Liz Egan, Jim Hulbert, and Catriona Sharples report on the workshop ‘New Frontiers in Imperial Networks’, which took place in the Wolfson Exchange, University of Warwick. Kindly funded by Midlands4Cities, this event was designed to bring together doctoral and early career researchers with more established academics, to discuss the latest research and new directions in the field of imperial history. The workshop focused particularly on the place of “networks” in our study of imperialism and colonialism

Rose Miyonga reports on the the ninth European Conference on African Studies (ECAS). The event, which brought together over 2,000 scholars from eighty countries, under the theme of ‘African Futures'. What emerged from this was a plurality of ways to conceptualise the future – of Africa and more generally – that led to an extremely rich conference programme, which stretched across time frames and spatial dimensions. Several Global History and Culture Centre students, staff and affiliates contributed to ECAS 2023.

PhD student Mathilde Alain explores Ethiopian-European interactions in the late fifteenth century and early sixteenth century via Francisco Álvares’ travel account. Álvares accompanied a Portuguese embassy to Ethiopia and his account depicts the diplomatic relations between the Portuguese and the Ethiopian sovereign, Ləbnä Dəngəl. Alain also highlights traces of contacts between Ethiopia and Europe in the account and points to its limits.

PhD student Niels Boender had a chance to research for, and be part of, the Channel 4 and Al Jazeera documentary ‘A Very British Way of Torture’, also featuring Professor David Anderson. The documentary focuses on the use of torture by the British colonial authorities in Kenya against members of the anti-colonial Man Mau movement, and traces the historical research into official British attempts to cover this up. Niels reflects on the research here.

In 2022, Warwick’s Global History and Culture Centre celebrated its 15th anniversary. Founded in 2007 by Professor Maxine Berg, GHCC was the first research centre dedicated to the field of global history to be established in the UK, and quickly took on a leading role in developing the methodology and practice of this sub-discipline. In this first blog post of 2023, GHCC Director Guido van Meersbergen looks back on some of the principal recent developments in the Centre's activities, and ahead towards key initiatives planned for the coming year.