When London Cried: Life on the street and how to write about it Seminar

This seminar will be given by Dr Oskar Cox Jensen from the University of East Anglia.

If one of the nineteenth century's great narratives was the working class finding its voice, one of its legacies has been the continued ventriloquisation and (mis)representation of its urban 'underclass'. The history of London lowlife in particular, storied and saddled with literary heavyweights such as Egan, Mayhew, and Dickens, is still packaged for the public in trade histories that differ little from the originals, while academics innovate in the social history of institutions or materials, or further nuance our appreciation of top-down cultural representations. This talk is about my quixotic struggle, in this context, to find and to frame the voices and experiences of the street itself. Engaging with issues in life-writing then and now from a historian's perspective, and with the disconnect between the academy and popular history, I try to find a responsible way of writing the history of the street from below.

This seminar will take place via Microsoft Teams. Please ensure you book a place to receive the meeting link. The deadline for bookings is 1pm on the day of the seminar (11/11/20).