Our Projects
The Edinburgh Companion to the Regional Magazine - Call for Chapters
The first major overview of the subnational periodical as an international phenomenon, from the seventeenth century to the present day. This collection will examine how the magazine, as a media form, relates to the cultures, identities, geographies, histories, politics, and economics of the region and other subnational administrative and geographical areas.
European Fascist Movements
Professor Tim Grady and Dr Roland Clark (Liverpool) were awarded external funds by the AHRC to lead the European Fascist Movements project. Designed to explore a transnational history of European fascism, the project brought together 18 specialists from Europe, North America and Australia. Across a series of three workshops, participants discussed the emergence of fascist movements in Europe, considering their appeal and spread. The results of these deliberations fed into a major new exhibition held at the Wiener Library, London and a new source reader of key documents that will be invaluable for the study of this period).
Remediating Stevenson: Decolonising Robert Louis Stevenson's Pacific Fiction through Graphic Adaptation, Arts Education and Community Engagement
Professor Simon Grennan is part of an interdisciplinary team exploring the legacies of Robert Louis Stevenson's Pacific writing. The project, led by Professor Michelle Keown (Edinburgh) investigates the relevance of Stevenson’s work to contemporary readers in Samoa, Scotland and Hawai'i. It will produce new art and poetry inspired by the three short stories published in Stevenson's 1893 collection Island Nights' Entertainments. Supported by an award of over £800,000, the project team will collaborate with Hawaiian, Samoan and Scottish educators and NGOs, and engage extensively with contemporary members of the indigenous communities depicted in his fiction.
Sensitive Heritage: Imperial Legacies and Sacred Space
In 2023, the Institute awarded £800 under its ‘Breaking Boundaries’ scheme to support the development of a new project exploring the history of Chester Cathedral led by Dr Hannah Ewence, Dr Ben Fulford, Dr Evelyn Jamieson and Luke Pearson. Its main aim is to facilitate a dialogue about the relationship between Chester Cathedral, its history and the physical legacies of the British Empire found within its interior. The artefacts, memorials and connections with persons of note in the fabric of the Cathedral suggest a long and multifaceted relationship between this community, its landmark sacred space and the imperial past. Yet, the absence of any formal acknowledgement of this ‘connectedness’ to colonial histories within the Cathedral space points to a need for interpretation. In collaboration with the Cathedral, the University and students, the project aims to address this lacuna by producing an on-site exhibition, creative exploration and performance, reflective workshops, and learning resources for schools.
A Public Exhibition of the (In)Human(e) Experience of Poverty
Our ‘Breaking Boundaries’ small funding scheme also awarded £800 to a second new project being run by our Institute members: Dr Holly White, Dr Nancy Evans and Dr Kim Ross-Houle. The primary aim of this project is to contribute to developing informed public understanding of the lived experience of poverty, that may challenge stigmatising narratives and create counter-narratives. The project will showcase the outputs of community inspirers, including materials developed in partnership with the research team, to a wider public audience. The main form of communication will be a public exhibition that will showcase an archive of existing materials created by community inspirers. Much of this material has not previously been shared with the public. Added to this, the exhibition will also display outputs of collaboration between the research group and community inspirers including prose, an open letter, and outputs from photo elicitation.
Mobility of Objects Across Boundaries
Dr Katherine Wilson and Dr Leah Clark (University of Oxford) were awarded Network Grant (2018-2020) and Follow on Funding for Impact and Engagement (2021-2022) from the Arts and Humanities Research Council to lead the project 'Mobility of Objects Across Boundaries 1000-1700'. This inter-disciplinary project is designed to reconsider the history of material culture in the period AD 1000-1700. It produced public facing and student led pop-up exhibitions, digital reconstructions of medieval Chester and teacher designed objects boxes with free downloadable resources to be loaned to schools. All these resources can be found on the project's website and the results of the interdisciplinary academic work is detailed in the Mobility of Objects Across Boundaries 1000-1700 published by Liverpool University Press.
Crossing Borders
Dr Evelyn Jamieson and colleagues in Music, Media and Performance have been leading the ‘Crossing Borders’ project which has been designed to bring together people from Chester and beyond interested in health, education, arts therapy and participatory arts. The aim is to develop genuine conversations and collaborations by sharing practice and research. The project group started in June 2022 with a fabulous workshop held in Storyhouse Chester, then followed up through further joint workshop sessions.
Early Christian Churches and Landscapes
Dr Thomas Pickles, Professor Sally Foster (University of Stirling), and Dr Tomás Ó Carragáin (University College Cork) are collaborating on a UKRI funded interdisciplinary project called Early Christian Churches and Landscapes (ECCLES). Part of a pan-European project - Corpus Architecturae Religiosae Europeae (CARE) - ECCLES is investigating the evidence for churches in Britain and Ireland before AD 1100. Using an Arts and Humanities Research Council Research awards - a Network Grant (2017-2018) and Follow-on Funding for Impact and Engagement (2023-2024) - they are creating a publicly accessible database of the evidence to push forward academic research and to meet the needs of a range of non-academic stakeholders - those making strategic policy about churches, those educating people about churches, and those who produce on-site presentational infrastructure at churches. A summary of the project and its progress can be found on the project website.