University celebrates York's rich history
Posted on 26 October 2012
Academics from a wide range of University departments are carrying out research using the historic resources and collections of the city of York. The free lectures, which are open to all, not only offer an insight into current research, but open up the city’s history to new questions and approaches.
Through the York 800 lecture series we aim to bring to life the past of the city while raising questions and possibilities about its future
Dr Sarah Rees Jones
Many of the lectures focus on the theme of local government and civic identity, and related issues of education and justice, social reform and social welfare.
Dr Sarah Rees Jones, from the University’s Department of History, who organised the lecture series, says: “Throughout 2012 the city of York has been celebrating York 800, the eight hundredth anniversary of the granting of a royal charter to the city which increased its autonomy in local government.
“Through the York 800 lecture series we aim to bring to life the past of the city while raising questions and possibilities about its future.”
The first lecture on Tuesday, 30 October, ‘York today: A city for today and tomorrow?’ presented by Dr Rowland Atkinson from the Centre for Urban Research (CURB) at the Department of Sociology, will look at the York of the recent past and its social life today.
Around one hundred years ago, Seebohm Rowntree was concerned with the social and economic conditions of city living. Dr Atkinson will explain that such pioneering studies were not only important for opening the eyes of those who believed the city to be relatively free from poverty, but how they also helped to pioneer research techniques that have underpinned efforts at improving housing and urban conditions across the world.
Dr Atkinson will discuss how such examples of research and social planning bring us to the York of today and to questions concerning planning and social justice, with the city remaining central to conversations about how we might, or should, live in cities today.
On 7 November, Dr Ann-Marie Akehurst, from the Department of History of Art, will present a lecture on ‘York 200 years ago: Tourism, archaeology and the making of modern York’.
Dr Akehurst’s lecture will focus on the social construction of York’s current civic identity as a tourist destination and as a centre for archaeology. In the spirit of excavation, three ‘trenches’ will uncover the high intellectual culture of Restoration York; the design of the city’s mid-eighteenth-century archaeologically inspired architecture; and the founding of the Yorkshire Museum in the early nineteenth century.
In his lecture, ‘York 400 year ago: Reformation, religious change and social stress?’ on 14 November, Professor Bill Sheils, from the Department of History, will look at the city’s history during a period identified as one of crisis for English towns.
Professor Sheils will discuss how, at the end of the Tudor dynasty, York was still coming to terms with the changes of the Reformation which had taken place half a century before, and many institutions in the city were having to redefine their roles. Added to these changes, the city was subject to periodic population crises with devastating social and economic effects for many of its citizens.
All three lectures are held in the Bowland Auditorium, Berrick Saul Building, at 6pm and no booking is required. For further information on these and other lectures in the York 800 series, visit www.york.ac.uk/news-and-events/events/public-lectures/.
Notes to editors:
- The University hosts a series of public lectures covering a wide variety of subjects every year. A complete list is available at www.york.ac.uk/news-and-events/events/
- For more information on the University of York’s Department of Sociology visit www.york.ac.uk/sociology
- For more information on the University of York’s Department of History of Art visit www.york.ac.uk/history-of-art/
- For more information on the University of York’s Department of History visit www.york.ac.uk/history
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