St Hilda's College
Professor Catherine R Schenk, Professorial Fellow at St Hilda's College reports on the Economic and Social History Seminar hosted by St Hilda’s College.
"The Trinity Term Research Seminar in Economic and Social History hosted by St. Hilda’s College was extremely successful, attracting c. 40 participants each week to the Vernon Harcourt Room to discuss a range of topics from the origins of currency in the USA, housing markets in early modern Istanbul and medieval Bury St Edmonds, to the great divergence between Asia and Europe in the 18th century. The papers stretched from medieval to mid-20th century periods across Britain, Europe, Asia and the Middle East. This year we focused on speakers from Britain and particular highlights included our new Associate Professor in Economic History from All Souls (Meredith Paker) and the retiring Professor of Economic History from Nuffield (Steve Broadberry). Since not all speakers required an overnight stay, this also economised on the budget. As in previous years we began in Week 2 (our Annual Graduate Workshop is held in Week 1) and concluded in Week 7 to allow graduate students to prepare for their course assessment.
The seminar’s participants included seasoned Oxford Emeritus academics, senior members from across the University, affiliated academics from London and the Oxford area, as well as Oxford undergraduate and postgraduate students, who all appreciated the opportunity to discuss the papers informally after the seminar over refreshments. This year undergraduates from the History and Economics joint programme were specifically invited to the seminar and dinners. St. Hilda’s also provided space for early career researchers and graduate students to meet one-on-one with the speaker in scheduled sessions before the seminar. The dinners arranged in the Canada Room after the seminar were stimulating and the menus were highly praised by our visitors. Each dinner included a mixture of senior and junior members of the University (including from St. Hilda’s) who had a further opportunity to present their own research ideas and discuss with our visiting speakers. This is a unique format for the Economic and Social History Research Seminar, which is not offered at other colleges who host the seminar in the other terms (Nuffield and All Souls). The dinner has become a very popular and valued part of the weekly meetings and naturally demonstrates the distinctive collegial and intellectual spirit of St. Hilda’s College.
Particular thanks go out to the St Hilda's Events Team and Catering for showing off the college so well, and to Dr Tehreem Husain for her extremely able assistance in the weekly organisation. We look forward to welcoming the economic and social history community back to St. Hilda’s next year and to suggestions for speakers from the St. Hilda’s community."