Cardiff Branch Programme 2011-12

Cardiff Opera House. Inscribed on the front of the dome, above the main entrance, are two poetic lines, written by Welsh poet Gwyneth Lewis. The Welsh version is Creu Gwir fel gwydr o ffwrnais awen, which means Creating truth like glass from the furnace of inspiration. The English is In These Stones Horizons Sing.

All meetings take place at 5.15pm on Thursdays in room 4.44 of the humanities building, Cardiff University. Entrance to the car park is via Colum Road.

For further information and confirmation of details of these lectures, please contact Peter Edbury: E-mail: Edbury@cardiff.ac.uk Tel: 029 20874313 or 029 20875651

27 October 2011

‘History and archaeology: A Tale of Three Discoveries?'

Dr. Mark Whittow (Corpus Christi College, Oxford) is a Byzantinist with a particular interest in the Byzantine economy. His best known book remains The Making of Orthodox Byzantium, 600-1025 (1996). As an archaeologist he has been involved in a field project surveying Byzantine castles in Turkey.

24 November 2011

‘A warrior cardinal of the Italian Renaissance: Giovanni Vitelleschi'

Dr John Law (University of Swansea) is a foremost British authority on later medieval and Renaissance Italy. He has written widely on this topic and also on the "discovery" of the Italian Renaissance in Victorian and Edwardian Britain. Cardinal Giovanni Vitelleschi was commander of the papal armies in the years leading up to his death in 1440.

9 February 2012

‘Wales and the British overseas empire, 1650-1830: the missing link?'

Professor Huw Bowen (University of Swansea) is Professor of Modern History and convenor of History Research Wales. Much of his research has centred on British overseas trade in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. His The Business of Empire: the East India Company and Imperial Britain, 1756-1833 appeared in 2006.

23 February 2012

‘Baldric of Bourgueil's Historia Ierosolimitana'

Dr. Steve Biddlecombe (University of Bristol) is a specialist on the history of the First Crusade and its European context.  He is currently preparing for publication a new edition of the First-Crusade narrative, Baldric of Bourgueil's Historia Ierosolimitana'.

22 March 2012

‘Witches into Goddesses, Whores into Virgins: the Image of the Witch in the 19^th and 20^th Centuries'

Dr. Jonathan Durrant (University of Glamorgan) is the author of Witchcraft, Gender and Society in Early Modern Germany which appeared in 2007. His interests range over social deviance, masculinities and warfare in early modern Europe.

CARDIFF BRANCH AGM WILL FOLLOW THIS MEETING