An opportunity for historians with an interest in the British left to engage with Momentum and Jeremy for Labour activists.
Tuesday 15 November – 6pm to 8pm
Dreyfus Room, Birkbeck, 26 Russell Square, London
History Acts is a new radical history forum, affiliated to the Raphael Samuel Centre, and based at the University of London. Our goal is to bring together radical and left-wing historians and contemporary activists. We want to find new ways to engage as academics with contemporary struggles, to learn from activists, and to see how we can use what expertise and institutional resources we have to provide active solidarity.
This is a new – and as far as we know, unique – project. We are beginning by hosting a series of workshops, each on a different topic or theme. The sessions will be led by activists, who will be invited to give a short talk or presentation about their work. A historian or historians working on a relevant topic will then respond, before opening it up to group discussion.
Our panel
Rachel Godfrey Wood is a Labour Party and Momentum activist. She is also a researcher specialising in areas relating to social policy, climate change, and community politics. She has a PhD from the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) in the wellbeing of older people in the Bolivian Altiplano. She has published in various journals.
Michael Walker worked on the Jeremy for Labour campaign in the volunteer mobilisation team. He is the presenter of The Fix on Novara Media.
Daisy Payling completed her PhD at the University of Birmingham in 2015 on the ideas and practices of left-wing political renewal. Her research looked specifically at how local government and different activist movements engaged with each other in Sheffield in the 1970s and 1980s. She is currently a Research Fellow in History at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
Diarmaid Kelliher is a historian based at the University of Glasgow. He is researching the Miners’ Strike and the Metropolis, 1984-5. He is also involved with Momentum Islington.
John Callaghan Professor of Politics & Contemporary History, University of Salford has unfortunately had to cancel.