely challenging and provoking places. Such places are often labelled ‘Dark Tourism’ or ‘challenging history’ because death is a major theme and is regarded as taboo. Among specific heritage communities there is, therefore, a growing array of experience and learning, but no pooled body of knowledge. Janine will explore a number of case studies, and produce resources and research that can be used to advise and support such venues when engaging the public.

Sarah Buckingham asked 'How might the major crisis for heritage in Syria prompt a reconsideration of both our principles and practical approaches for major interventions to rehabilitate heritage sites in response to war, natural disaster or following extensive abandonment or dereliction?' The question is posed with particular reference to the involvement of traditional trades and crafts in rehabilitation works, and how that might affect concepts of authenticity and integrity. The debate prompted by the destruction of major monuments and world heritage sites in Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East by the “Islamic State” or as a by-product of conflict has the potential to prompt a significant reconsideration of contemporary approaches to heritage and its conservation, raising questions as it does particularly about the concept of 'authenticity', and how that influences its treatment. Questions of whether to reconstruct destroyed or partially destroyed sites rest heavily on the issue of authenticity – that is, it is implied, the importance of largely or wholly original fabric in something like its original disposition. Where sites have been blow up and cleared by bulldozer, the argument goes, authenticity can lie only in the fragmented remains. Many historic buildings and places, including key archaeological sites in Syria, have often been the subject of considerable interventions both historically and in the more recent past and the apparent authenticity may be in part illusory – this is not always factored into this argument.

Helen Casey's research explored 'Digital decisions – lessons from the recent past about using the technology of the future'. Around 2000, Helen told us, heritage writers made predictions, positive and negative, about the digital future. Some argued that heritage would be democratised through access to all. Others despaired that we are creating a digital black hole into which all of our data will disappear. Gordon Reid's article 'The Digitisation of Heritage Material' (2000) is apposite here. Writers compare the advent of the internet with that of the printing press. Helen reviewed the ideas of Peter Haddad, director of the technical service branch of the national library of Australia (2001), Ross Parry's 'Recoding the Museum: Digital Heritage and the Technologies of Change' (2007) and Dr Ruth Taylor of the National Trust, writing in Alison Hems and Marion R. Blockley's edited collection Heritage Interpretation (2006). Helen has a raft of questions about digitisation: Have people cooperated or worked in their own silos? What has ended up online – democratisation or black hole? What about interpretation, what information surrounds the digital objects? Are virtual visitors the same as real ones when museums still need footfall. Factors determining digitisation include cost, time, expertise, fear of obsolescence, etc. She plans a series of semi-structured interviews with heritage professionals and her method will blend grounded theory with narrative analysis, and policy analysis.

This panel closed with a presentation by Professor Rebecca Houze, TVAD Research Group Visiting Researcher for 2016-17. Prof Houze shared her research into the US National Parks Service. This project examines the European origins of the US National Park Service Rustic buildings within a broader context of industrialization and travel, looking specifically at the transatlantic relationship between Europe and North America that developed in the nineteenth century. It takes as its model and point of departure art critic Rosalind Krauss’s influential 1979 essay, 'Sculpture in the Expanded Field,' which seeks to understand Earthworks, such as the large-scale environmental projects by Robert Smithson, Nancy Holt, and others during that period, as a new form of sculpture. Likewise we may think of the lodges, camps, train depots, trails, roads, gateway entrances, and other structures in the United States National Park Service Rustic Style, built between the period of the turn-of-the century lodges and the modernizing upgrades of the Mission 66 program after World War II, collectively as an 'open air museum.' The key characteristics of the open air museum are its self-conscious situation and dramatic presentation in the landscape in the form of architecture and staging of transportation routes; its deliberate juxtaposition of primitive with civilized, above all, through the evoking of a lost or disappearing indigenous past, signified by native flora, fauna, and peoples; and in the US context, its didactic, mythologized narrative of American national identity by constructing and dramatizing the landscape as antiquity and place of origin.

Prof Rebecca Houze discussing the visual presentation of the US National Parks

The project identifies common structural features of the open-air museum, particularly in its manifestation as National Park in the United States. It begins with a meditation on lodges and camps as places to stay within the parks, and their broader relationship to other dwelling types, including the log cabin, rural farmhouse, and tent. The best-known rustic lodges were developed after the prominence of grand resort hotels in the last part of the nineteenth century, many of which were modelled on aristocratic Victorian prototypes. The early twentieth-century examples, by contrast, incorporated native building materials, and forms appropriate to the cultural and climatic traditions of the regions that they represented. The lodges of Yellowstone, Yosemite, Glacier, Mt. Rainier, and the Grand Canyon explore a new American architecture with roots in the Shingle and Stick Styles, as well as the British Arts and Crafts tradition. These modes are related both to a nostalgia for the log cabin, associated with the self-sufficiency of the pioneer against hostile nature, as well as with the moral and intellectual achievements in American political life, as in the case of President Abraham Lincoln’s own humble beginnings in his childhood log cabin. While connected to the log cabin on the American side of the Atlantic, the lodges also draw upon romantic European perceptions of the wooden farmhouse, and in particular the Scandinavian and Alpine chalet, which had been popularized as a charming, fanciful form of building in both Europe and North America for much of the nineteenth century. This association, easily seen in the many treatises on landscape architecture and domestic dwellings published during that period by Andrew Jackson Downing and Henry Hubbard, is complicated by the fact of European immigrant carpenters who were employed to construct and furnish the new lodges in the park, suggesting possibly closer connections between the European and American structures. Much less is known about the workers themselves than the architects who designed and concession companies who financed these buildings.

The day ended with a screening of Tim Slade's powerful film The Destruction of Memory (2016), introduced by Sarah Buckingham, who also chaired a group discussion afterwards. The film includes interviews with the Director-General of UNESCO, the Prosecutor of the ICC, and international experts across various disciplines. The following group discussion centred on what is worth saving, hierarchies of value, and authenticity and inauthenticity in reconstruction processes.

Robert Bevan in The Destruction of Heritage, dir. Tim Slade

On Sunday morning some members of the group attended services at the Royal Chapel in the grounds of nearby Royal Lodge while others participated in a practical workshop on writing and publishing academic articles followed by a postgraduate student talk on completing and submitting your thesis. In the final session we played the 'impact game' which encouraged us to think about new ways to engage different audiences with our research. 

DHeritage staff and students closed the weekend with a short walk around the Cow Pond, and looked ahead to next year. The History Department conference this year saw a wealth of information shared about material culture, not only in the papers presented by DHeritage students and by Prof Rebecca Houze for TVAD, but also by the members of the History Dept. who are not directly involved with the DHeritage Programme. The material turn is apparently in full effect at the University of Hertfordshire!

In Pursuit of Luxury conference 2017

The In Pursuit of Luxury conference 2017 revolves around luxury, sustainability and waste. We will ask: Is sustainable luxury attainable or is it an oxymoron?

We welcome debate on what Luxury means on individual, social and cultural levels. Can this be enhanced through consumption?, and if so how do we deal with materials in a way that aspires to zero environmental impact. The implications of circular economies, supply chains and a reassessment of the actual value of materials, are considered in the context of Luxury. Why for example, are diamonds more valuable than recycled plastic? Rarity is one answer, but perhaps there are others.

The 2017 conference provides a platform to examine and expand our understanding of luxury within the sustainable context. By inviting contributions from various disciplines, we aim at generating a lively debate on the past, present, and future of luxury. For the first time, we welcome submissions of Fashion Films that explore luxury through visual storytelling and look forward to including this engaging media as part of the conference.

Learn more about the themes and strands of the conference here: http://www.herts.ac.uk/in-pursuit-of-luxury/conferences/ipol-conference-2017/call-for-papers/themes-and-strands

The process for abstract submission is outlined at our website: http://www.herts.ac.uk/in-pursuit-of-luxury/conferences/ipol-conference-2017/call-for-papers/submission-of-abstract

Who
This event is a collaboration between The School of Creative Arts at the University of Hertfordshire, and Brooklyn College of the City University of New York.

When and where
The conference is being held on 30 November and 1 December 2017 in Cape Town, South Africa.
Our conference programme will be available to download from our website soon: http://www.herts.ac.uk/in-pursuit-of-luxury/conferences/ipol-conference-2017

 

ResDev16 - The University of Hertfordshire's Second Biennial Researcher Development Conference

Dr Grace Lees-Maffei, Chair, Researcher Development Working Group.  

This week, researchers from across the University of Hertfordshire met in our wonderful Weston Auditorium for the second biennial researcher development conference. The first, in September 2014, sought to promote understanding and awareness of the value and practice of researcher development and the development opportunities for researchers available within the University and externally, through organizations including, most notably, Vitae. But we also took a good look at the actual research being conducted within the University's ten Schools through a dynamic PechaKucha session which promoted, particularly, the work of our early career researchers. 

Theme Champion for Global Economy, Dr Chamu Kuppuswamy, takes a selfie with Prof John Senior, Pro-VC Research and Enterprise, and Dr Sylvie Magerstadt, Heritage, Cultures and Communities Theme Champion.

ResDev16 adapted this winning formula. Following an introduction by Prof John Senior, our Pro-Vice Chancellor (Research and Enterprise), the six research 'champions' spoke about their respective themes:  Professor David Barling who leads the University's research on Food drew attention to the parlous ratio of 2 billion obese and 1 billion malnourished people in the world. Work in the CRIPPAC research group analyses the importance of environment and culture in our food choices and opportunities, Prof Barling noted. Dr Chamu Kuppuswamy continued the Global Economy emphasis in introducing work in her area, calling for research to cross boundaries as well as geo-political borders. Speaking of research in Health & Wellbeing, Dr Frances Bunn outlined the sheer breadth of areas of enquiry that it engages. She highlighted the importance of work on the lifecourse, pointing to Prof Claire Goodman's work on dementia. Dr Sylvie Magerstadt champions research in Heritage, Cultures & Communities. She followed up Frances Bunn's point about the importance of communicating our research to academic and non-academic audiences by outlining her plan for a 'Culture Talks' channel on YouTube to promote research on the Heritage, Cultures and Communities theme. Next, Dr Farshid Amirabdollahian introduced the Information & Security research theme as extending from the secure handling of data to cutting-edge research in toxicology, with safety being paramount in each case. Innovation occurs on the friges of discplines, he enthused. Finally, Dr Philip Lucas explained that the University already has researchers working on space in disciplines ranging from from astronomy to fine art. He referred to the prominence of UH researchers in the recently publicised identification of Proxima b, an earth-like planet which may have the potential to host life. Dr Lucas plans to extend research on Space by instituting a buddy system for researchers.

Dr Helen Barefoot, Deputy Director for the Learning & Teaching Innovation Centre talked about the importance of Research-Informed Teaching and Research-Rich Teaching for connecting two core pillars of the University's activity as reflected in our strategic plan: teaching and research. Dr Barefoot explained that teaching and research are not inherently connected, as we sometimes assume; rather the connections between them need to be fostered, and explicitly drawn out. The Learning and Teaching Innovation Centre hosts an online toolkit for doing just that.

Dr Helen Barefoot discusses Research-Informed Teaching and Research-Rich Teaching. Photo: Grace Lees-Maffei.

The next session showcased the work of 18 researchers in just over an hour! How? Using the 3 -Minute Thesis (3MT®) format, we were given snapshots of 8 doctoral projects from finalists in a competition run by the Doctoral College. Speakers included Hayley Goode, who bravely began the session, and Alex Hocking, Jean Petric and David Turner. They talked about topics as diverse as the recognition and experiences of informal carers (Akua Owusu Nyantakyiwaa) and the impact of environment on galaxy evolution (Nancy Hine). The final 3MT addressed the difficulties faced by homeless men, whose lives are precarious and very short, typically extending no further than the forties, as Coral Westaway poignantly explained. Kathryn Kellett won the prize of £1000 in travel vouchers or cash equivalent. All other participants received runner-up prizes of £50 book vouchers.

Akua Owusu Nyantakyiwaa introduces her doctoral research on informal carers. Photo: Wendy Wills.

Prize giving for the ResDev16 3MT Competition. Photo: Frances Bunn.

While the judges deliberated, conference delegates were treated to a whistle stop tour of research being undertake across all ten Schools, again using the three-minute format. From the School of Life & Medical Sciences, Dr Rosalind Fallaize introduced her work ‘E-Nutri: The Future of Digital Personalised Nutrition Advice?’. Law's Dr Thomas Dunk outlined ‘The Role of the Individual in the Process of International Law Creation’. Dr Annabel Jay (Health & Social Work) examined 'How Women Experience an Artificial Onset of Labour’, with her study of 'Being Induced' concluding that the experience is one of liminality, betwixt and between two separate states. From the School of Education, Barry Costas outlined the usefulness of his literature review for uncovering a wide range of different perspectives on ‘The Voice of the Learner’ and its importance in education. For Engineering & Technology, Dr Saeid Safavi spoke about his project ‘Objective Control of Talker Verification’. New recruit to the University, Dr Ceri Houlbrook (Humanities) itemised some of the surprising things that people have put up chimneys and into the fabric of their homes, as has been discovered in her research with Prof Owen Davies in ‘The Concealed Revealed'. From Computer Science, Dr Ben Torben-Nielsen showed vividly how ‘Beautiful Brains Keep Us Healthy’ by examining some medical imaging which makes clear the different patterns witnessed. Next, Dr Wendy Williams (Physics, Astronomy & Maths) explained ‘The Evolution of Radio-Loud Active Galactic Nuclei using Low-Radio Frequencies’ and Dr Nika Balemenou (Hertfordshire Business School) changed the subject completely with her talk about her 'pseudo-longitudinal study from 2003 to 2016' into 'the development of Kavos, Corfu, into a tourism destination and the impacts on the local community’ as one of ‘Utopia or Dystopia?' Finally, Dr Silvio Carta from the School of Creative Arts gave us a snapshot of his research into big data, and 'How Computing is Changing Public Realm Data and Physical Space’.

Dr Silvio Carta (School of Creative Arts) talks about big data and public space. Photo: Grace Lees-Maffei.

Many more researchers from across the University exhibited their ideas at a Poster Session in the Atrium where delegates networked over lunch.

Hock Chye Gan presenting his research poster. Photo: Suzanne Fergus.

Suzanne Culshaw exhibited her poster with a useful mechanism for gathering feedback.

The conference then moved to our Law Court Building for two rounds of four parellel sessions, with each delegate choosing two topics from the following: 'Research-Informed Teaching and Research-Rich Teaching' with Dr Helen Barefoot; 'Setting Up a Mentoring Scheme' with Jill Lees; Bridget Russell and Frances Harris' introducing 'Ways to Raise Your Research Profile'  and Kevin Flinn on 'Career Progression'.

Dr Kevin Flinn puts the roof on the house of career progression. Photo: Beverley Brathwaite.

Throughout the day, colleagues were tweeting positively about what they saw and heard. Take a look at the #ResDev16 twitterfeed for a flavour of the proceedings. Now delegates can reflect on what we have learned and begin to put that into practice, while the Researcher Development Working Group can reflect and use the feedback we will receive to start planning #ResDev18 See you there!

Selfie by Francesca Batzella of colleagues from the Law School in the audience at #ResDev16

Utopia: Experiments in Perfection

Fabian Hiscock (Department of History, School of Humanities, University of Hertfordshire) reports on Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities Research Institute (SSAHRI) conference, Spirella Building, Letchworth Garden City, 12th November 2015

I attended the “Utopia” as a research student in the History Department looking at early nineteenth century Hertfordshire: not much relationship there with “experiments in perfection”. But it was good to be there. SSAHRI has a remarkable breadth in a single Institute, and part of the fun is exploring some of that breadth. The historians were well represented, certainly, and part of a pretty eclectic mix. And it was with anticipation that we gathered in the notable Spirella Building (an education in itself), took tea (and coffee), and sat back. 

Alan Powers' Keynote, Spirella Ballroom. Photo by Grace Lees-Maffei.

The keynote address was by Professor Alan Powers. He raised the age-old question, now of course of increasing relevance: “Where are the people to go?” New towns were (are) planned on the basis that the old ones have failed, and he offered Milton Keynes as an example: but then reminded us that one can’t really have a night out in Milton Keynes (I’ve never tried, but we got the point – you don’t build a “style” just by erecting buildings). He drew on the demolition of Manchester and London terraces, and of the tower blocks that followed them, the rise of smaller and more open developments. There is no agreement on which is better, but there is a constant striving towards improvment by the well-meaning.

Advertising Welwyn Garden City. Photo by Grace Lees-Maffei.

It was at this point that I realised that a refresher on the original Utopia by Thomas More (1512) would have been handy: where did the term come from that we were discussing, and what did it actually mean? But most of those present will have known well enough. With Alan Powers we were in the “pop” era of the 60s and 70s, and one of the themes that he offered was the (wholly imaginary) outline of 'Civilia', drawn by 'Ivor de Wolfe' on the remains of Judkins Quarry near Bedworth, Nuneaton. This 1960s and 70s resistance to the perceived refusal of architecture to consider the needs of the people reflected the view that 'the city had become too big, and without thought for the people who live in it.' De Wolfe also offered the 'Italian Townscape' as a desirable setting for urban life, and Powers took us through both that and the utterly contrasting 'Potteries Thinkbelt' concept of Cedric Price.

Cedric Price, Potteries Thinkbelt as a peripatetic educational model. Photo by Katrina Navickas.

And so we came to the Garden City. It was no coincidence that we were in Letchworth Garden City, a concept of Ebenezer Howard made real in 1903. Its layout consciously provided the workplaces vital to sustainable growth outside the inhabited centre and the city was walkable for all. The role of social visionaries, following John Ruskin and William Morris, in promoting the whole concept of the Garden City to the point of realising ‘Utopia’, (with greater or lesser success) was acknowledged. David Ames of Letchworth Heritage Foundation followed up on Garden City Utopias and Letchworth in particular. 

Planning the first Garden Cities. Photo by Grace Lees-Maffei.

We went on to look at the current work of architects, planners and designers on both micro and macro scales. Dr Daniel Marques Sampaio of the School of Creative Arts revealed the story of Canary Wharf and the impact of post-1980 capitalism on the original concept for redeveloping the declining docklands and Greenwich opposite. We heard an analysis by Dr Pual Cureton (Creative Arts) of the use of space in Welwyn using a GIS tool, which emphasised to me the sheer richness of the techniques now available. We were given a strong reminder by Dr Susan Parham of the Centre for Sustainable Communities of the importance of food production and supply in the success of any settlement, especially when trying to achieve ‘Utopia’, Finally, we had a highly personal account by Dr Ian Waites, of the University of Lincoln, of his early experiences when his family moved from a Gainsborough terrace to a new council estate just outside; ‘Utopia’ depends on the viewpoint of the observer, and if you’re living ‘the concept’ you don’t necessarily share the jaundiced view of the commentator.

Dr Susan Parham, Centre for Sustainable Communities, University of Hertfordshire. Photographs by Grace Lees-Maffei.

We then got to the concepts, in a session entitled ‘Health, place, work, gender and beyond’. I’d never heard of Peter Kropotkin, a contemporary of Lenin, but his influence on the development of Letchworth was presented by Dr Pat Simpson (Creative Arts). Dr Steve Shelley of Hertfordshire Business School took us to Eigg in the Inner Hebrides, via the zero-carbon working environment, giving us a reminder along the way that there is no consensus on a ‘perfect way of living’. This fact was reinforced by Dr Marta Rabikowska (Creative Arts) in her examination of the huge diversity in many communities and the potential of 'participatory arts' in building community relations in a context far removed from the ‘Garden City, a quite different model of Utopia. She was talking about (and showing a film from) Plumstead, and she brought a copy of the book Utopia, signed by members of the Utopia Society, which she invited us to sign also to signify commitment at least to the concept.

Title woodcut for Utopia written by Thomas More. Wikipedia: Public Domain.

Dr Chamu Kuppuswamy (Law School) introduced the very challenging concept of “the Common Heritage of Mankind”, of which the ocean floor is the classic example as captured by the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. Now it happens that I spent a lot of my career on or in the ocean, but I hadn’t recognised UNCLOS in this context: but if we recognise the concept (which intuitively we probably do), how do we preserve the Common Heritage? And what, indeed, does it require us to include?

Rick Guidice's Utopian illustrations for NASA, in a presentation by Dr Neil Maycroft. Photo by Katrina Navickas.

The wholly-imaginary Utopia’ featured also, or, more exactly, the ‘dystopia’ of the Dune science fiction series by Frank Herbert, in a talk by Alex Anthony-Lewczuk of the University of Lincoln while his colleague from Lincoln, Dr Neil Maycroft, delivered the amusingly-titled ‘Never mind my jet-pack, where’s my four-legged chicken?’ which reviewed a number of visions of the future from the past, and examined the role of design and technology in envisioning and materialising Utopia. The discussion that followed was as wide ranging in scope as the day had been, and tended to confirm the inevitable conclusion: there is no consensus on what constitutes Utopia, only that it can remains a concept, one to be striven for, but not to be achieved.

Prof Carenza Lewis. Photo by Katrina Navickas.

In the closing keynote presentation, ‘Brave new world or toil and trouble? The long view of new towns’, Professor Carenza Lewis suggests that New Towns can be best understood by recognising that they are not, in fact, new.  She drew parallels between New Town developments and features common to earlier placemaking activities. Lewis pointed out that while New Towns care very carefully planned for specific purposes, spontaneous developments can often be successful too, although less secure. New Towns 'materialise the Zeitgeist', she suggested, in their preoccupation with issues such as defence, nation building, feudalism and capitalism.  

Delegates at Utopia: Experiments in Perfection. Photo by Katrina Navickas.

Was it worthwhile? For me, as a newcomer in the field, ‘Yes, absolutely’. The day provided me with an opportunity to gain insight into what goes on in our Institute and indeed our University, and the University of Lincoln. Some of the material presented was highly specialist, some highly technical, and some - to me, at least - impenetrable. But I’d be very surprised if anyone came away with nothing new. And as it happens, I learned a great deal more than that…

Fabian Hiscock, Department of History, School of Humanities, University of Hertfordshire.

Lighting, Spirella Ballroom. Photo by Grace Lees-Maffei.