History East: A Festival of History at Queen Mary, University of London
When:
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Venue:
External
History East: A Festival of History at Queen Mary, University of London
Friday 28th March 2025, 4.30 – 6.30pm. Venue to be announced
Registration essential. Book here (www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/history-east-a-festival-of-history-at-queen-mary-tickets-1258147225219)
Join a galaxy of talent from the worlds of historical fiction, politics and diplomacy, feminism and drama to ask ‘Why History Matters’!
History has never been more popular – or more contested. It inspires novelists and playwrights, screen-writers and film-makers. It is debated by politicians, argued about by activists and inspires movements for and against social change.
In this free public event, we bring together a galaxy of talent from the worlds of historical fiction (Sarah Waters, Stella Tillyard), politics and diplomacy (Michael Gove, Gill Bennett), feminism (Natasha Walter) and drama (Paterson Joseph) to ask ‘Why History Matters’. How do we do it well? How can we communicate it better? What can novelists, politicians, actors and activists learn from the past – and from each other?
This star-studded public event celebrates Queen Mary's long tradition of outreach, higher journalism and public service, epitomized by the careers and charisma of (Lord) Peter Hennessy and Professor Lisa Jardine. Two panels, chaired by BBC Radio 4's Tom Sutcliffe, will debate the role of history in politics and history in fiction, and take questions from the audience. The event will conclude with a drinks party to a jazz piano accompaniment.
The event is organised by the broadcaster and historian Amanda Vickery, the School of History at Queen Mary, the Mile End Institute, and the Raphael Samuel History Centre.
Speaker Biographies:
Gill Bennett was Chief Historian at the Foreign Office from 1995-2005. She advised ministers and officials, conducted an official inquiry into the Zinoviev Letter, and has published three books: Churchill's Man of Mystery: Desmond Morton and the World of Intelligence (2006), Six Moments of Crisis: Inside British Foreign Policy (2013), and The Zinoviev Letter: The Conspiracy that Never Dies (2018).
Michael Gove is a journalist, author, and politician. Born in Aberdeen, he took a degree in English at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford. He is the editor of The Spectator and was Member of Parliament for Surrey Heath from 2005 to 2024. He has served in numerous senior positions in government, including as Secretary of State for Education, Justice, Food and Rural Affairs, Levelling Up, Housing and Communities.
Phillipa Gregory CBE is a best-selling, prolific novelist, born in Nairobi. She holds a BA from Sussex, and a Ph.D. from Edinburgh on eighteenth-century popular fiction. Phillipa has reimagined an array of periods and dynasties: the Tudors, the Plantagenets, Civil War gardeners, and Bristol slavers. She is perhaps best known among young historians for The Other Boleyn Girl and The White Queen. There are numerous TV adaptions of her fiction. Phillipa has also written books for children, and a popular history of women: Normal Women – 900 Years of Making History (HarperCollins, 2023).
Paterson Joseph is an actor and author. He was born in Willesden Green and trained at LAMDA and has performed for the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Royal Exchange, Manchester, and the National Theatre, as well as in numerous television series from Casualty to Green Wing, to Noughts + Crosses, to Dr Who. His 2022 debut novel The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius Sancho won the 2023 Christopher Bland prize awarded by the Royal Society of Literature. Ignatius Sancho is also the subject and hero of Paterson’s one-man theatre show. Paterson Joseph is the Chancellor of Oxford Brookes University.
Robert Saunders is Reader in British History at Queen Mary University of London and Deputy Director of the Mile End Institute. He is the author of Democracy and the Vote in British Politics (2011), Yes to Europe! The 1975 Referendum and Seventies Britain (2018) and co-editor of Making Thatcher's Britain (2012). He has provided political and historical analysis for the BBC, CNN, The New Statesman, The Economist, Prospect &c, and is a regular contributor to the Past, Present, Future podcast.
Tom Sutcliffe is an arts journalist and prize-winning broadcaster. He was educated at Lancaster Grammar and Emmanuel College, Cambridge, joining the BBC after university where he edited the Radio 4 arts magazine programme Kaleidoscope. In 1986, he became the first arts editor of The Independent. He is one of the main presenters of BBC Radio 4’s flagship magazine programme Start the Week, as well as the arts review programme Front Row. From 1999 to 2021, Tom chaired and presented the BBC Radio 4 arts round up Saturday Review.
Stella Tillyard is an author and historian. She has a degree and Ph.D. from Oxford University, trained at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and was Knox fellow at Harvard. Her second book Aristocrats (Chatto & Windus, 1994) won the Meilleur Livre Étranger, the Longman/History Today Prize and the Fawcett Prize, and was turned into a 6-part landmark series for BBC1. She has written bestselling non-fiction, fiction, and academic art/cultural history. Stella has taught at Harvard, U.C.L.A., Queen Mary, University of London, and is a visiting professor at Birkbeck, University of London.
Amanda Vickery is Professor of Early Modern History at Queen Mary, University of London and a fellow of the British Academy. Her first book The Gentleman’s Daughter: Women’s Lives in Georgian England (Yale, 1998) won the Wolfson, the Whitfield and the Longman/History Today prize. Her book Behind Closed Doors: At Home in Georgian England(Yale, 2009) was turned into a 3-part series for BBC2. Her documentaries for BBC TV and radio include ‘The Story of Women and Art’, ‘A History of Private Life’ and ‘Voices from the Old Bailey’.
Sarah Waters OBE is the author of six novels, including Tipping the Velvet, Affinity, Fingersmith, The Night Watch, The Little Stranger and The Paying Guests, five of which have been adapted for stage, television and feature film in the UK and US. She has won the Betty Trask Award; the Somerset Maugham Award; the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award; the South Bank Show Award for Literature and the CWA Historical Dagger. Sarah was born in Wales, educated at the Universities of Kent and Lancaster and holds a Ph.D. from Queen Mary, University of London on lesbian and gay historical fiction.
Natasha Walter is a feminist writer and human rights activist. Educated at St John’s College, Cambridge, she was also a Knox fellow at Harvard. Her first job was at Vogue. She is the author of a novel, A Quiet Life (2016), three works of non-fiction: Before the Light Fades: A Family Story of Resistance (Virago, 2023), Living Dolls: The Return of Sexism (Virago, 2010), and The New Feminism (Virago, 1998). She is also the founder of the charity Women for Refugee Women. Natasha is Honorary Professor at the Centre for Climate Crime and Climate Justice at Queen Mary, University of London.
Contact name:
Katy Pettit