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Falconbridge's diary

“Digital humanities, crowd sourcing, and travel writing:

A workshop using Anna Maria Falconbridge’s diary (1794)”

With Professor Deirdre Coleman

University of Melbourne and Visiting Fellow at the Institute of Advanced Study, University of Warwick

 

Tuesday 21st of January, 12-3 pm, Institute of Advanced Study, Milburn House, Campus, University of Warwick.

This three-hour workshop is open to all postgraduate students, post-docs, and senior researchers, in History, English and other related subjects, from the University of Warwick and elsewhere. Lunch and refreshments will be provided.

Using Anna Maria Falconbridge’s diary (Two Voyages to Sierra Leone) published in 1794 as a starting point, the workshop sets out to explore Sierra Leone in West Africa during the 1790s and related themes such as gender, race and empire in the context of travel writing, slavery and antislavery, the Sierra Leone Company, science, exploration and African history. Professor Deirdre Coleman (University of Melbourne and Fellow at the Institute of Advanced Studies in Warwick) will help guide us through the themes.

In preparation for the workshop, participants are encouraged to read and comment on Falconbridge’s Two Voyages (approximately 50,000 words or 94 pages). A website will give access to an online version of the text, where digital tools can be used to add comments, links and references, or simply to ask questions. The aim of this exercise is to identify themes for discussion at the workshop and also to explore digital ‘crowd sourcing’ as a method in humanities research.

To attend the workshop and get access to the online material please make contact with David Lambert (d.lambert@warwick.ac.uk) or Hanna Hodacs (h.hodacs@warwick.ac.uk).

About Deirdre Coleman: Professor Coleman has written extensively on travel writing, anti-slavery and Sierra Leone (see, e.g. Romantic Colonization and British Anti-Slavery, CUP, 2005). She is currently working on a biography over the naturalist Henry Smeathman. This workshop is one out of three event planed in conjunction to Coleman’s visit in Warwick.