Workshop: Secret Histories

A one-day workshop exploring histories that are clandestine, taboo or underground.

This one-day workshop focuses on ‘Secret Histories’: those histories that are clandestine, taboo or underground. These significant histories have often been overlooked and can present methodological problems to the historian. Understanding these issues enriches research and allows for deeper questioning of historical and methodological assumptions. Incorporating a global breadth of topics, from early modern to modern periods, from menstruation to anticolonial resistance, this workshop intends to create a space that encourages a rich discussion around these challenges and how to overcome them

Important information

The keynote address will be given by Mari Takayanagi, Senior Archivist at the Parliamentary Archives in London. It will take place in a different room to the rest of the conference: Michael Sadler LG.10.

This keynote address will be open to all, including those not registered for the full Workshop. Registration for the keynote is still required. If you only wish to attend the keynote and not the rest of the Workshop, please visit the lecture page for more information and registration details.

If you register for the whole Workshop, you do not need to complete a second registration for this keynote lecture. See below for details on how to register for the whole Workshop.

Programme

09:30-10:00 Arrival and welcome

10:00-11:00 Roundtable 1: Secrecy and the State

Professor Jo-Ansie van Wyk (University of South Africa, Pretoria): ‘Spying on the Apartheid Bomb’

Joey Crozier (Aberystwyth University): ‘Finding lost voices in the intelligence reports of James Johnstone (1687-96)’

Timothy Mansueto (University of Bristol): ‘Confronting archival silences: glimpsing daily life in Fascist Italy, 1922-43’

Chair: Carissa Anderson (University of Leeds)

11:00-11:15: Break

11:15-12:15 Roundtable 2: Acts of Resistance

André Fernandes (University of Minho, Portugal): ‘A not so (in)visible resistance: Anticolonial labour unions in Angola under late Portuguese colonialism and resistance through international participation’

Johanna Kluit (Loughborough University): ‘The Revival of Russian Anarchism: Post-Soviet Anarchism and the Struggle with the National Question (1985-1994)’

Dr. Adam J Smith (York St. John University): ‘Winifred Gales & Radical Print Culture in Late Eighteenth-Century Sheffield’

Chair: Sophie Turbutt (University of Leeds)

12:15-13:00 Lunch

14:00-14:15 Break

14:15-15:15 Roundtable 3: Oral Histories

Irene Piedrahita Arcila (University of Glasgow): ‘The dilemmas of confessions: Public Hearings of Perpetrators in Colombian Transitional Justice Stages’

Chiedozie Obia (University of Exeter): ‘“They Treated Them as Wives”: Researching Sexual Violence in South-Eastern Nigeria, c. 1916-1990s, the Value of Oral History Methodology’

Dr. Diana John (Independent Scholar): ‘Interacting with traumatic narratives as an oral historian’

Chair: Jocelyn Xu (University of York)

15:15-15:30 Break

15:30-16:30 Roundtable 4: Histories of the Taboo

Heather Sadiq (University of Sheffield): ‘Sex, Gender, and the Private Lives of Drag Performers’

Charo Havermans (University College London): ‘Menstruating Mexico: A Cycle of Silence and Taboo’

Scarlett Stevens (University of York): ‘Reading "Bookes Of Love": Romances And Seventeenth-Century Women's Reading Pleasures’

Chair: Charlotte Vallis (University of York)

16:30-17:00 Closing remarks

Catering

Lunch and two coffee breaks will be provided free of charge to all in person attendees who have registered to attend the full ‘Secret Histories’ Workshop. Those registered to attend only the Keynote Lecture (see above) are ineligible for this, due to capacity constraints.

Conference dinner

There will be an informal dinner held in Leeds city centre after the Workshop. All Workshop attendees are welcome to join us. Please indicate your intention to join us for dinner on the registration form, so that we can book a table ahead of time.

Registration

Registration is required. Please register at this link. Registration will close at 09:00 on Friday 6th September.

Please note: registration for in-person attendance may close earlier, as this will be granted on a first-come-first-served basis according to capacity. Therefore, if you intend to come in person, please register as soon as possible.