ePortfolio of Brendan Tam
Biography:
I am a final year PGR in Warwick's Department of History. My research project, titled ‘The Discourse of Political Friend in the late Hanoverian Period: 1760s-1830s' is supervised by Professor Mark Knights and Professor Mark Philp.
I previously completed my BA, majoring in History and Political Science at the University of Melbourne (2014-2018), followed by a MScR in History at the University of Edinburgh (2018-2019). My research is focused on exploring the dynamics of political friendship in British politics during the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries. Using private correspondence, newspapers, pamphlets and parliamentary speeches, I explore the rhetorical use of 'political friendship' in Britain during the period. I contend that underpinning 'political friendship' was the claim making ability of the language of friendship. That, drawing on speech act theory, friendship was invoked to 'do things', to invoke duties and obligations to achieve political aims. Through focusing on both well-known examples of friendships in politics, such as Edmund Burke and Charles James Fox, William Pitt the Younger and William Wilberforce, alongside more quotidian examples, my project interrogates the important role 'political friendship' played in a period of significant political change marked by the formalisation of political party organisation.
Research Interests
- Late Eighteenth and early Nineteenth Century British Political History (Including England, Scotland, Ireland and the broader British Empire)
- Sociability in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries.
- Friendship Studies
- History of Emotions
- History of Political Thought
Memberships:
- Royal Historical Society (Postgraduate Member)
- The Early Modern and Eighteenth Century Centre (EMECC), History Department, University of Warwick.
- British Society of Eighteenth Century Studies (BSECS)
- Social History Society
- Political Studies Association
- Society for the History of Emotions (SHE) (Ordinary Member of the SHE Council 2024-Present)
Publications, Research Activities & Outreach:
Book Reviews:
- 'Book Review - A Historian for All Seasons: Essays for Geoffrey Bolton' Melbourne Historical Journal 46, 2018
Completed Dissertations:
- MScR, History, University of Edinburgh, 2018-2019 - Dissertation: 'The Friends of Mr. Pitt: Political Friendship during the Age of Revolutions.' Supervised by Professor Gordon Pentland and Dr Benjamin Weinstein
- BA (Hons), History, University of Melbourne, 2014-2017 - Dissertation: 'William Pitt the Younger and the Sedition and Treason Trials 1793-5,' Supervised by Professor Trevor Burnard.
Articles:
'Poll Mania', Farrago Magazine, 21 March 2016 (republished on the University of Melbourne's 'Election Watch' Blog)
Conference Papers:
- 'The Friends of Mr. Pitt' Without Pitt - The Reconstitution of a Political Network (Unsettling Certainties: Fourth Biennial Conference of the Society of the History of Emotions, University of Adelaide, November 2023)
- 'Speaking Without Personality': 'Honourable Friend' and the Parliamentary Rhetoric of Friendship in the Eighteenth-Century House of Commons (Eighteenth-Century Emotion with Workshop of Memory and Emotions, Cambridge University, November 2023)
- 'The Friends of Mr Pitt' and being a Friend of Pitt: William WIlberforce and Pitt's Political Network (Redefining 'the Age of Wilberforce': a Workshop, Cambridge University, September 2023)
- “Bringing Pitt forward again, in spite of himself” - the political instrumentality of sociability, (Sociability in Politics, Food and Travel in the Early Modern Era Conference, Warwick, June 2023)
Conference Organisation:
- Organising Committee Member, University of Warwick History Department Postgraduate Conference (May 2023); (May 2024)
Outreach:
Departmental Activities:
- Co-Convener, Postgraduate Work in Progress Session, 2023-4
- Postgraduate Representative, Departmental Research Committee, University of Warwick History Department, 2022-2023
Education:
2022-2026, PhD in History, University of Warwick
2018-2019, MScR in History, University of Edinburgh (with Distinction)
2014-2017, BA (Hons) in History, University of Melbourne (Upper Second Class Honours)