MUP author awarded a Mid-Career Fellowship

PRESS RELEASE

 

Dr Deborah Sugg Ryan, Senior Lecturer Histories and Theories of Design at Falmouth University, has been awarded a Mid-Career Fellowship by the British Academy for Humanities and Social Sciences. The scheme attracts strong competition, receiving over 300 outline applications and awarding only 46 fellowships for 2012-13.

The Fellowship is intended to support outstanding individual researchers with excellent research proposals, and to promote public understanding and engagement with humanities and social sciences. The awards allow recipients time freed from normal teaching and administrative commitments to devote to the completion of a major piece of research. The Academy also places emphasis on applicants' evidence of a commitment to public engagement with and communication of the results of the research during the period of the Fellowship.

Deborah's research, titled 'Ideal' Homes: Design, Architecture and Suburban Modernity in England, 1908-2014, to be published by Manchester University Press, explores the architecture, design and decoration of the ‘ideal' home. It draws on and extends Deborah's research on the Ideal Home Show, which resulted in her doctorate (1995), a monograph (1997) and Design Museum exhibition ‘Ideal Homes' (1993). Deborah says, “Founded in 1908, the Ideal Home Show is the oldest and longest continuously running commercial exhibition aimed at the public in the world. Its history gives an unrivaled insight into the public's taste in architecture, design and all matters that make a house a home.”

Deborah’s research on the Ideal Home Show will result in a revised version of her book on the Ideal Home Show, updated to include a discussion of the representation of the sustainable home in the 2000s. She is also writing a book on the inter-war home for Manchester University Press. Both books will be published in 2014.

In addition, Deborah is also doing knowledge exchange with the Ideal Home Show’s owners Media 10 to disseminate her work to visitors. Lee Newton, CEO of Media-10 said: "On the day we first took charge we were handed Deborah's fantastic book which really gave us a sense of the history and importance of what we had bought. In actual fact, it helped us to understand that more than just buying a business we had become the guardians of a great British tradition. We are delighted to be in regular contact with Deborah, working with her over 2012-13 and beyond. It is wonderful that with the support of the British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship that we can further investigate and explore the rich history of the Ideal Home Show, dating back to 1908."

Deborah is now halfway through her fellowship. She says, ‘It has been fascinating to revisit archives that I first used 20 years ago. Things are so much better catalogued now. I have been able to, for example, to connect designs for the exhibition by Raymond McGrath in the Royal Institute of British Architects’ archives with a photo of his scheme as it was actually enacted in 1933 in the Earls Court & Olympia company archives. Lots of material, such as digital copies of newspapers, is available online, something that didn’t exist when I started my PhD in 1990. I have recently found photos of the first Ideal Home Exhibition in 1908 in the Daily Mirror, which was the first newspaper to include photos. The photos include an image of a suffragette invasion of the exhibition. This is really significant, as until now I thought only one photo had survived! I am currently pursuing sources of funding for a project to bring all the Ideal Home Show archive material together online into a digital portal, which would be of immense use to academics, schools, designers, architects and the exhibitions industry”.

Deborah is also working on a funding bid to build a 'house of the future' at the show. This has been a significant feature in the show's history, most notably with houses by RA Duncan and S Rowland Pierce's in 1928; Wells Coates and David Pleydell Bouverie's Sunspan House in 1934; Alison & Peter Smithson in 1956 and Nigel Coates' Oyster House in 1998. Deborah is planning to meet with a group of leading academics in design, architecture, geography, anthropology and energy policy at the show this year as a first step.

Deborah has given several talks this year on her research (which you can find detailed on her academia page).

She has also been commissioned by the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography to write entries on two people associated with the history of the show: 

1. Thomas Wareham Smith (1874-1938): advertising director of the Daily Mail, who founded the Ideal Home Exhibition in 1908. 

2. Nancie Clifton Reynolds (1903-1931) [real name Agnes Margaret Warden Hardie], Girton graduate and expert on housework who demonstrated labour-saving appliances at the Ideal Home Exhibition, organised other women demonstrators, and wrote articles in the catalogue.

Editor’s notes

Dr Deborah Sugg Ryan
Deborah.suggryan@falmouth.ac.uk
07958 196133
Twitter: @DeborahSuggRyan
Academia: http://falmouth.academia.edu/DeborahRyan

 

Contact: Bethan Hirst

Sales and marketing Executive
Manchester University Press
Oxford Rd, Manchester, M13 9NR
+44 (0) 161 275 2310
Bethan.hirst@manchester.ac.uk
http://www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/
Twitter: @ManchesterUP

 

Formed 10 years ago, Media 10 Limited is a multi-award winning company with a wealth of experience and a vibrant culture. Media 10 are a privately owned company based in Loughton, Essex employing 180 staff and have fast become one of the leading players in the events industry as a result of the hugely successful Grand Designs Live and the country’s largest consumer exhibition – The Ideal Home Show.

For 2013 Media 10 has been asked to organise The Coronation Festival, a one-off 4 day event held in the gardens of Buckingham Palace, to mark the 60^th year of Queen Elizabeth’s Coronation.

Other events in the portfolio include 100% Design, Britain and Ireland’s Next Top Model Live, Clerkenwell Design Week, The London Design Trail, FutureDrive, Destination Star Trek London, The Ideal Home Show at Christmas and The Ideal Home Show Scotland.
Media 10’s award winning magazines include Icon, Grand Designs, On Office, The Selfbuilder, Gurgle magazine, The Clerkenwell Post and M the music magazine published for the MCPS-ORS Alliance.

Contact: Rob Nathan
robert@media-ten.com
www.media-ten.com
Twitter: @ideal_home_show #IHS

The British Academy, established by Royal Charter in 1902, is the national body that champions and supports the humanities and social sciences. It aims to inspire, recognise and support excellence and high achievement across the UK and internationally. For more information, please visit www.britac.ac.uk. Follow the British Academy on Twitter @britac_news  

 

Contact: Kate Rosser Frost
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The British Academy
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07931 227 451
k.rosserfrost@britac.ac.uk

 

Falmouth University is the only independent Higher Education institution in Cornwall with the right to award degrees in its own name.  The University has two campuses – on Woodlane in Falmouth and Tremough in Penryn (which it owns and jointly manages with the University of Exeter). Falmouth is a founding partner in the Combined Universities in Cornwall (CUC), a unique initiative to promote regional economic regeneration through Higher Education, funded mainly by the European Union (Objective One and Convergence), the South West Regional Development Agency and the Higher Education Funding Council for England, with support from Cornwall Council.

Contact: Sally Grint

Communications & PR Manager
Falmouth University
Woodlane, Falmouth, Cornwall TR11 4RH
m: 07780 565552
www.falmouth.ac.uk
sally.grint@falmouth.ac.uk
Twitter: @FalmouthDesign

 

 

 

Second launch for Tuairim, intellectual debate and policy formulation: Rethinking Ireland, 1954-75

Tuairim, intellectual debate and policy formulation: Rethinking Ireland, 1954-75, by Tomás Finn, will be launched for a second time this evening, in conjunction with Hodges Figgis bookstore. It will be held at the National University of Ireland, in Dublin.  Mr Maurice Manning, Chancellor of the National University of Ireland and Mr Justice Donal Barrington, a founding member of Tuairim will be guest speakers at the launch.

Book launch for International seafarers and transnationalism in the twenty-first century

BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards 2013

This week, BBC Radio 2 celebrated all things folk, with its annual award show.  Held at The Glasgow Royal Concert Hall on the 30^th January, the event was part of the Celtic Connections festival, a winter music festival in Glasgow, which features artists from around the globe alongside the best Scottish talent.

Musician Nic Jones, who only returned to live performance last year following a long rehabilitation after a car crash in the 80s, won folk singer of the year. The 11-piece band Bellowhead won album of the year, Scottish band Lau were named band of the year, while Billy Bragg and Roy Harper were honoured with lifetime achievement awards. A full list of all the winners can be found on the BBC Radio 2 website.

To celebrate this year’s Folk awards, we’re offering a special 15% discount off Transforming folk: Innovation and tradition in English folk-rock music by Rob Burns, and Journeyman:An autobiography by Ewan Maccoll.

 To take advantage of this offer, simply contact our distributors on +44 (0)1752 202301, or email orders@nbninternational.com, quoting the discount code OTH336. Offer expires 28/02/2013.

Tomás Finn celebrates with two launches

Tomás Finn is to celebrate the release of his new title, Tuairim,intellectual debate and policy formulation: Rethinking Ireland, 1954-75, with two launches in January and February.

The first will be held in Galway on the 23rd January, at the Moore Institute,
National University of Ireland.  Professor Gearóid Ó Tuaithagh, Dr Mary Harris and Professor Jim Doolan, a member of Tuairim, will be special guests.

The second launch will be held in Dublin on the 19th February. Mr Maurice Manning, Chancellor of the National University of Ireland and Mr Justice Donal Barrington, a founding member of Tuairim will be guest speakers at the launch, which will take place at the National University of Ireland.

If you would like to attend either launch, please contact bethan.hirst@manchester.ac.uk.

Ilan Danjoux takes part in an evening of unique insight into Israel’s democratic system

Ilan Danjoux, author of Political cartoons and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, is due to lead an evening discussion on Israel’s complex democratic system, at the Sholom Synagogue, Vancouver on 6th January 2013.

Dr. Danjoux received his doctorate from the University of Manchester, his post-doctorate from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and is currently the visiting professor of Israel Studies at the University of Calgary.

The topics of discussion will include,

• The election process
• The parties, their leaders, and their platforms
• Coalition building in Israel and its significance
• Political cartoons Israeli

For more information about the event, or to book a place, please email the Sholom Synagogue on info@templesholom.ca or call 604-266-7190.

MUP author shortlisted for prestigious award

The shortlist for the Longman/History Today Book Prize 2013 has been announced. The award is given for an author’s first or second work of history published between October 2011 and September 2012. The winning book will have contributed significantly to making its subject accessible and rewarding to the general reader of history. 

This year the judges this are: Jeremy Black, Professor of History at the University of Exeter; Juliet Gardiner, author of The Thirties: An Intimate History of Britain (HarperPress); Paul Lay, Editor of History Today; and Miri Rubin,  Professor of Early Modern History at Queen Mary, University of London. The winner will be announced on January 9^th, 2013 at the Royal Society, London.

The shortlist is:

Alun Withey, Physick and the Family: Health, Medicine and Care in Wales,1600-1750 (Manchester University Press).

Keith Lowe, Savage Continent: Europe in the Aftermath of World War II (Penguin/Viking).

Hannah Newton, The Sick Child in early Modern England, 1580-1720 (Oxford University Press).

Glyn Parry, The Arch Conjuror of England: John Dee (Yale University Press).

Andrew Preston, Sword of the Spirit, Shield of Faith: Religion in American War and Diplomacy (Knopf).

Bill Schwarz, Memories of Empire. Vol. I The White Man’s World (Oxford University Press).

Caroline Shenton, The Day Parliament Burned Down (Oxford University Press).

Ian P. Wei, Intellectual Culture in Early Medieval Paris, c. 1100-1330 (Cambridge University Press).

Alison Winter, Memory: Fragments of a Modern History (Chicago University Press).

 

Thomas Wright, Circulation: William Harvey’s Revolutionary Idea (Chatto & Windus).

Ilan Danjoux takes his book on tour

MUP author, Ilan Danjoux, has been busy at the Vancouver and Calgary Jewish Book Fairs' over the last few weeks. He hosted various events, focusing on his new book Political cartoons and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Ilan talked about his 'Meet the author' session at the Calgary Book Fair on YouTube last month.

The book can be purchased through The University of British Columbia Press in Canada.

The Times Literary Supplement 'Book of the Year 2012'

PAUL MULDOON highlighted The End of Ulster Loyalism? as one of his  'Books of the Year 2012' in last weeks The Times Literary Supplement.

PAUL MULDOON: "I was greatly taken with Kevin Barry’s Dark Lies the Island (Cape), a collection of hilarious and, often, hair-raising short stories that range from an account of a day trip to Llandudno by a bevy of Real Alers to an unlikely take on “The Mainland Campaign” and the “nordy” world picture. One aspect of the Northern Irish milieu is also explored with admirable dexterity in Peter Shirlow’s The End of Ulster Loyalism? (Manchester University Press). 

 This is a highly fraught subject, of course, with the ongoing investigation of alleged collusion between the police and senior members of the Ulster Volunteer Force. The idea that some UVF men were police informers would not be lost on John Honeyman. Born like myself in Armagh and, like myself, a resident of Griggstown, NJ, Honeyman is reputed to have been a spy for George Washington. Honeyman, like myself, has a walk-on part in Robert Sullivan’s haunting documentary, My American Revolution (Farrar, Straus and Giroux).