News feedsAn active outreach programme
The Parkes Institute has a thriving seminar and conference programme and all staff members are regularly engaged in work beyond the University environment, presenting research to community groups, talking to school groups and directing local history projects. Below are details of some other activities.
The Bournemouth 'Mini-Series'
Many people will already be aware of the popular series of lectures arranged annually in Bournemouth (in conjunction with Bournemouth Hebrew Congregation Adult Education) by Mr Gerald Normie and members of the Parkes Institute.
The title of the forthcoming 2009 series is: 'Jews as neighbours, strangers, outcasts and bringers of hope'. The lectures are open to anyone interested and will be held at the Menorah Suite, Glenfern Road in Bournemouth. In the meanwhile, for further information, email Mr Gerald Normie (gnormie@freenetname.co.uk) or Frances Clarke (fmc@soton.ac.uk)
2009 programme:
27th April 2009 |
Dr Mark Levene |
Prescience and prophecy in action: The legacy of Martin Buber on Jews in the world |
18th May 2009 |
Dr François Soyer
|
"An unprecedented persecution": the forced conversion of the Jews of Portugal (1497) |
1st June 2009 |
Dr Shirli Gilbert |
Remembering the Holocaust in apartheid South Africa |
8th June 2009 |
Dr Devorah Baum |
Jews and the politics of friendship |
This was the 2008 programme of lectures in this popular series:
12 May 2008 |
Dr Andrea Reiter |
‘History and Memory in the stories of the East European shtetl’ |
19 May 2008 |
Professor Joachim Schlör
|
‘Jewish Life in Berlin. Then and Now’ |
2 June 2008 |
Dr Shirli Gilbert |
‘Buried Monuments: Yiddish Songs and Holocaust Memory’ |
16 June 2008
|
Dr James Jordan |
‘Jewish themes and identity on and in British television, 1946-1955’ |
Moving On: A Four Part Lecture Series on Jewish Migration in Recent History
When planning the 2006 -2007 series it was suggested that a wider audience might be attracted if it could form part of the regular Monday night adult education programme which takes place at the Menorah Suite, Wootton Gardens in Bournemouth. This proved to be very successful and audiences of about forty people attended each of the lectures. These special lectures (see below for the full programme) by members of the Parkes Institute on the theme of Jewish migration were kindly sponsored by Doris and Bertie Black.
April 16 2007, Prof. Tony Kushner, 'Goldberg or Iceberg? Jewish Narratives of the Titanic and Transmigrancy.'
April 30 2007, Dr Tobias Brinkmann, 'Leaving the Shtetl: Jewish Migration from Eastern Europe between 1860 and 1950.'
The talk covered the journey (i.e. who left and why), border controls, the transit through Germany and Britain, American immigration policy before and after the First World War, the five Aliyot and the Holocaust and its aftermath.
May 14 2007, Dr Natan Meir, 'A Wandering People: Jewish Migrations and
Civilisations in the Early Modern and Modern Periods'.
May 21 2007, Prof. Joachim Schloer, '"Take down Mezuzahs. Remove
Name-Plates": The Emigration of Material Objects from Germany to
Palestine, 1933-1939.'
This talk was based on several personal documents by German-Jewish emigrants who had to write down exactly what material parts of their belongings and their household they took with them - and what they left behind. The talk explored the question of how much "meaning", from today's point of view, these objects still carry, and if we are still able to "read" them.
Both in 2005 and again in 2006, lecturers from the Parkes Insittute collaborated with members of the Bournemouth Jewish Representative Council to hold a series of talks both in Bournemouth and at the Parkes Institute in Southampton. In 2005 the series title was East European Jewry: The Age of Migrations.
The 2006 series title was:
From Shtetl to Metropolis
exploring nineteenth and twentieth century Jewish literature.
Thursday 16 February (in Bournemouth)
Dr Natan Meir (Parkes Institute, UNiversity of Southampton) The stories of David Bergelson
Thursday 23 February (in Southampton)
Dr Nils Roemer (Parkes Institute, UNiversity of Southampton)
Joseph Roth's 'The Wandering Jews'
Thursday 2 March (in Bournemouth)
Dr Tobias Brinkmann (Parkes Institute, UNiversity of Southampton)
The writings (in English) of Abraham Cahan.
The Bournemouth lectures are made possible thanks to generous funding from the wonderful Bertie Black Foundation and we are grateful to them. The Parkes Institute would also like to thank Mr Gerald Normie for his valued assistance in generating, setting up and running this extremely successful and enjoyable series. His energy and commitment are an inspiration.
If you belong to another organisation and you would like to invite an expert from the Parkes Institute to come and give a talk, please send an email to the person directly (see staff pages), or more general enquiries should be directed to our administator, Frances Clarke:
Email: fmc@soton.ac.uk, parkes@soton.ac.uk
Telephone: 02380 592261
Collaboration with the Worldwide Universities Network
On March 9th 2006 Southampton was able to enjoy a transatlantic lecture by Professor Michael Rothberg via live video link from the University of Illinois. The lecture:
Between Auschwitz and Algeria: Multidirectional Memory and the Counterpublic Witness
has since been published in the Autumn 2006 issue of the journal Critical Inquiry.
Follow this link to an excerpt.