History Workshop Podcast

To mark International Workers Day, we explore three forgotten moments in British history that spotlight the intertwined histories of labour and race.

Sixty years after breaking into a government bunker to expose secret state planning for nuclear conflict, Nic Ralph speaks for the first time about an extraordinary piece of direct action that genuinely worked.

What does it mean to write "intimate histories" of economic life? How might a focus on "the intimate" transform the way historians perceive and describe the economic past? Six scholars address those questions in this episode of the History Workshop podcast.

How can historians meaningfully and ethically research past experiences of sexual violence? What tools do they need to uncover a subject so intensely emotive and yet often accessible only through sources employing the dry legal or clinical language of institutions and bureaucracies? Ruth Beecher and Rhian Keyse discuss in conversation with Marybeth Hamilton in this episode of the History Workshop Podcast.

How might we understand the origins and the impact of current controversies raging in Britain over changing interpretations of British colonial history? How can those working on British colonial history intervene effectively in often fraught public debates? Corinne Fowler reflects on those questions in her June 2022 Raphael Samuel Memorial Lecture.

Since the twentieth century, and perhaps even dating back further, the phrase 'black internationalism' has served as shorthand for a range of debates about Pan-Africanism and connections between various parts of the African Diaspora. The phrase has also been linked to other connected topics such as anti-Black racism, Black political activism, western colonisation of Africa and the Caribbean, anti-colonialism, and feminism, to name just a few. So how can we best define black internationalism? How might the concept illuminate the variegated historical forces shaping the experiences of people of African descent? Olivette Otele, who serves as Distinguished Professor of the Legacies and Memory of Slavery at SOAS, University of London, explores those questions in conversation with History Workshop's Imaobong Umoren, in a wide-ranging discussion of the history of the concept of black internationalism, the foundations of black internationalist writing, and its future as a scholarly field and as a force for visionary political change.

The struggle for women's right to vote is often thought to have been waged on a national level. But how was this movement transnational? In what ways was international travel important to women's agitation for the vote? How did women move between nations and inspire and challenge each other? If they stayed local, what helped them to feel part of an international community? Historians James Keating and Sumita Mukherjee discuss those questions in conversation with Rosa Campbell.

What is the history of activism against sexual violence? What kinds of strategies have survivors employed to combat it and to counter the stigma that has too often surrounded it? What kinds of narratives of resistance and protest have historically been given priority – and what voices have been left out? Today's guests are committed to examining those questions through their involvement with an interdisciplinary research project called SHAME - an acronym for Sexual Harms and Medical Encounters - which explores the links between sexual violence, medicine, and psychiatry.

How has the concept of "useful knowledge" shaped the two-hundred year history of Birkbeck College London - and workers education more generally? Joanna Bourke, Jonny Matfin, and Ciaran O'Donohue discuss with Marybeth Hamilton in this episode of the History Workshop podcast.

How can the stories of families illuminate the histories of migrations? Julia Laite and guests discuss in this episode of the History Workshop Podcast.