Not much, I tell the Guardian.
Rights Gone Wrong – BBC2
I contributed to the recent BBC 2 documentary on Human Rights presented by Andrew Neil. You can see my contribution on i-player until 21st March 2012.
Tony Benn’s Gerrard Winstanley
(A very belated review of the copy Verso were kind enough to send me!)
Tony Benn introduces Gerrard Winstanley, A Common Treasury (Verso, 2011), paperback £8.99
Verso’s Revolutions series delivers historic revolutionary authors, such as ‘El Libertador’, Simon Bolivar, teamed-up with present-day radicals, (Bolivar’s literary buddy being the socialist President of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez.) This entry in the series features veteran left-winger Tony Benn introducing Gerrard Winstanley the leader of the seventeenth-century English radical Digger movement. The title of this collection refers to Winstanley’s belief, enacted in the Digger settlements established in 1649 at St.George’s Hill and then Little Heath, Cobham, Surrey, that the land should be a ‘common treasury’ ‘for all, to work together, and eate together (p. 19).’
Most historians of the seventeenth-century will baulk at Benn’s description of the Diggers as the ‘first true socialists’. Many will also be sceptical of Benn’s claim that Winstanley set out to challenge ‘sexist language’ (is this the same Winstanley who wrote that ‘excesse of Feminine society, hinders the pure and naturall Generation of man, and spills the seed in vain’?(p.140))
However, the real value of this volume lies not in Benn’s short introduction but in the up-to-date and clear foreword provided by the New Left Review writer Tom Hazeldine, and the texts themselves, made available again in a cheap paperback edition for the first time in twenty years. Like Benn, Hazeldine sees modern relevance to the Diggers’ campaign (he points to the recent controversy over the proposed sale of national forests) but he also draws on the best recent historical scholarship – John Gurney’s forensic study of the Digger settlements in Surrey, Corns, Hughes and Lowenstein’s excellent edition of Winstanley’s collected works –to offer a valuable primer in both Winstanley’s life and the progress of the Digger movement. The selection of texts, edited by Andrew Hopton, is taken from an earlier collection of Digger pamphlets published in 1989, though Hopton has helpfully updated the explanatory notes to acknowledge recent discoveries.
This particular selection, as Hazeldine indicates in his foreword, excludes Winstanley’s four mystical works published in 1648, as well as another mainly religious work, Fire in the Bush (1650) and his final work, a vision of a communal, agrarian English state, The Law of Freedom in a Platform, published in 1652. But it would take a very inattentive reader even of the pamphlets that are included here to miss the way in which Winstanley’s prose was saturated with Biblical references and metaphors or to ignore the air of millenarian expectation -‘the Elect Spirit spread in Sons and Daughters (p.22)’. If Winstanley’s vision now appears unfulfilled, it is not only because the Digger settlements failed, but also because so much of that vision related to the world of the spirit, not the flesh.
Robert Dover’s Olympick Games
I contributed to this BBC Radio 3 documentary on Dover’s games, presented by former test cricketer Ed Smith. You can listen to the documentary here (available til 26th Feb 2012).
The English Revolution and its Republican Legacy
I will be giving a talk on the above on Feb 16th as part of the Bishopgate Institute’s Monarchy and Republicanism series. Details here.
Non-traditional assessment in ‘traditional’ subjects – HEA workshop 4th April 2012
The Department of Humanities at the University of Roehampton has received some funding to host a workshop exploring the use of ePortfolios in teaching and assessing ‘traditional’ subjects (the examples used in the workshop will mainly be drawn from History and Classics). In particular, we will be looking at the use of PLEs (Personal Learning Environments) in supporting independent project work, improving study skills and enhancing employability. Details of the workshop can be found over here at the HEA website. The event is free and we have 30 places for interested delegates.
Christmas gifts…of a sort
There has been quite a lot of discussion recently about the ethics of publicly-funded research often only being available through subscription-only journals. (Much of it sparked off by this article by George Monbiot in the Grauniad.)
One thought I had at the time was that if academics collectively did more to make use of existing self-archiving policies this might open things up a bit. I hadn’t then had the time or energy to follow this up myself but a search of the Sherpa/Romeo database makes clear how restrictive the archiving policies of most academic journals are. (There are some notable exceptions – Cambridge Journals having a good general archiving policing.) Most only permit posting of pre-print copies (meaning pre-refereed). So, if you want peer-reviewed content you’ve still got to pay for it.
Of work I’ve published in journals, only three articles (from JBS, Historical Journal and Huntington Library Quarterly) could be uploaded in final PDF form. I’ve added them to my academic.edu profile in case anyone is interested….they’re not exactly hot-off-the-press.
I don’t have any brilliant solutions to this problem myself but it does seem to me that journal editors might think about their archiving policies and whether they are too restrictive. The approach of titles like Journal of British Studies seems to me the fairest for all parties.
PhD research studentships in humanities
The Department of Humanities, University of Roehampton, is offering two full fees studentships for Phd study in either history, classical civilisations or theology and religious studies.
Further details can be found here.
Face for radio?
I took part in another BBC Radio 3 Nightwaves discussion on Thurs 2oth Oct, this time on the ‘Occupy’ protests in historical perspective. You can listen again here, first item on the show.
