Event: LGBT History of the South West

Just flagging an event for anyone interested. This weekend is the launch of Exeter's first ever LGBT History Month, as part of The National Festival of LGBT History.


This is a good step in the right direction in terms of representation of the LGBT community in the South West, and in developing the number of museum and heritage events in the region - as a history student in Exeter, it can be frustrating to be lacking the number of museums of a larger city!


The festival will be launched by our MP Ben Bradshaw, and the Mayor of Exeter at the Exeter this Saturday 11th February at the Royal Albert Memorial Museum. The main event will take place on Sunday 12th February at the Exeter Phoenix Centre from 11am-5:30pm, and will feature a series of free talks on various aspects of LGBT history. The keynote speaker is the award-winning author Diana Souhami.


Unfortunately I am away this weekend and am unable to attend the main event, but if like me, you can't make the Sunday event, there are other events going on throughout the month, so I would encourage you to check out some of them!


You can find more information here:
http://www.exeter.ac.uk/news/university/title_565283_en.html
And for information specifically on the main event this Sunday:
https://www.exeterphoenix.org.uk/events/lgbt-history-festival-2017/

Review article: Tim Breen, "Baubles of Britain"

Material culture studies is a rapidly expanding field of historical analysis which takes physical evidence as its point of inquiry, in order to ask questions about what objects meant to the individuals that used them, and moreover what agency objects might have exercised in shaping behaviors and consciousness. During my time at the LMU in Munich, I was fortunate enough to take a graduate introductory course into this field. Below is my review of  one of the most fascinating texts from the course: Tim Breen's article "Baubles of Britain", which examines the links between the developing American national consciousness and the consumer revolution of the 18th Century through the prism of Material Culture studies. You can read Breen's article at: http://www.jstor.org/stable/651021