Heritage and Archival Correspondences: The attentive public and the ‘impact’ of discovery
| Dates: | 16 May 2024 |
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| Times: | 10:00 - 16:00 |
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| What is it: | Workshop |
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| Organiser: | School of Arts, Languages and Cultures |
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This one-day workshop explores the direct engagement of an ‘attentive public’ with researchers and heritage institutions by means of personal and/or official ‘correspondence’ of all kinds: letters, emails, tweets, direct messages, and even Freedom of Information requests. Questions for discussion include:
• how we can best understand trends in public interest, as revealed by letters/correspondence?
• How do such materials contribute to our picture of research ‘impact’ and what it means? How do they fit into the narrative of effective dissemination of research?
• What is the role of intensity of feeling in correspondence around new discoveries?
• How can archives/ collections of correspondence relating to heritage research and new discoveries inform our understanding of public engagement?
• How can correspondence around new discoveries itself contribute to further dissemination/exhibition of those discoveries?
• What are the implications of the shift from the ‘materiality’ of formal letter-heads and signatures to e-mails, or even to FOI requests?
Participants/Topics
Prof. Julian Thomas (Manchester, CAHAE) 'Public correspondence and the archaeologist: Dorstone Hill and Stonehenge'
Prof. Melanie Giles (Manchester, CAHAE) 'The character of the correspondence around Lindow Man in the British Museum'
Prof. Hannah Cobb (Manchester, CAHAE) 'Documenting Online Activism, Creating Change: Archaeology and the legacy of #MeToo'
Prof. Peter Liddel (tbc Manchester, CAHAE) 'Epigraphic discovery and the attentive public (past and present)'
Dr. Win Scutt (Assistant Properties Curator (West), English Heritage) Topic tbc
Dr. Jenna Ashton (Manchester, Heritage Studies, ICP) 'Correspondence in and through community-based research'
Dr. Njabulo Chipangura (Manchester Museum) '"Country" open and proactive engagements/conversations with the Anindiliyakwa People of Groote Eylandt, Northern Australia towards facilitating the unconditional repatriations of their cultural heritage objects from Manchester Museum'
Dr John Hodgson (John Rylands Library, Deansgate) 'From Letters to Social Media: the Rylands correspondences around the Dead Sea Scrolls'
This event is run jointly by the Manchester Centre for Correspondence Studies and the Manchester Centre for Archaeology and Egyptology, with the support of CIDRAL. The event forms part of CIDRAL's 2023-2024 Archives series of events.
Travel and Contact Information
Find event
The Christie Room
John Rylands Research Institute and Library
150 Deansgate
Manchester
Gtr Manchester
