Last Wednesday I convened a meeting of the Political HistoryNetwork at the University of Leicester, a place for political historians to gettogether to discuss methodology, the latest research in the field and to catchup (yes, political historians can be quite a friendly lot). It was a goodexperience for me to chair a discussion and organise an event. However, I mustthank Jason Parry (original convenor of the Network) and Dr. Stuart Ball fortheir help behind the scenes. The Network works so well because those in attendancetend to be familiar with your field or at least the general context of it.
I was thinking about the return of the NEW HISTORY LAB thisFriday and realised that the LAB has such a wide scope, which undoubtedly addsto its value. From the material culture of Trekkies to History and Theory orfrom Speed Researching to Jack Jones. Although one may come into topics cold, even the seemingly most unrelated topic or concept can have a relevance to yourwork that you had not considered before.
So, although it was great getting together with thepolitical historians last Wednesday, I am looking forward to the return of theLAB this Friday where you never know what you will get, except a nice cuppa anda couple of slices of homemade cake.
