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Best-Laid Plans: A Colloquium about Schemers and Their Schemes

08 April 2016, 12:00 am

Best Laid Plans: A Colloquium about Schemers and Their Schemes

Event Information

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All

8 April 2016, 9.30am-8.00pm
Every November 5th the United Kingdom celebrates "Guy Fawkes Night" with bonfires and fireworks to commemorate the anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot, a failed conspiracy to assassinate the King of England. The annals of history are full of ambitious plans, schemes, and propositions that never took place, and through their non-occurrence changed the course of history.


When:
8 April 2016, 9.30am-8.00pm

Where:
Wolfson Suite, Institute of Historical Research
Malet Street
London WC1E 7HU

Registration

While we cannot make each one of these a public holiday, we can hold a conference to hear about the intricate plots that individuals, groups, and even governments designed to achieve some lofty purpose. We can discuss the worldview of these historical figures and the breadth of their imaginations. We might speculate on the mismatch between individual perception, experience, and agency and the ability to affect substantial social or political change. In addition to hearing compelling stories often left out of the historical narrative, our theme aims to explore the world of lost alternatives. Eschewing counterfactual history, our event will feature papers that might instead highlight the contingency of historical events.

Convened by PhD candidates from UCL SSEES and the Institute of Historical Research (IHR), this event is funded under our Junior Research Forum grant scheme.

Programme

9.30am Registration
10.00am Welcome
10.15am IMPERIAL AMBITIONS
  The Scottish Darien Colony in the Perception of the Spanish Colonial Administration (1696-1701) Marie Schreier, Eberhard Karls University Tübingen
  Maurice Benyovszky and the Emergence of Pacific Geopolitics, 1768-1776 Greg Afinogenov, Harvard University
  Hungary's Attempt at Colonial Empire in Africa, 1867 - 1918 James Callaway, New York University
  Discussant: Philip Murphy, Institute of Commonwealth Studies
11.45am
Coffee break
12.00pm
OUR STATE MUST BE RESURRECTED
  The November Revolution of 1830: regional, national or European? Milosz Cybowski, University of Southampton
  Saving a Failed State: Advising the Grandmaster of the Teutonic Order in the Fifteenth Century Mark Whelan, Royal Holloway
  Discussant: Jennifer Keating, Institute of Historical Research
1.15pm
Lunch
2.15pm
COLD WAR CONTINGENCIES
  Failed Revolution and Intrigue: The British, the Tudeh Party of Iran and the Failed Khuzestan Strikes of 1946 Rowena Razak, University of Oxford
  The Welles Conspiracy: Sexuality, Rivalry, and Power in the Roosevelt State Department Chris Parkes, London School of Economics and Political Science
  Beyond the Scheme: Going "East" during the Cold War Jirina Šmejkalová, Charles University, Prague
  Discussant:Jessica Reinisch, Birkbeck, University of London
 3.45pm Coffee break
 4.00pm LOST AND FOUND PLOTS
  Firing the Imagination: Fire Plots and the Mental World of Disaster in Late Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-century Britain Louis Gerdelan, Harvard University
  Collecting Schemes and Scheming to Collect Richard Espley and Jordan Landes, Senate House Library
  Discussant: Judy Stephenson, London School of Economics and Political Science
 5.30pm KEYNOTE ADDRESS
  Wendy Bracewell, Professor of South-East European History UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies
  Wine Reception immediately following the Keynote Address (IHR Common Room)