Centre for Imperial and Post–Colonial Studies (CIPCS)

Introduction

The Centre for Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies (CIPCS) was founded in 2006 to bring together a wide range of research interests from staff in History and other disciplines in the School of Humanities at the University of Southampton. Its aim is to create a multi and increasingly inter-disciplinary research culture for academics and postgraduates working in the fields of Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies. The Centre will host regular research seminars and conferences as well as provide specialist expertise in postgraduate teaching and supervision. It will be supported in these aims by the relevant archival and printed collections of the University’s Hartley Library, and will, in its turn, seek to enhance awareness and use of these collections.

The Centre developed from the existing Centre for the Study of Britain and its Empire (CSBE) and will continue a number of its activities. The Centre for the Study of Britain and its Empire was established in 2001 to support research on the theme of Imperial Britain. It was also intended to provide an institutional link with the Special Collections relating to modern British history in the Hartley Library. The main activities involved the holding of a number of conferences and workshops including one in July 2004 on Earl Mountbatten and Constitutional Monarchy in the Twentieth Century. There were further events in 2005 following Professor Miles Taylor’s move to York. They included the first of three annual conferences in conjunction with the International Centre for Sports History and Culture De Montfort University and RFU on, ‘Rugby, Empire and Commonwealth.’ In 2006 the second conference entitled ‘Afrikaners, Anglos and Springboks, 1906-2006’ was held at the Museum of Rugby, Twickenham supported by Investec.

Resources

The Centre benefits from the Special Collections in the Hartley Library. The Library is home to the papers of the Duke of Wellington, Lord Palmerston (including the journals of Lord Shaftesbury) and Earl Mountbatten. It also contains a comprehensive run of British Parliamentary Papers. These archival materials supported by collections of such printed materials as the Perkins agricultural library, the Cope collection of books relating to the topography of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight and the Oates collection of books and ephemera relating to slavery in the Caribbean provide a unique resource for research around themes in colonial history relating to decolonization, migration, diaspora, identities, and diplomatic history.

Events

The Centre will continue the programme of three annual conferences in conjunction with the International Centre for Sports History and Culture, De Montfort University, and RFU, on ‘Rugby, Empire and Commonwealth’. It also hosted a major international conference in July 2007 which formed the formal launch of the Centre. This was on the theme ‘The Independence of India and Pakistan: Sixtieth Anniversary Reflections.’ The conference not only brought together the interests of the Centre and members of the Parkes Centre but also formed a part of the process of developing links with partner institutions in the World University Network.

Seminars

From 2007 onwards a regular series of seminars is planned. It is also hoped to forge interdisciplinary links with English and other disciplines in the School of Humanities in the hosting of such seminars. These events will be open to all members of the university and the general public. They will be publicized by posters, leaflets and an especially designed and maintained website.

Courses

Academics who are involved in the research activities of the Centre provide PhD supervision in their areas of specialism. They also contribute to the MA in History Programmes.

The following academics are involved in various ways in the work of the Centre.

Director Professor Ian Talbot, Dr Adrian Smith, Dr Jane McDermid, Dr John Oldfield, Professor Chris Woolgar, Dr Sujala Singh, Dr Stephen Morton

Professor Ian Talbot
Research Interests: colonial Punjab, the partition of India and the emergence of Pakistan; refugee resettlement following the partition; the political history of post-Independence Pakistan; religion and violence in South Asia. Homepage
email iat@soton.ac.uk

Dr Jane McDermid (History)
Research Interests: Russian women’s history; female education in Britain; gender, class and nationality in British education. Homepage
email jm11@soton.ac.uk

Dr John Oldfield (History)
Research Interests: Abolition of the slave trade; Transatlantic slavery; the American South; American race relations. Homepage
email jro1@soton.ac.uk

Dr Adrian Smith (History)
Research Interests: newspaper and sports history, the British left and defence policy in Britain and the empire. Homepage
email as5@soton.ac.uk

Professor Chris Woolgar
Professor Chris Woolgar is Head of the Special Collections in the Hartley Library.
Research Interests: food in Medieval England; the senses in late Medieval England. Homepage
email C.M.Woolgar@soton.ac.uk

Dr Sujala Singh
Dr Sujala Singh is a lecturer in English.
Research interests: communalism and Indian partition in literature; children in South Asian literature; terrorism and Indian cinema; literatures of the British diaspora. Homepage
email s.singh@soton.ac.uk

Dr Stephen Morton
Dr Stephen Morton is a lecturer in Anglophone Literature and Culture.
Research Interests: He is currently working on a study of terrorism in colonial and postcolonial literature; a study of the fiction of Salman Rushdie; and a study of subjectivity and geopolitics in Canadian literature. He is the author of two books on the postcolonial theorist Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and is the joint author of the entry on ‘Colonial Discourse, Postcolonial Theory’ for the Year’s Work in Cultural and Critical Theory (with James Procter). Homepage
email S.C.Morton@soton.ac.uk