Call for participation: Online seminar series: Using Mass Observation’s Covid-19 Collections
- Details
- Published: Tuesday, 09 February 2021 16:10
Since March 2020, Mass Observation (MO) has collected diaries and other writing from thousands of people across Britain on everyday life during the Covid-19 pandemic. This online seminar series will bring together archivists and researchers to discuss how best to use MO’s Covid-19 collections and the methodological challenges they present. The archivists will provide an introduction to the archive, the collections, and plans for digitisation and other projects/events. There will be opportunities for researchers to present papers (probably two speakers per seminar, plus time for discussion). One outcome of the series might be a website of seminar videos. Another outcome might be a journal special issue on using MO’s Covid-19 collections and related topics, such as:
- MO’s response to Covid-19: directives, publicity, partnerships, collections, digitisation.
- Journals, plagues, diaries, and Covid-19.
- The uses of MO by panellists, non-panellists, journalists, and researchers.
- Reading the 12 May day diaries.
- Reading the directive responses of MO panellists.
- Approaching the collections from the social sciences and the humanities.
- Sampling and the aesthetics of representation.
- Popular responses to Covid-19 and associated discourses of risk and responsibility.
- Practising everyday life during the pandemic.
- Using the collections to inform public health responses to the pandemic and its impacts.
- More broadly, using qualitative research to inform policy responses to emergencies and their impacts
When? Every month, starting in late spring/early summer 2021.
Where? Online
Who?
The organisers are Nick Clarke (University of Southampton) and Clive Barnett (University of Exeter), in collaboration with Kirsty Pattrick and Jessica Scantlebury (Mass Observation) and the British Academy (Special Research Grant: Covid-19 – ‘Learning to Live with Risk and Responsibility: Understanding Popular Responses to Covid-19’ – see https://covidresponsibility.org). We invite participation from established and early career researchers, including PhD students.
How?
To express an interest in participating, as a speaker or audience member, please e-mail Nick Clarke (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) by 05/03/21.* To express an interest in presenting a paper at some point in the series, please include your name, institution, and ideas for a working title and brief abstract. We aim to send a schedule and joining instructions to participants in early spring.
*By e-mailing, you agree to be contacted about the seminar series. Your e-mail address may be visible to other participants when this happens, but will otherwise be held by the organisers in accordance with the University of Southampton’s data protection policy (available at https://www.southampton.ac.uk/legalservices/what-we-do/data-protection-and-foi.page).
This exhibition at Bolton Museum presents new work by Richard Slee, one of Britain’s most important contemporary ceramic artists. The newly commissioned pieces have been inspired by Mass Observation’s Mantlepiece Reports of 1937. The reports, with their fascinating lists of objects, reveal much about the tastes, preferences and preoccupations of people living in 1930s Britain. Slee’s work also explores questions of personal and national identity, history and taste, through his surreal transformations of ordinary domestic objects.
festival is presented by the University’s Centre for Worktown Studies. It comprises of a range of talks, workshops, displays of art, a dramatic production and music inspired by the theme of Worktown. Presenters include University staff and students and representatives of Bolton U3A and Live from Worktown.