This weekend, the University of Northampton hosted the spring Council meeting of the British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (BSECS). Delegates from across the UK gathered at Sunley Hotel for two days of discussion and planning.
This is the first time that the meeting has been held in the midlands, with meetings in recent years having been held in Glasgow, Newcastle and York. Prof Matthew McCormack from Northampton is currently President of BSECS, and he was pleased to bring the Society to the university. He added, ‘Northampton is a fine eighteenth-century town, with many notable buildings and one of the century’s largest market squares, so it was great to welcome eighteenth-century scholars to the the town and show them around.’
BSECS promotes the study of the global long eighteenth century, across all disciplines - including History, Literature, Art, Music, Theatre, Philosophy and Languages, among others. Every year it holds a large international conference in January and a postgraduate conference in the summer, and it offers a range of awards to support access for postgraduates and early career researchers in particular. It publishes the Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies and reviews of events and media at Criticks.
Northampton will again welcome a national organisation to campus on 11 June, when the Institute for Historical Research comes to campus. We will host a special session of the ‘British History in the Long Eighteenth Century’ seminar, when Prof John Coffey from the University of Leicester will give a talk about the Wilberforce diaries. Attendance is free and is in person or online. The seminar is at 3pm in SN111 and it will be preceded at 1pm by a walking tour of the town, meeting at the train station.
HISTORY AT NORTHAMPTON 