Forthcoming…

A great deal of my life seems to be ‘forthcoming’ at the moment. In terms of this blog, I have various half-baked posts floating around, which I hope to finish on my return from the Social History Conference in Glasgow (where I currently am). In addition to blogging about that and whether I managed to communicate with modern historians, I also want to talk about some of the challenges facing Higher Education at the moment, particularly the nurturing role of the academy: does it have one and should it?

The 2010 Ford Lectures VI: Empire? From beginning to end

By the time we reached lecture number VI, this series was proving extraordinarily productive, not only from the point of view of listening to what David Bates had to say, but also from the amount of work I seemed to be doing while drinking tea with friends. In a term that was a long, old slog, I was tremendously grateful. Lecture VI had been given a huge build up so we were all eagerly anticipating David’s conclusion.

The 2010 Ford lectures V: Centre, periphery and networks

This time around tea with two fellow Normannists preceded the latest installment in David Bates’ journey through the murky realms of empire and Norman history. I confess I was probably more interested in this lecture’s title than the others. Regular readers of this blog know that Reivers and I have an interest in life on boundaries in all sorts of senses. Also, my more recent research has focused on looking at the relationship between centre and periphery as made manifest in chroniclers’ descriptions of the landscape. What David did here was to underline how networks in particular perpetuate empire and how, in the case of Normandy, the centre/core remained remarkably resilient.

The 2010 Ford Lectures IV: Hegemony

I didn’t go to this one, so can’t comment: it was very good though apparently. Instead, I was busy being very cold. Never trust a plumber when he tells you he will finish by Friday.

The 2010 Ford Lectures III: William the Conqueror and empire

Fortified by tea with a friend, by now becoming a bit of a ritual, we both made our way to the Examination Schools in Oxford for the latest instalment of David Bates’ Ford Lecture series on the Normans and empire. For one and two, follow the links. The subject of number three, was William the Conqueror himself.