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School for Cross-faculty Studies

Events

Next event: Book launch - Now We Are Forty: Conversations With Women by Susannah Wilson (French Studies, Warwick)

Wednesday 13 March 2024, 16.15 start, OC1.07 (Oculus Building, main campus) and online (

http://tinyurl.com/m3zptv2s)

Presentation by the author, Q&A, refreshments, and an opportunity to purchase the book

Forty is a watershed moment for many women, prompting a new set of life questions: where am I going next in my career? Is there life beyond children? What do I want from the rest of my life?

Women in their forties today are part of Generation X – children of the post-war baby boomers born in the 1940s and 50s. They were free-range kids who came of age in a world without social media and the internet, where people still wrote letters, chatted on the kitchen phone, and went to the pub on a Friday night.

As a woman of this generation, and conscious of the major social changes that have occurred in her lifetime, Susannah Wilson set out at forty to discover what had become of her female contemporaries, who in 1988 were twelve-year-old classmates at an English comprehensive school.

Part-memoir, part-oral history, Now We Are Forty explores the experiences and attitudes of ten ordinary women today. What have they faced, and made of their lives? What issues do they feel strongly about? How has reaching forty affected them?

 

Previous Events

Since launching in June 2011, the OHN has put on a wide variety of talks, seminars, and reading groups.

2023-2024

  • 25 October, Warwick-Monash reading group, 'oral histories of partition', chaired by Smriti Dutt
  • 11 October, Annual Welcome and Drop-In Session

2022-2023

  • 31 May, 'Oral history as a form of care and a catalyst for creativity: experiences from research on Chile and Spain', with Alison de Ribeiro Menezes, Veronica Diaz-Certa, and Monica Jato
  • 27 April, Warwick-Monash reading group, 'oral history and the environment'
  • 17 November, Warwick reading group, 'oral history and ethics', chaired by Sue Lemos
  • 15 September, Warwick-Monash reading group, 'oral history and politics', chaired by Nicolette Snowden

2021-2022

  • 17 June, Summer term Writing Day
  • 28 April, Warwick-Monash reading group, 'Oral history and disability', chaired by Kirstie Stage
  • 7 April, 'Creating and working with oral historical sources', online workshop co-organised with University of Leicester/M4C
  • 7 March, 'Story story', with Oluwalanaire Aderemi
  • 1 December, 'Memories of Binley Colliery', with Pierre Botcherby, Daniel Loveard, Dan Smith, Fu Ge Yang, Kiera Evans
  • 17 November, Warwick reading group, 'ethics and safeguarding in oral history'
  • 13 October, Warwick reading group, 'remote oral history interviewing', chaired by Beckie Rutherford
  • 13 October, Informal meet-and-greet for new and existing members

2020-2021

  • 12 August, Warwick-Monash reading group, 'ethics and safeguarding in oral history', chaired by Carla Pascoe Leahy
  • 22 June, Warwick reading group, 'reflexivity in oral history', chaired by Georgia Clancy
  • 25 May, 'Queering oral and global history: LGBT+ immigrants of colour in Coventry', with Somak Biswas, Dipak Panchal, and Amal Malik
  • 6 May, Warwick-Monash reading group, 'queer and indigenous oral history', chaired by Sue Lemos
  • 24 February: 'Global technologies, local patients: challenges, reflexivity, and positionality', with Sara Bamdad
  • 26 October: 'Injustice: Stories from Post-Independence Africa', with Tanyaradzwa Kasinganeti, Teejae Mai, Temi 'Tori Talks' Toriola, and Evan Mawarire

2019-2020

  • 11 June: Online launch of 'Then & Now: Arts at Warwick', via Microsoft Teams - a recording is available on the exhibition website!
  • 28 January: 'Interviewing local NGOs and migrants: collecting data in the context of Central American migration in Mexico', with Erika Herrera-Rosales
  • 15 October: 'Queering the British Library', with Steven Dryden (British Library). Joint event with Queer History Warwick and The Library.

2018-2019

  • 29 May: 'Les raconteuses du Levant: untold stories of female Hakawatis and the challenges they pose to sustainable development discourse in the Arab-speaking world', with Cathia Jenainati
  • 6 March: 'Taking slices from their lives: the challenges of using life history as a research instrument/method', with Olayinka Egbokhare
  • 4 December: 'Working with memory to avoid repeating the horror', with Maria Luisa Ortiz

2017-2018

  • 2 July: Seminar: 'Muslim Mothers in Britain', with Sariya Cheruvallil
  • 21 February: Workshop: Hidden Stories of 21st Century Latin America and the Caribbean', organised by Stephanie Panichelli-Batalla.
  • November: 'Oral History Week'
    • 14 November: 'The Place of Birth: Mothers, Midwives, Birth Attendants and Choices about childbirth in C20 Uganda', with Kathleen Vongsathorn.
    • 15 November: 'Relaunch of the Oral History Network', with Angela Davis, Stephanie Panichelli-Batalla, Kathleen Vongsathorn, and Alison Ribeiro de Menezes.
    • 16 November: The Vietnamese diaspora in Australia: Nathalie Nguyen in discussion

2015-2016

  • 3 Virtual Q&A sessions to discuss aspects of oral history theory and practice.

2014-2015

  • 26 June: Workshop: 'University Oral Histories: Creating and Interpreting Narratives of Higher Education', with Camilla Schofield, Lorraine Blakemore, and Richard Wallace.

  • 17 June: Oral History Clinic, with Angela Davis.

  • 18 May: Discussion Forum: 'Analysis and Interpretation' with Andrea Hajek.
  • 25 February: Seminar: 'Starting an Oral History Project' with Carmen Mangion and Richard Wallace.
  • 3 December: Discussion Forum: 'Oral History: the Basics' with Angela Davis and Grace Huxford.

2013-2014

  • 12 March: Seminar: '“You are here to interview me?” Oral history and writing the history of everyday life in the Holocaust', with Anna Hajkova.
  • 5 February: Seminar: 'Oral history crossing national boundaries: investigating belief and non-belief in three European countries', with Joanna Bornat.
  • 9 November: Conference: 'Representing Prisoner of War Experience', with Keynote Speakers: Bob Moore and Gilly Carr.
  • 20 September: Conference: 'Talking about protest: oral history methodology in social and political movements research', with Keynote Speaker: Lynn Abrams.

2012-2013

  • 3 June: Webinar: 'Oral history & ethnography', in collaboration with Monash University.
  • 12 March: Seminar: 'Oral history & institutional history - the Warwick project 'The Voice of the Past' (part 2)', with April Gallwey.
  • 22 November: Seminar: 'Oral history & institutional history - the Warwick project 'The Voice of the Past' (part 1)', with Richard Aldrich.

2011-2012

  • 9 July: Seminar: 'Oral history & the community', with Stacey Bains, Helen Ford, and Colin Hyde.
  • 24 February: IAS workshop: 'Narrating a Gendered Self in Post-War Britain'
  • 24 November: Conference: 'Gender, Subjectivity and Oral History', with Keynote Speaker: Penny Summerfield.
  • 13 October: Seminar: 'What is oral history?', with Anna Davin.

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