Thursday September 02 , 2010
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History of Communication symposium - University of London

uol-logoInstitute of English Studies
History of Communication symposium
23 January

In May 2009 the Institute held an all-day symposium on the subject of the ‘History of Communication’. The success of the day means that the topic is now being explored in more detail in a series of Saturday symposia.

First Symposium: 23 January 2010
Seminar 1: Roads and Their Cultures
Seminar 2: Postal Systems
Venue: University of London, Room G16 (Senate House, Ground Floor)
Time: 11:00 - 16:00

Seminar 1: 11.00am-1.00pm
Roads and Their Cultures
Speakers:
Benet Salway: 'Roads, tribes, and regional identity in Roman Italy'
Frances Wood: 'Roads in China'
Nicolas Barker: 'Canals and Roads and the Growth of a Provincial Press in the 18th Century'
Paul Stiff: 'Designs on the roads: being modern in 1959'

Seminar 2: 2.00pm-4.00pm
Postal Systems
Speakers:
Philip Beale: 'The early Royal Mail in England, the Corsini correspondence and the Merchant Strangers' Post'
Iain Stevenson: 'Henry Fawcett and the people's post office'
Peter Sutton: 'Modernising a postal system: industrial politics and automation in British sorting offices'

Each Saturday will consist of a morning and an afternoon seminar, each lasting two hours (11 am-1 pm, 2-4 pm). Each seminar will consist of three of four twenty-minute papers addressing the given topic from different angles both chronological and geographical. The rest of the time will be devoted to discussion. The first series comprises six symposia in the Spring and Summer terms of 2010, three in each term at the rate of roughly one a month. Please click here to inform organisers if you wish to attend, and to find out more about the other symposia.