Miranda Kaufmann
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Black Tudors: The Untold Story has been shortlisted for the Wolfson History Prize!

16/4/2018

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I'm thrilled, excited, delighted and somewhat overwhelmed that my book, Black Tudors: The Untold Story has been shortlisted for the Wolfson History Prize 2018!  This award is like the Oscars of History, with prize money of £40,000, and runners-up getting £4,000! The winner will be announced at a fancy reception at Claridges on Monday 4th June. 

There are only six books on the shortlist, so, given how many history books are published every year, it's a huge honour to be amongst them- especially as the judges are historians I greatly admire, particularly Diarmaid McCulloch, whose lectures I really loved at Oxford. It's also quite overwhelming to look back at the list of previous winners, that includes so many historians I revere.

The six books (with judges' quotes) are: 

Out of China: How the Chinese Ended the Era of Western Domination by Robert Bickers (Allen Lane, Penguin Press)
“An ambitious book delivered in an animated, accessible style. Based on an impressive sweep of archival material, with brilliant vignettes on subjects such as pre-war Shanghai, Bickers demonstrates a clarity and depth of knowledge which helps to frame modern China.”

The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister’s Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine by Lindsey Fitzharris (Allen Lane, Penguin Press)
“A serious work of research from a first-time author. Written in a lively, engaging style – and with no gruesome detail spared – Fitzharris transports her reader to the pivotal moment at which Joseph Lister transformed the worlds of science and medicine.”

A Deadly Legacy: German Jews and the Great War by Tim Grady (Yale University Press)
“A brave and brilliant history that presents a new view of the German Jewish community during the First World War. Measured in style and magisterial in quality, this accomplished account sheds light on the enormous diversity of Jewish experience.”

Black Tudors: The Untold Story by Miranda Kaufmann (Oneworld)
“A remarkable and important first book which uncovers and explores a previously neglected area of British history. Kaufmann imaginatively uses material from a range of sources to bring to life the overlooked stories of Africans in Tudor Britain.”

Heretics and Believers: A History of the English Reformation by Peter Marshall (Yale University Press)
“A beautifully judged account of the English Reformation. Marshall weaves a single narrative through a contentious century without loss of detail or depth of understanding. Full of wise and humane analysis, this is ambitious in scope and brilliant in execution.”

Heligoland: Britain, Germany and the Struggle for the North Sea by Jan Rüger (Oxford University Press)
“An engrossing and accomplished history that uses the island of Heligoland to trace the complex course of Anglo-German relations across two centuries. Rüger offers a daring account that brilliantly uses micro-history to find the bigger picture.” 

Another wonderful thing about being shortlisted is that the judges look for books that combine scholarly research with readability, or as judge Professor David Cannadine puts it, books with a 'commitment to share careful research and a deep love of their subject with as wide an audience as possible' and what Wolfson CEO Paul Ramsbottom describes as 'books that sparkle with brilliance, breaking new ground in our understanding of the past – and which are written in ways that appeal to a wide audience' -and that's exactly what I was trying to achieve with Black Tudors! 

I'll be joining BBC presenter, Professor Rana Mitter, and the other shortlisted authors for a debate about writing history and an insight into each of our books at a BBC Radio 3 Free Thinking event at the British Academy on the evening of Wednesday 9th May. You can read more about the event and book your free ticket here.
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In the meantime, wish me luck: may the best book win!
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Agenda announced for What's Happening in Black British History VIII at the University of Huddersfield!

9/4/2018

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I'm really looking forward to WHBBH8 which will be at the University of Huddersfield on Thursday 10th May. As you can see from the jam-packed agenda below, there'll be lots of exciting history to discover. We'll kick off by looking at 'visitors' to Britain : first up Abigail Coppins of English Heritage on the Black Prisoners of War held at Portchester Castle in Hampshire 1793-1814. Then we'll hear about Frederick Douglass and the other Black abolitionists speaking tours in 19th century Britain- you can see how Hannah Murray has mapped their journeys on her website. The third presentation of Session One will be about Claude McKay- you can read an article Owen Walsh has written about him here.

Black British History has been inspiring some amazing theatre recently. We'll be looking at this in Session Two with presentations from Testament, author of Black Men Walking- in which members of a Black Men's walking group trek through both the Yorkshire Peaks and a thousand years of Black History in Britain; from Sharon Watson, the Artistic Director of the Phoenix Dance Theatre, talking about a new Windrush- inspired ballet; and Joe Williams discussing his theatrical response to the life of Victorian circus owner Pablo Fanque. 

An event in Huddersfield would not be complete without some local Yorkshire Black History so we'll be hearing from Audrey Dewjee, a pioneer of the field, John Ellis who's been researching Black British Soldiers in the 18th and 19th centuries, Jeff Green on Black Victorians in Huddersfield, and Milton Brown taking us right up to the present day.

We'll then have a brief interlude in which Corinne Fowler, Director of the Centre for New Writing at the University of Leicester tells us a bit about the exciting new Colonial Countryside project, which will be looking at connections between National Trust houses, Caribbean slavery and the East India Company. 

The final session of the day will be exploring the musical legacies of slavery in Britain- from blackface minstrelry, to black British jazz in Tiger Bay via the slavery profits invested into musical patronage in 18th century Britain. 


As usual we'll end with a Drinks Reception, with the added bonus of this segueing into the opening of the Let's Play Vinyl photography exhibition, celebrating a new generation of UK sound systems.  

So all in all, it's looking to be an exciting and stimulating day- look forward to seeing you there!

To book, click here.


What's Happening in Black British History? VIII
Workshop Agenda
10:00 Registration

10:30           Welcome
                    Sue Onslow
 Acting Director of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies
 

10:40            Session One   Black 'visitors' to Britain

Chair            Miranda Kaufmann
 
‘The Honour of the Nation’: Black Prisoners of War at Portchester Castle, 1793-1814
Abigail Coppins (English Heritage)
‘With Almost Electric Speed’: Mapping Black Abolitionists in Britain                
Hannah Rose Murray (University of Nottingham)
The “English Inning” of Claude McKay, Transnational Writer and Socialist     
Owen Walsh (University of Leeds)

12:00         Coffee Break

12:15           Session Two  Black British History on stage

Chair           Michael Ohajuru
 
Reflections on Black Men Walking                 
Testament (writer, rapper and world record holding beatboxer)
Movement of the People: A journey through the development of Windrush: Performance and people
Sharon Watson (Phoenix Dance Theatre)
Pablo Fanque: pomp, pageantry and race in Victorian Circus
Joe Williams (University of Leeds, Heritage Corner, Leeds)

 13:30          Lunch

 14:30          Session Three Black British History in Yorkshire
Chair           Tosh Warwick
 
Here From Time:  Stories from Yorkshire's Black History.               
Audrey Dewjee (Independent researcher, Diasporian Stories Research Group)
Soldiers of African origin in British Army Regiments in England and Yorkshire, 1700s to 1840s.          
John Ellis (Historian and Teacher)
British-born African Caribbean descendants in West Yorkshire, navigating race and identity from the 1960s to present               
Milton Brown (University of Huddersfield, Kirklees Local TV)
My Search For Black British History: Black Americans In Victorian Huddersfield                 
Jeffrey Green (Independent Historian)
 

 16:00        Coffee Break

 16:15         Colonial Countryside: Reinterpreting English Country Houses
                   Corinne Fowler (University of Leicester)
 
                   Session Four  The musical legacies of slavery in Britain
Chair         Paul Ward
 
Blackface minstrelsy and Black Studies
Rachel Cowgill (University of Huddersfield)
The Use of the Profits of Slavery to Support Musical Activity in Eighteenth-century Britain and its Colonies
David Hunter (University of Texas at Austin)
Tiger Bay and the roots/routes of black British Jazz
Catherine Tackley (University of Liverpool)
 

 17:40         Reception/ Opening of Let’s Play Vinyl Exhibition
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    Author

    Miranda Kaufmann is a historian and freelance journalist living in North Wales. You can read a fuller bio here, and contact her here.

    Related Blogs/Sites

    Michael Ohajuru's Black Africans in Renaissance Europe blog

    Temi Odumosu's The Image of Black website

    The UCL Legacies of British Slave-ownership project Database and blog

    The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database

    The Black Presence in Britain

    Jeffrey Green's website, on Africans in 19th and early 20th Century Britain
     
    Untold Theatre 

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