Drought, deluge and dearth: exploring British extreme weather events over time

Georgina on top of Great Dun Fell in a howling snow storm

Professor Georgina Endfield, University of Nottingham
PI of Weather Extremes, funded under AHRC Care for the Future: Thinking Forward through the Past

In 1952, climatologist Gordon Manley suggested that “if a census were taken of common topics of conversation amongst British people, it is very probable that the weather would take first place” (Manley, 1952:13). This statement is probably as true today as it was over sixty years ago, and while in no way being unique in this, it is fair to say that the British have a something of an obsession with the weather.

Yet the weather has arguably become an even more popular topic of conversation in recent years. In part, this is a function of narratives highlighting the apparently looming, apocalyptic climate changes that global society faces, but it may also be a result of rising concern over the impacts of anomalous, ‘extreme’ weather events such as droughts, floods, storm events and unusually high or low temperatures. While social and economic systems have generally evolved to accommodate some deviations from “normal” weather conditions, this is rarely true of extremes. Continue reading →

Post-Colonial Disasters project

‘Reframing Disaster’ – activities from the Post-Colonial Disasters project

2014 is a really significant one for global disaster commemoration – the 30th anniversary of the Bhopal Gas Disaster in India; the 20th anniversary of the Rwandan Genocide; the 10th anniversary of the Indian Ocean tsunami. Activities include an exhibition at The Tetley gallery (26 Nov – 7 Dec: http://thetetley.org/reframing-disaster/); a conference; film screenings in collaboration with the Leeds International Film Festival; various talks & public engagement events; fundraising; and schools workshops. There are more details about these events on the website: http://postcolonialdisaster.com/activities/.

Reframing Disaster Activities Poster

Culture, Conflict and Post-Conflict symposium

Marlene Steyn. Blended brothers, 2011; Oil and mixed media on canvas, 168 x 151, 5 cm. Image used with permission of the artist. ©Marlene Steyn

Art and culture is often given some prominence amongst the tools that are used to reconcile communities and to help deal with personal and collective trauma. Why is that the case, how effective is it and what complexities surround its use?

On 9th and 10th September 2014, AHRC Care for the Future: Thinking Forward through the Past and the Cultural Value Project held a symposium on Culture, Conflict and Post-Conflict. The symposium brought together leading researchers and practitioners across disciplines to consider the role of arts and cultural practices and performances in the process of post-conflict resolution and transformation. Topics were explored with special reference to conflict and post-conflict situations within the boundaries of states, primarily South Africa, Northern Ireland and Bosnia. Continue reading →

‘I am acutely aware of the responsibility of the artist’: An interview with Paula McFetridge, Kabosh theatre company

 In this video artistic director Paula McFetridge introduces Kabosh theatre company and talks about how the Creative Industries Innovation Fund helped to create an app for the dramatic walking tour Belfast Bred.

Care for the Future Interview: Andrew Thompson explores with Paula McFetridge, Artistic Director of Northern Ireland’s Kabosh theatre company, the power of theatre to humanise the past and to hold up a different lens to what we think we know.

Andrew Thompson: You are the artistic director of a theatre company in Northern Ireland called Kabosh which is celebrating its 20th anniversary. Can you tell me more about Kabosh’s aims, the type of work you commission, and where you perform? Continue reading →

Concepts of Time and UNESCO World Heritage

Dr Andrea Rehling
Leibniz-Institute of European History (IEG) Mainz
Project: Knowledge of the World – Heritage of Mankind: The History of UNESCO World Heritage
http://www.ieg-unesco.eu

In March 2013, the travel agent Hurlingham Travel in London unveiled the “most expensive and craziest” package holiday ever. The holiday is nearly two years in duration, costs around 1.2 million euros for two people, and includes visits to all of the then 981 UNESCO World Heritage sites in 160 states around the world. As its focus is on architectural remains and monuments, it has the character of a visit to an open air museum. To this extent, the journey offered also includes a kind of time travel that follows one specific narrative of time and history. The World Heritage list features the remnants of a cultural and natural history canonized by UNESCO and its advisory organizationsThis canon is based on a scientific concept of time which has emerged since the 1960s. It replaced the idea of the arrow of time, which was the temporal concept upon which the idea of linear successive stages of development had been based. The latter was replaced by a broader, pluralized, but nevertheless scientific, synchronized and naturalized understanding of time.

Continue reading →

Call for Papers

AHRC Care for the Future: Thinking Forward through the Past and Labex Pasts in the Present: History, Heritage, Memory are pleased to announce a series of three joint workshops. The workshops seek to bring together researchers, ECRs and practicioners/professionals from project teams across the two programmes for two days of ideas exchange and discussion on shared themes.

Applications are now being accepted for the 1st workshop, to take place at the Royaumont Foundation near Paris on 16th and 17th January 2015. Please see the Care for the Future and Pasts in the Present 1st Franco-British workshop – Call for contributions for more information and the short application form. The deadline for applications in 17th November 2014.