Summer symposium at Swansea University

Postgraduate History & Classics Forum, Summer Symposium 2013:

'Truth, Power and Belief'

Swansea University, 7 and 8 June 2013

Swansea University Postgraduate History & Classics Forum invites postgraduate students and early career researchers to participate in our interdisciplinary symposium on ‘Truth, Power and Belief’. Previous symposia have been a great success, the friendly atmosphere provides a great opportunity for first-time speakers, especially Masters and PhD students, to test out their new ideas.

The symposium aims to provide a supportive environment in which to explore the themes of truth, power and belief across genres, countries and historical periods. We also welcome proposals from disciplines other than History and Classics and contributions may come from, but are not limited to, the following areas:

All periods and themes within History & Classics
Egyptology
Criminology
Disability Studies
Gender and Queer Studies
Religion/theology
Health Sciences
Politics
Visual and cultural representations of ideas/ideology
Literature and literary criticism
Warfare and conflict
Philosophy


A keynote lecture is currently being negotiated. Delegates are invited to submit 20-minute papers related to the broad themes of the conference, from any historical period. Please email a 150-200 word abstract, with your discipline noted in the subject line, to swanseaphf@gmail.com, and brief summary of research interest, institution and career stage to by 19th April 2013. A list of local hotels can be supplied to those travelling from outside Swansea.

Teaching workshop
The symposium will include a teaching workshop for postgraduates to discuss their experiences teaching the themes of truth, power and beliefs. In particular the theme of teaching students how to interpret primary sources in a postmodern world and the idea of bias will be discussed. You are invited to submit a proposal on this topic. This workshop will provide a space for postgraduates and early career researchers to examine their own experiences and learn from each other best practice in serving our students.

To take part in the workshop, please email your name, institution and a small 50-word abstract for your presentation with the subject ‘TEACHING WORKSHOP’ by 19th April 2013.

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Adventures and explorations

Hello everyone - apologies for the long silence, it has been a busy few weeks, for a change... Just to prove that it is not all nose-to-the-grindstone stuff, here are some exciting things I have done recently that, luckily for me, count as work:

1. A trip to the beautiful St Davids cathedral, in the world's smallest city, St Davids, in West Wales. This was to check if any Jesuit books had made their way westwards to this cathedral library, via the Vaughan family of Gelli Aur who are closely related to the Vaughan family of Courtfield. Although I didn't discover anything new (connected to the Cwm library), it was a gorgeous day in beautiful surroundings, and the combination of old books and sea views (in separate places, don't worry!) was pure heaven for me! The cathedral itself is lovely, particularly with the newly restored shrine of St David, and well worth a visit if you are ever in West Wales!

2. Provenance masterclass with David Pearson, in Cambridge University Library. This was an AMAZING opportunity to speak to a world-renowned expert on provenance history and queries, and to learn lots of useful things, such as dating anonymous bookplates and identifying different types of marginalia. David Pearson is the author of the brilliant 'Books as History' (pictured), a book designed as an introduction to the field of book history, and to the many many avenues of exploration there are to consider when analysing a book, or a library, or a collection of printed works. He was very willing to answer questions (and to sign my copy of 'Books as History'!), and didn't run screaming from the room when faced with a barrage of my questions about the Cwm collection and Jesuit provenance! I also enjoyed the creative approach to bollards adopted by the library (pictured)

3. The British Library, to check out a book with beautiful binding and some 17th century manuscripts from Hereford that had ended up there over time. A lovely building with room upon room of books, manuscripts, music and random sculptures dotted about the place (including a printing press!), plus an amazing shop - need I say more? No photographs allowed sadly, but you get the general idea :-)

4. 'Unlocking the Private Library' conference in Winchester College. A separate post to come on this soon, as there is lots to be said!

5. The National Archives in Kew, London. The aim of this trip was to scour the Privy Council minutes during the Popish Plot for any references to the Cwm, Hereford and the Cwm library. A very fruitful visit (more in due course on this) plus my visit coincided with the Italy-Wales rugby match, so the combination of rugby and 17th century records was another form of heaven for me (pictured)

Lots more trips and updates to come, plus my thoughts on writing the thesis so far, which has proved an entirely different kettle of fish to researching it! Watch this space...

Provenance research queries part 2

Second on the list of mysteries that the first year or so of the Cwm Library project is what appears to be a shelf mark, or listing reference of some sort

The letters JR (or possibly FR) appear on six books, printed between 1564 and 1606, again in a variety of places in mainland Europe such as Leiden, Lyon, Paris, Antwerp and Cologne.

Interestingly, only a few examples of this inscription survive, all written in the same hand, and examples found so far are:

JR10, JR16, JR36, JR55, JR58, JR68

The sequential nature of these inscriptions suggests that initially, there may have been more books with this same inscription, hopefully some that still survive in other collections or libraries! The initials could represent an individual, or an institution, or a motto or phrase: who knows!

Any information that can be provided on these inscriptions could help with developing our understanding of the Cwm library and how it was formed in the first place

Conference on the meaning of early modern Catholicism - call for papers

An exciting new conference is planned for 28 June - 1 July 2013, at Ushaw College, Durham.

The title of the conference is 'What is Early Modern English Catholicism?', and the plenary speakers are Eamon Duffy (Cambridge), Brad Gregory (Notre Dame), Thomas McCoog SJ (Fordham) and Alexandra Walsham (Cambridge)

Celebrating the contribution of Eamon Duffy's work to changing notions of how Early Modern English Catholicism is understood, the aim of the conference is to attract an interdisciplinary range of speakers to discuss different 'sorts' of Catholicism in evidence, and to explore whether the term covers a broad spectrum of interest groups or is more narrowly defined. As such, it will change perceptions of the subject, the conference including those who approach the material for very different angles, questioning perceived notions of what is actually meant when Early Modern Catholicism is mentioned in the English context.

The period under consideration will be in the long term, from the 16th century break with Rome , the years of uncertainty and the Marian restoration, through the periods of recusancy, persecution and the Glorious Revolution, to the Jacobite movement and the Catholic survivalism of the 18th century.

A volume of essays drawn from the conference is planned.

Proposals of about 200 words are invited for 20 minute communications on any theme falling within this broad field, and should be emailed by 15 January 2013 at the latest to james.kelly3@durham.ac.uk

For more information, please email James Kelly, or visit the Facebook group 'What is Early Modern Catholicism?' conference

Provenance Research Queries

Hi everyone, and a happy new year to you as well!

2013 has arrived, bristling with resolutions and good intentions, and for me, I am determined to begin the new year by trying to answer some of the mysteries of the Cwm Library that the project has turned up in the first year and a half.

First on the list is identifying this particular example of blind tooling:

This 'SI' tooling has been found on some 14 volumes in the Cwm collection at Hereford Cathedral, tooled in the centre of both the front and the back covers. All the volumes with this provenance were printed between 1603 and 1622, in Lyon, Antwerp, Cologne and Munich, and all were bound in brown calf leather in the seventeenth century. More information about each volume can be found by searching the Hereford Cathedral Library Catalogue.

It is likely that it stands for 'Societa[ti]s Iesu' (the Latin form of the Society of Jesus), but it could also represent a motto or phrase that has fallen into disuse, or is not immediately obvious. I am spending the next few weeks looking into as many other rare books collections as possible to try and establish what this could mean for the Cwm library collection - is this a standard mark for Jesuit library books? Is this unique to the Cwm collection? What does it stand for? What can be learnt about binding practices? Where might these volumes have been bound?

Any suggestions or possibilities gratefully received - watch this space!

Conferences: good for the soul!

The last few weeks have been quite busy on the Cwm library project, and have involved attending several fascinating conferences and giving papers.

First was the annual Swansea University Arts & Humanities Postgraduate Conference, held in the university's Wallace building on Friday 12 October. The theme of this year's conference was 'Crossing Borders and Pushing Boundaries': a specific, yet surprisingly widely interpreted theme that resulted in a wide variety of fascinating papers that truly demonstrated the breadth of research being undertaken at the several departments that make up the College of Arts & Humanities.

I presented a paper on the Cwm project to date, through the lens of the borders and boundaries theme. This enabled me to reinterpret my research thus far from a wholly new perspective, and to really emphasise the importance of borders in ensuring the survival of the Jesuit community at the Cwm. Proceedings of the conference will hopefully be published in the near future - watch this space!

I was also invited to give an update on the progress of the project to the Herefordshire Catholic History Society at their bi-annual meeting at the beautiful Belmont Abbey on 16 October - a small but very interested group of members were pleased to hear that the project was progressing well, and to hear updated numbers of books discovered, work currently being undertaken on provenance marks as well as the trials and tribulations of trying to piece together the history of this illusive library! Other papers given included an extract from research being undertaken on St Roger Cadwallader, which forms part of a forthcoming, much needed, biography on the saint.

Most recently, I attended a one day conference in London, organised by CELL (the Centre for Editing Lives and Letters) in Queen Mary University, London on 9 November. 'The Permissive Archive' Conference covered a wide variety of interpretations on the ups and downs of archival research, how research on one topic in the archives can often lead to new and unexpected avenues of research, and the various ways in which the archive is 'permissive', either as a result of permissions (or restrictions) from the archivist, different storage methods and of course, struggles with particularly horrible examples of palaeography!

It was a fascinating day, and gave me some new perspectives on the nature of my work in both the library and the archives, and highlighted lots of brilliant new research that is being conducted at the moment up and down the country. Lots more information on the conference website (see link above)

Conferences are always good for the soul - I always come away from a conference feeling refreshed and re-energised towards my research, and (more often than not) with new ideas, a different perspective, and new angles to explore. They are also a great way to engage with other academics, either working in the same field, or working in a totally different one - all researchers sometimes feel isolated and alone, due to the varied nature of the work we do, and it is always good to meet up with other people in the same position as yourself. If nothing else, having to explain your research to somebody with little or no background knowledge of your topic in a concise 'coffee-break' conversation is always challenging, and great practice for getting to grips with the essentials of the project and conveying them!

Bridging the Gaps: A week of research at Raglan Castle

Recently, I have been involved in a fascinating project at Raglan Castle, home of the Somerset family until 1646, and a key location for the early patronage and protection of the recusant community.

The bowling green and moat walk at Raglan Castle

The project, entitled ‘Bowling Balls or Hidden Halls?’, has been funded by the Bridging the Gaps [BTG] initiative at Swansea University, a collaborative programme that supports projects and activities which foster and develop interdisciplinary research (more information can be found at www.swansea.ac.uk/btg)

Our project, led by Professor Maurice Whitehead, was an interdisciplinary collaboration between the History and Classics Department and the Geography Department at Swansea University to combine historical knowledge with geophysical surveying techniques to learn more about the construction of the castle, particularly during the time of Edward Somerset (1550-1628), fourth earl of Worcester, who was responsible for landscaping the extensive Italian-influenced gardens and developing the moat walk and bowling green.

The team consisted of Professor Maurice Whitehead (History) and Dr Bernd Kulessa (Geography), Hannah Thomas (PhD student in History), Donna Carless (PhD student in Geography) and Dr Adam Booth (Imperial College, London):

Donna Carless                             Maurice Whitehead

Hannah Thomas             Adam Booth

The main aim of the week was to try and establish how the bowling green and terraces had evolved during their construction, and if either had been built over any existing structures that had since remained hidden. Both the bowling green and the terraces have remarkably thin retaining walls that have supported the enormous volume of both structures through nearly four centuries of Welsh rain, without showing the least sign of giving way or leakage, and it is this phenomenon that we hope to gain a better understanding of, using geophysical methods.

We used two non-invasive methods to analyse the bowling green and terraces at Raglan Castle. The first was ground penetrating radar: a sort of X-ray for the ground, which works by transmitting radio waves through the ground to be reflected by hidden features. The reflections highlight contrasts in the soil (for example, a large stone buried in a wet soil will create a contrast) and enable an outline of any buried features to be constructed. The radar is pulled along on a type of sled over a carefully measured out grid, in vertical lines, which can be viewed on the monitor attached to the radar as the data is being gathered. All of the lines will then be placed next to each other during processing and analysis to enable a picture of the whole area to be constructed:

ground penetrating radar 

the radar in action!

  

The second method that we used was resistivity tomography: a method that sends an electrical current through the ground. The readings are then analysed to establish how conductive or resistive any buried features are, which enables us to establish what they might be constructed of (for example, the conductivity of air vs. that of water is quite different, and allows them to be identified beneath the surface). Similarly to the radar, the data is collected in lines within carefully measured grids, and is processed and analysed to allow a picture of the whole area to be established:

Donna with the resistivity equipment

 Detailed analysis of our findings is currently taking place, and a paper will be presented on the research during Swansea University's Interdisciplinary Research Week in February 2013. The week offered a chance to learn about a whole new discipline, and all members of the team thoroughly enjoyed learning about the 'other', despite the terrible weather and torrential rain that were an unfortunately predominant feature of the whole week! Members of the public and visitors to the castle were also very interested in what we were doing and the methods we were using, and many of them left infected with enthusiasm for uncovering the hidden secrets of Raglan Castle