Historical and Cultural Research Group

Introduction

Maps of Thasos, Mount Athos, and, Sanstrati in Cristoforo Buondelmonti's Liber Insularum Archipelagi London, British Library Arundel ms. 93 art. 7, fol. 157r. (copied in the Flanders in 1485) The Group has a wide-ranging historical focus from the ancient and medieval periods up to the late twentieth century. Geographically, its interests are centred on Britain and Ireland, Europe, and the Eastern Mediterranean. However, concerns with diaspora, travel and exploration mean that studies include considerations of places much further afield, such as the Americas, Australia and Antarctica.

Indicators

The group is internationally recognised for its work in intellectual history and the history of science, including the history of the geographical discipline, and in the field of landscape research. Members of the group are also leading debates in agrarian and economic history, in the fields of diaspora and heritage studies, in the philosophical agendas of performativity and non-representational theory, visual and material cultures, history of cartography and sacred geographies. Our work has also been recognised in cognate disciplines. We have collaborated in the first annual Roy Porter symposium for the British Society for the History of Science and have published extensively in many disciplines including history, literature, history of science, Byzantine art history and Irish studies. We have also secured grants from the major national funding councils including the British Academy, the AHRB and the Leverhulme Trust.

The group edits the discussion and review forum H-Net HistGeog as well as the only commercially published monograph series in the sub-discipline. Members of the group are on the RGS/IBG Committee of the Historical Geography Research Group and recently hosted the 2005 Historical Geography Research Group training conference, providing half of the activities in house.