‘Building on History: The Church in London’ Project

A pioneering project aiming to disseminate fascinating and important new insights into the modern history of religion in London in order to inform both policy-making and self-understanding was launched at a reception at Lambeth Palace Library on 18th June 2009. Dr Richard Chartres, the Bishop of London, spoke at the event along with the Project leader, Professor John Wolffe of The Open University. Over the next three years ‘Building on History: The Church in London’ will see two leading historians of modern British religion -- Wolffe and Professor Arthur Burns (King’s College London) – work with the leading national depository for English religious history, Lambeth Palace Library, and the Anglican Diocese of London to enhance the diocese’s self-understanding and effectiveness.

‘Building on History: The Church in London’ is funded by a £234,000 Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Knowledge Transfer grant. It is amongst the first ventures of its kind involving academic historians collaborating not with a gallery or museum but with a major public institution, as the Church of England seeks eagerly to unlock its own history to bring insights to its clergy, congregations and the broader multi-cultural community of contemporary London.

The project enjoys the strong support of the Bishop of London, who spoke at a Building on History seminar at St Paul’s Cathedral on 5 May of the importance of historical awareness to London Anglican identity and the development of informed strategy. Many of the social changes and pastoral challenges currently facing the diocese, such as rapid urban development, and heavy migration (both within and to the area) have been perennial issues for both Church and the metropolis since at least the late eighteenth century; and a historical perspective on the experience of these phenomena over time will help inform current and future responses.

The last twenty years have transformed academic understanding of the place of religion in modern English society, particularly in relation to ‘secularization’. It is increasingly clear that claims of religion’s inevitable decline in the face of modernization are not borne out by the ability of religious groups to respond react to changing contexts. Building on History creates a new space in which those active in the contemporary religious life of the capital can reflect on and learn from the remarkable stories now emerging about the experience of the churches in one of the world’s great cities responding to two centuries of challenge and change.

Following the launch, the project will engage with the Diocese of London at every level. Seminars and workshops for clergy and laity will provide a context in which history can provide helpful perspectives on practical contemporary concerns. In addition, seminars will be convened with church leaders responsible for formulating both diocesan and national policy. As the project progresses, it will interact with other Christian traditions and with London’s diverse local and cultural communities.

For more information see project website: http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/building-on-history-project/index.html

Partners: Arts and Humanities Research Council; The Diocese of London (Church of England); King’s College London; Lambeth Palace Library; The Open University
Directed by: Professor John Wolffe, Professor Arthur Burns
Project Researchers: Dr Lucinda Matthews-Jones, Dr John Maiden

Collaborative Research Seminar - Framing Muslims: New Directions

A collaborative workshop has been organised by the Ferguson Centre for African and Asian Studies, Open University and the Framing Muslims Project, SOAS as follows:

25 June 2009, 2pm
Venue: MR01, Wilson A Block, Ground floor
Milton Keynes Campus, Open University

Speakers:
Madeline Clements (English, University of East London)‘Lunar streets and the Lonely Planet: locating Karachi in Kamila Shamsie’s Kartography’

Maruta Herding (Sociology, Cambridge University)‘'Pop-Islam': The Emergence of an Islamic Youth Culture in Western Europe’

Peter Morey (English Literature, University of East London)
‘How (not) to Recognise a Muslim Stereotype: the Spooks Controversy’

Amina Yaqin (Postcolonial Studies and Urdu, SOAS)
‘What is a Muslim Diaspora? Locating Muslim transnational subjectivities in British media post 9/11’

ALL ARE WELCOME

If you would like to book a place please contact Heather Scott, Research Centre Secretary at h.scott@open.ac.uk

This seminar is one of a series. The specific questions which the seminar series and interactive website will address include the following:

• How is the production and reception of images of Muslims governed?
• How have the roles and conventions of such representations changed since 9/11?
• What are the strengths and limitations of existing theoretical paradigms when addressing questions of representation and power?
• How might we understand oppositional modes of Muslim representation, and how is the space for such forms negotiated?
• How has the legal status of certain Muslim practices and structures been called into question, and how has this questioning been mediated?
• How has the re-entrenchment of national belonging been used to question models of multiculturalism?

For more information see: http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/ferguson-centre or http://www.framingmuslims.org

OU Music Dept Research Seminars on "Entrainment in Cuban Music: An Analysis of Son" & "Word and Song: Performing Devotion in South Asia"

Room MR03 – Ground Floor, Wilson Building A (R023), Open University, Milton Keynes 24 June 2009 – 2:00 pm
All welcome

Adrian Poole (OU) - Entrainment in Cuban Music: An Analysis of Son

Son is a style of popular dance music that combines African and Spanish elements and which originated in the Eastern region of Cuba in the late 19th century. Originally associated with the peasant or working-classes, son developed to become one of Cuba’s most important and influential musical forms and is often described as the forerunner of modern salsa. An important feature of son, and all dance music, is the ‘groove’: the sense of shared timing negotiated between performing musicians which provides the drive, feel and motion that invites audiences to move with the music.

Whilst early ethnomusicologists such as Alan Lomax and John Blacking have explored the relationship between musical rhythmic interaction and bodily movement, it is Charles Keil and Steven Feld’s work on Participatory Discrepancies that provides the most explicit connection between the socio-musical processes that create the musical ‘groove’ and how this groove draws the listener in, evoking a sense of participation and shared experience. In their 2005 article “In time with the music: The concept of entrainment and its significance for ethnomusicology”, Clayton et al suggest an interdisciplinary approach that connects research in ethnomusicology with entrainment theory - how two or more rhythmic entities interact - providing a useful methodological framework that combines ethnography with the analysis of performance timing data.

This paper draws on the these theories to present some initial findings of how musicians in rhythm sections (bass, percussion and piano players) interact with each other to create and develop a successful dance ‘groove’ during the performance of Cuban son.

Jaime Jones (University College, Dublin) - Word and Song: Performing Devotion in South Asia

The liturgical canons of bhakti (devotional) practice in South Asia undergo constant manipulation and transformation through performance. The musicians who activate the canon through song, dance, theatre, and drumming play a fundamental role in the creation of felt connections between sacred ideologies and daily experience, and they do so knowingly. The music-making that constitutes devotional ritual simultaneously reiterates a fixed repertoire and re-creates the same fixed repertoire through musical invention, virtuosity, and stylistic citation. In other words, devotees build new spiritual encounters from the established texts of their tradition through music.

In this paper, I examine the use(s) of music in devotional traditions of South Asia in order to underscore the agency of devotees as performers. I consider the ways in which singers and musicians mobilize histories, practices, and genres in order to effectively and affectively construct bhakti. This focus extends previous literary studies of bhakti songs by sustaining questions about the role of performance in the sacred and the discursive strategies that allow musical practice and worship to coincide.

Free Evening Lecture Series: Art and Travel in the Mediterranean, 1600–1900

In the history of British travel since the late sixteenth century, the Mediterranean has always played a prime role and inevitably captured the imagination like no other European region. Travel to the Mediterranean was stimulated by its art and architecture and in return inspired new art, architecture, collecting and art criticism. Images drawn, painted or photographed on these journeys by a diversity of travellers – artists, antiquarians, scientists, ethnographers, diplomats, navy personal, amateurs and tourists, to name just a few – have fulfilled a whole variety of purposes. This lecture series, organised by the National Maritime Museum’s Centre for Art and Travel and generously hosted by the Paul Mellon Centre, attempts a new overview on the subject from the seventeenth to the early twentieth century.

Lectures
26 November 2009: The Origins of the Grand Tour and the Discovery of Art, Edward Chaney, Southampton Solent University

10 December 2009: 'Present under the rose...' Stratford Canning, his Greek artist, and the last chance to see Turkey before the Tanzimat, Charles Newton, former Curator, Victoria & Albert Museum

21 January 2010: 'These inhuman trafficers in flesh & blood' : British artists and the slave trade in Egypt, Briony Llewellyn, Independent Art Historian

4 February 2010: Revolving Mirrors: Britain and Spain from the Armada to the Spanish Civil War, David Howarth, University of Edinburgh

18 February 2010: ‘Hellas… in one living picture’: British artist travellers in Greece, Jenny Gaschke, National Maritime Museum

All lectures take place at: Seminar room, Paul Mellon Centre, 16 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3JA. 18.00 start; 19.00 drinks; 19.30 exit. (Nearest tube stations include Tottenham Court Road, Goodge Street or Russell Square.)

Booking: Free of charge and no need to book, but if you wish to reserve a place, please check NMM website for contact details (link below).

For more information see: http://www.nmm.ac.uk/researchers/research-areas-and-projects/cart/art-and-travel-lectures/

Futurism and the Avant-Garde - OU Art History Study Days at Tate Modern

Saturday 27 June 2009, 11.00–17.15
Starr Auditorium, Level 2, Tate Modern

This symposium explores the controversial status of Futurist movements in art history, and some of their 'avant-garde' practices. Speakers engage with various forms of Futurist art, performance and film, including the use of manifestos and demonstrations. Italian Futurism will be viewed in relation to other radical art practices across Europe. The Futurists' disdain for traditional values and their pursuit of an 'art of modern life' will be explored in relation to prevailing concepts of modernity and 'avant-garde' utopias.

The seminar has been organised by Tate Modern in collaboration with The Open University

Speakers

• Lutz Becker is a director of political and art documentaries such as ‘Double Headed Eagle’ 1972, ‘Lion of Judah’ 1981 and ‘Nuremberg in History' 2006. A practicing painter, he is also a curator of exhibitions. He collaborated with the Hayward Gallery on ‘The Romantic Spirit in German Art’ 1994, ‘Art and Power’ 1995 and Tate Modern on ‘Century City’ 2001. He is an expert on Russian Constructivism and Italian Futurism. His recent exhibition on European photomontage 'Cut & Paste' was held at the Estorick Collection, London.
• Mary Ann Caws is Distinguished Professor of English, French, and Comparative Literature, Graduate School, City University of New York. She has edited the HarperCollins World Reader, the Yale Anthology of Twentieth Century French Poetry, Surrealist Love Poems, Surrealist Painters and Poets, Surrealism, and authored The Surrealist Look, Glorious Eccentrics, Surprised in Translation, To the Boathouse: a Memoir, Provencal Cooking: Savoring the Simple Life in France, and illustrated biographies of Picassos’s Weeping Woman, Proust, Picasso, James, Woolf, and Dali. She has co-translated volumes of René Char, Tzara, Reverdy, Breton, and Desnos, and held Fulbright, Guggenheim and Rockefeller Foundation fellowships.
• David Cottington is a Professor of Art History at Kingston University London, and the author of several books on the early twentieth century avant-garde, including Cubism in the Shadow of War: The Avant-Garde and Politics in Paris 1905-1914 (Yale University Press, 1998), Cubism and its Histories (Manchester University Press, 2004) and Modern Art: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2005). He is currently working on two books about the avant-garde.
• Alex Danchev is Professor of International Relations at the Univeristy of Nottingham. He is deeply interested in the interconnections and intersections of art and politics. He is the author of a number of widely acclaimed biographies, among them GEORGES BRAQUE (Penguin, 2007). His most recent books are PICASSO FURIOSO (2008) and ON ART AND WAR AND TERROR (2009). He is currently working on a biography of Cezanne, and a collection of artists' manifestos.
• Matthew Gale is Head of Displays at Tate Modern and curator of Futurism.

For more information and to book see: http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/eventseducation/symposia/18175.htm

Launch of new electronic grants system

During June and July, the British Academy will complete the testing and implementation of its new electronic grant making system, eGAP2 (electronic Grant Administration Processing system). It is anticipated that, pending a successful outcome to the test phase, the system should go live in early August. The software was developed by our sister Academy, the Royal Society, which implemented this second version of the system in spring 2008. Over the past few months, we have made a number of changes to the system and have adapted eGAP2 to better fit the Academy’s needs.

The introduction of electronic grant making will help the Academy to overcome the shortcomings of an almost completely paper based system, and to manage an ever increasing volume of applications and awards. Saving time used for keying in several thousand applications and monitoring reports every year will allow Academy staff to continue to respond promptly and knowledgeably to enquiries and requests for support from researchers in the UK and abroad. Applicants will benefit by being able to have direct access to the progress of their application and to share applications with others where relevant. Further announcements – in particular with regard to schedules of future funding competitions – will be made on the Academy’s website and through the Academy's email bulletin.

From British Academy website: http://www.britac.ac.uk/funding/egap-release.cfm

Funding Opportunity for Pursuing Transdisciplinary Approaches to the Big Questions

The Metanexus Institute announces grants in support of transdisciplinary exploration of fundamental questions of life, the cosmos, and humanity. Metanexus invites proposals from networked teams of five or more investigators who:

• Intend to examine questions that range beyond those normally studied within established academic disciplines;
• Span an adventurous diversity of such disciplines;
• May engage religious and spiritual points of view;
• Seek to forge new and enduring links among different fields of study; and
• Aspire to have a transformational impact upon human knowledge and education.

To foster this transformation, MGNI will support open and dynamic transdisciplinary exploration and research with the aim of discovering new scientific, philosophical, and spiritual insights. The grants are intended to provide seed money for the formation and maintenance of networked groups of investigators from diverse academic backgrounds with the aim of building intellectual community.

Awards of $30,000 (£18,000) will be made through the Metanexus Global Network Initiative (MGNI) Basic Grant. Winning proposals will demonstrate academic rigor in program content, imagination and creativity in program planning, and cost-effectiveness in program execution.

For Further information visit: http://www.blogger.com/www.metanexus.net/globalnetwork

Fellowships and grants from The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art

The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art has two rounds of fellowship and grants awards each year - a January round for fellowships and grants and a September round for grants (the application deadlines are 15 January and 15 September). Their Advisory Council meets to decide on the awards in March (for the January round) and in October (for the September round). They write to applicants informing them of the outcome of their application no later than three weeks after the Council's meeting.

The following programmes have a deadline of 15 September 2009:

• Curatorial Research Grants - Up to £20,000 per annum to help institutions undertake research for a particular exhibition or installation of British art (up to three years).
• Educational Programme Grants - Up to £5,000 for lectures, symposia, seminars or conferences on British art and architecture.
• Publications Grants (Author) - Up to £10,000 (but normally not exceeding £5,000) for costs incurred by authors on books, catalogues of exhibitions or permanent collections of British fine and decorative arts and architecture.
• Publications Grants (Publisher) - For costs incurred by publishers or institutions on books, catalogues of exhibitions or permanent collections of British fine and decorative arts and architecture.
• Research Support Grants - Up to £3,000 to contribute towards travel and subsistence expenses for scholars engaged in research on the history of British art or architecture.
• The Wilhelmina Barns-Graham Research Support Grant - This grant was instigated by the Barns-Graham Charitable Trust (www.barns-grahamtrust.org.uk) in 2009 and will be administered by the Paul Mellon Centre. £2,000 will be awarded annually to assist scholars and researchers in the field of 20th Century British painting.

For more information, guidance and application form, please see: http://www.paul-mellon-centre.ac.uk/16/

Leverhulme Trust Research programmes for 2010

The Leverhulme Trust have just published its annual call for Research programme bids, and this year’s two themes are

• Beauty

• The Impact of Diasporas.

Normally one grant is awarded for each theme. The grants provide funds to research teams for up to five years to enable them to explore significant issues in the social sciences, in the humanities and, to a lesser extent, in the sciences. The scale of the awards is set at a level where it is possible for a research team to study a significant theme in depth by conducting a group of interlinked research projects which taken together can lead to new understanding. The themes are selected not to exclude particular disciplines from the competition but rather to encourage research teams to look upon their established research interests from a set of refreshing viewpoints.

For each theme, a minimum of £500,000 and a maximum of £1.75 million is available for the support of work extending over periods of up to five years.

For further information see: http://www.leverhulme.ac.uk/grants_awards/grants/research_programmes/

British Library’s Sound Archive

The British Library has an Archive Sound Recording website with 21,000 selected recordings of:

• music -including classical and world music
• spoken word - including oral history and accents and dialects
• human and natural environments. – including soundscapes and wildlife

You are able to: Search all recordings on the site; listen to the recordings and download them; add notes and tags and create a favourites list.

To find out more visit:http://sounds.bl.uk/

Leverhulme Trust Emeritus Fellowship Awarded to OU Professor of History

Professor Clive Emsley has been awarded a Leverhulme Trust Emeritus Fellowship, which will allow him to continue his research on "Crime and the British Military in the 20th Century" for another 2 years after his retirement in September 2009. He is currently Professor of History and co-director of the International Centre for Comparative Criminological Research (ICCCR) at the Open University.

Prof Emsley says "Most crime is (and has been) committed by young men, and most military personnel are (and have always been) young men. The end of wars in Britain, since the eighteenth century, has witnessed fears that men, trained to kill and brutalised by the experience of battle, will find it difficult to return to civilian life and will continue to act violently, and hence criminally at home. Focussing primarily on the two world wars of the twentieth century, this research project will explore the scale of criminality by men in the armed forces and their behaviour at the wars’ ends."

"The aim of this project is to explore two distinct aspects of crime and the British Military during the twentieth century. First, there are the issues of the extent and variety of offending by soldiers: second, there is the problem of soldiers returning from conflict and the extent to which their experiences fostered subsequent criminal behaviour."

"It is generally recognised that most crime is committed by young men. The majority of soldiers are young men and it has often been commented upon how conventional crime declined in wartime and how juveniles and women appeared in greater percentages before the courts. Army provosts, and those relatively few military historians that have commented upon crime, have tended to use the positivist assumption that offenders in uniform were simply ‘professional criminals’ that had been recruited or conscripted. The initial aim of the project is to explore the kinds of crimes committed by soldiers in wartime on both the home and the battle fronts and the extent of this crime. The basic hypotheses to be tested are that:

• There was remarkably little difference between offences committed by civilians and offences committed by soldiers; however,
• In some instances, war provided new opportunities or new pressures to commit crime.

The fear of the brutalised veteran returning home to commit violent offences has a long history. The acknowledgement of the problem of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, commonly described in Britain as ‘shell-shock’, began during the First World War. Soldiers before civilian courts began to use the disorder as a defence before the end of the war. Nevertheless, while there has been research on the history of the concept and its gradual acceptance, there have been few attempts to explore its impact on criminal offending."

"The second aim of the project is to explore the concerns about brutalised veterans – as reflected in the comments of experts and in the popular media – together with the reality of such veterans appearing before the courts. The basic hypotheses to be tested here are that:

• In the euphoria of victory, there was also an underlying climate of fear about brutalised veterans; however,
• While there may have been some sympathy for men who responded violently (but not with lethal results) to wives that had been unfaithful, there was little serious appreciation of men that had been seriously psychologically damaged by their experiences and who, in consequence, drifted into drunkenness and violent offending."

The research will take place in London, Fareham and Brussels and the principal outcome of the project will be a book and at least one conference paper at the European Social Science History Conference in Ghent in 2010.

AHRC Beyond Text project asks "What is Black British Jazz?"

The ‘Black British Jazz’ project (BBJ) explores the emergence of a distinct tradition within British music. BBJ melds reggae, hiphop, African music and US jazz into a rich, and constantly developing set of sounds. In documenting this musical hybrid, the project touches on important issues for the study of music – the transmission of cultural values, the social context of musical forms, and frameworks of ownership that impact on musical communities.

The research takes an interdisciplinary approach, bringing together researchers with specialism’s in sociology, music psychology and (ethno) musicolology. It integrates a range of methods, from detailed analysis of performance through to ethnographic and historical investigation.

The project approaches BBJ via three research strands:

• Routes
• Ownership
• Performance

These strands act as guides for our work. But as the project develops we will also be looking for ways of integrating them and highlighting common themes.

In terms of audience the project reaches out, beyond academia, to a broad constituency through film, a radio series/podcast, an end-of- project concert and more. What Is Black British Jazz runs from January 2009 through to July 2011 and is supported through the AHRC’s Beyond Text programme.

The Open University project team are:

• Dr Jason Toynbee (Principal Investigator), Dept of Sociology,
• Dr Mark Doffman (Research Fellow), Dept of Sociology,
• Dr Catherine Tackley (Co-Investigator), Dept of Music,
• Dr Byron Dueck (Co-Investigator), Dept of Music,
• Mark Banks (Co-Investigator), Dept of Sociology,

The project aims are:

• To trace the historical and geographical routes along which black British jazz (BBJ) has developed.
• To examine the role of memory and cultural transmission in the emergence of new musical forms (also to contribute to their preservation through audio-visual recordings).
• To investigate ownership of BBJ in relation to entrepreneurship, creativity and cultural policy.
• To analyse aesthetics, embodied practice and participation in BBJ performance.
  Research questions

The main research question, 'What is Black British Jazz?', is broken down as follows:

• What is the cultural identity of the genre?
• How did it emerge?
• Who owns it, how is it owned and what is the impact of cultural policy on ownership?
• What are the defining themes in its performance? How do musicians use grooves, voices and improvised scripts in its delivery?
• In political and aesthetic terms, why and how does BBJ matter?

Outputs
Research outputs from the project include conventional academic forms such as books, journal articles and conference papers. But the project team also aim to make the results of their work available to a broader public. A film (in collaboration with Metal Dog Productions), a short series of radio programmes/podcasts and a concert will take the project to non-academic audiences. Project data drawn from performances, interviews and documents will also be available as a) archive material held by the British Library and the Center for Black Music Research in Chicago and b) a resource for jazz education.

For more information see: http://www.open.ac.uk/researchprojects/blackbritishjazz/ and http://projects.beyondtext.ac.uk/blackbritishjazz/blog.html

AHRC Fellowships - early career researchers scheme launched

The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) will accept applications for their early career researchers fellowship scheme from 1st September (open deadlines). The early career route aims to enable the AHRC to work in partnership with institutions to support the career development of researchers at the start of their careers and to provide them with focused research time.

The Fellowships scheme provides salary and associated costs for periods of three to nine months, to enable an individual researcher to work on a specified research project or programme. The Fellowship can be used to support a wide range of research activities provided that these lead to significant specified research and other outputs by the end of the Fellowship, including the preparation of publications and other outputs from research conducted prior to the start of the Fellowship. Proposals for full economic costs up to a maximum of £120,000 may be submitted.

The early career route aims to enable the AHRC to work in partnership with institutions to support the career development of researchers at the start of their careers and to provide them with focused research time and appropriate support and mentoring so that they can broaden their research experience and enhance their research outputs profile. In order to apply to this route, applicants must meet additional eligibility criteria as outlined in the AHRC Funding Guide.

The Fellowships scheme (Standard and Early Career routes) operates with open deadlines. This means that applicants can submit Fellowship applications at any time without having to worry about submitting for specific deadlines.

Applications to this scheme can be submitted at any time from 1 September 2009.

Please note that the assessment process for applications submitted to the Fellowships scheme (Standard and Early Career routes) takes approximately 30 weeks and the earliest start date for a project should be no earlier than 9 months after submission to the AHRC.

If any researchers associated with the Open University Faculty of Arts are intending to apply to this programme, they must contact the Research & Enterprise Support Team (REST) for confirmation of the full economic cost of their proposal and to receive the necessary internal approvals to allow the application to be submitted. Please notify the team of your intention to make an application at least 4 weeks before the date that you intend to submit your bid.

For more information see: http://www.ahrc.ac.uk/FundingOpportunities/Pages/Fellowshipserc.aspx

AHRC Science & Heritage Postdoctoral Fellowships

The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Science and Heritage Postdoctoral Fellowships are designed to support outstanding early career researchers to carry out research and so establish an independent research career in heritage science.

The duration of the Fellowship is equivalent to 3 years full-time and they are open to researchers with no more than 5 years post-doctoral or equivalent experience.

The funding will cover Fellow’s salary and a small amount of travel and subsistence, equipment and consumables.

The deadline is 4pm Thursday 10th September 2009

AHRC is administering this call on behalf of AHRC and EPSRC. Please ensure that you have read the Details of the Call and the Specification document carefully before making your application. For more information see: http://www.ahrc.ac.uk/FundingOpportunities/Pages/Fellowshipspdsciher.aspx