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Melanie Torrent

@meltorrent

British & Commonwealth history, Franco-British relations and connected ends of empire, foreign policy & diplomatic cultures Université Picardie Jules Verne & Institute of Commonwealth studies

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02.12.2023
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Latest posts by Melanie Torrent @meltorrent

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Take Your Research Public Take Your Research Public is a free practical course aimed at academic researchers (from mid-PhD onwards) who want to develop writing for magazines, social media, podcasts, radio or the broad trade…

Very pleased to announce that TAKE YOUR RESEARCH PUBLIC is back for 2026. It's a practical course supporting PhD students and academics working on historical topics to translate their work into public-facing scholarship. Runs 2-23 June online. Apply by 20 April @dcahf-met.bsky.social

11.03.2026 15:18 👍 34 🔁 28 💬 1 📌 2
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Southern African Historical Society CFP-30th-SAHS-Conference-2026Download SAHS Conference 2026 Abstract Submission Deadline Extended We are pleased to announce that the submission deadline for papers and panels has been extended to the 30th of March 2026. Please still follow submission guidelines. Note that some people trying to submi...

🚨 CFA: 'Re-imagining Legacies, Transitions and Meanders in Southern African Histories'. The Southern African Historical Society conference invites contributions for papers on a range of themes - from legal histories to protest culture. Learn more

09.03.2026 11:31 👍 2 🔁 3 💬 0 📌 0
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The Role of the Women’s Housing Sub-Committee: ‘Homes Fit for Heroines’ I’m delighted to feature today the second of two guest posts by Lynne Dixon examining the work of some of our early female housing campaigners and reformers. Lynne has a background in histori…

2/ The Role of the Women’s Housing Sub-Committee: ‘Homes Fit for Heroines’
municipaldreams.wordpress.com/2020/09/29/t...

08.03.2026 12:08 👍 16 🔁 6 💬 0 📌 1
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Women's Grassroots Activism Toolkit 100+ Helping to enhance the lives of women and girls for another 100+ years

On eve of #IWD2026 am delighted to share project webpage for #womensgrassrootsactivism & link to download #Activism100+ Toolkit ahead of launch on Tuesday 10 March, 5.30pm via Zoom. Take a look to find out more. @whaireland.bsky.social @womenshistnet.bsky.social
learn.lsbu.ac.uk/womens-grass...

07.03.2026 17:48 👍 18 🔁 15 💬 0 📌 1
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Overview of Journals Publishing

Our popular 'Overview to #Journal #Publishing’ session is running on 12th March! 📅 2-3pm via Zoom.

A journal editor & author discuss different perspectives on the journal publishing process & finding the right journal for you. Sign up to attend:

www.sas.ac.uk/news-events/...

#OpenAccess #Training

05.03.2026 14:38 👍 1 🔁 3 💬 0 📌 1
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Centre for Anglophone Studies: une des plus grosses équipes anglicistes au cœur de la recherche toulousaine.
doi.org/10.71909/q2g...
@saesfrance.org @afea.bsky.social @lerma.bsky.social
#étudesanglophones #HEPISTEA #Caliban #Miranda

05.03.2026 08:24 👍 4 🔁 4 💬 1 📌 0
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Depuis 1984, la revue CYCNOS étudie tous les aspects du monde anglophone. Notice par R. Pavelchievici et D. Ravest.
doi.org/10.71909/JPM...
@saesfrance.org @afea.bsky.social @lerma.bsky.social
#étudesanglophones #revueanglophone

27.02.2026 09:24 👍 3 🔁 5 💬 0 📌 0
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Anglophonie, communautés, écritures: ACE et son histoire. Notice par D. Haigron
doi.org/10.71909/tv9...
@saesfrance.org @afea.bsky.social @lerma.bsky.social 
#étudesanglophones #mondeanglophone

26.02.2026 09:52 👍 3 🔁 8 💬 0 📌 0
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Labour History Review essay prize 2026 Entries are invited for the Labour History Review postgraduate essay prize for 2026. The deadline for entries is 30 June 2026, and details are set out below. Download the entry form (Word document)…

Entries are invited for the Labour History Review postgraduate essay prize. The deadline for entries is 30 June 2026
(Please share widely)
sslh.org.uk/2026/02/19/l...

19.02.2026 19:28 👍 13 🔁 19 💬 0 📌 0
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Literary agents urge writers to avoid AI as they see ‘change in nature of submissions’ A number of literary agencies are adding amendments to their submission guidelines urging authors not to use AI in their submissions, as signs of its use become more prevalent.

"There’s an uncanny, flattened nature to a lot of the manuscripts; the submission letters are becoming quite formulaic."

Literary agents urge writers to avoid AI:

23.02.2026 10:01 👍 87 🔁 22 💬 9 📌 4
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Contents | Labour History Review 90, 3 This essay introduces the key themes of the special issue Anti-Imperialism and the Global Left: New Appraisals, edited by Lorenzo Costaguta, Justine Cousin, Camille Fauroux, and Thomas van Gaalen. The authors review existing scholarship on left-wing anti-...

Special issue of Labor History Review, "Anti-Imperialism and the Global Left: New Appraisals" liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/toc/lhr/curr...

10.02.2026 15:55 👍 14 🔁 5 💬 0 📌 1
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Explorez le champ pluridisciplinaire des Études africaines-américaines : littérature, arts, cinéma, histoire et sciences sociales, par Marie-Jeanne Rossignol.
doi.org/10.71909/tdq...
@saesfrance.org @afea.bsky.social @lerma.bsky.social
#étudesanglophones #interdisciplinarité #africainaméricain

27.01.2026 17:45 👍 6 🔁 6 💬 0 📌 0
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Revivez l'aventure de la Société d’étude de la littérature de voyage du monde anglophone (SELVA). Notice signée F. Besson, E. Peraldo, N. Vanfasse.
doi.org/10.71909/vh7...
@saesfrance.org @afea.bsky.social @lerma.bsky.social
#littératureviatique #écritureduvoyage #CRLV #étudesanglophones

29.01.2026 15:13 👍 8 🔁 8 💬 0 📌 0
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Le RADAC sait tout sur le théâtre anglophone contemporain! Notice par S. Blattès et Cl. Hélie.
doi.org/10.71909/XR7...
@saesfrance.org @afea.bsky.social @lerma.bsky.social
#théâtre #mondeanglophone #artsdramatiques #littérature #traduction #HEPISTEA

05.02.2026 13:20 👍 7 🔁 7 💬 1 📌 1
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Brexit in Historical Perspective: The Age of Britain in Europe When the bell tolls at eleven o’clock tonight, ringing out Britain’s membership of the EU, an entire phase of British history will ...

It's six years today since Britain left the EU.

I wrote this on Brexit day in 2020, about the strategic dilemmas to which European membership had once been the answer and that would now reopen once Britain left.

I'd stand by most of it today.
gladstonediaries.blogspot.com/2020/01/brex...

30.01.2026 12:01 👍 244 🔁 89 💬 22 📌 14
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Remembering the General Strike, 100 years on

To mark the 100th anniversary of the General Strike we have a special event planned @ihr.bsky.social on Weds 29 April. Prof Jonathan Schneer will be discussing his new book on the strike alongside Paul Novak, Jon Cruddas, Florence Sutcliffe-Braithwaite & Jim Moher. www.sas.ac.uk/news-events/...

30.01.2026 09:36 👍 7 🔁 10 💬 1 📌 1

Includes Labour History Review

29.01.2026 12:09 👍 12 🔁 6 💬 0 📌 0
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Explorez l'origine de la revue de la SAES, Angles, qui fête ses 10 ans cette année, par Y. Brailowsky.
doi.org/10.71909/M03...
@saesfrance.org @afea.bsky.social @lerma.bsky.social
#interdisciplinarité #intermédialité #étudesanglophones

22.01.2026 16:36 👍 5 🔁 5 💬 0 📌 2
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Vous aimez la poésie anglophone? Plongez dans LOOP! Par A. Grafe et C. Hélie.
doi.org/10.71909/k45...
@saesfrance.org @afea.bsky.social @lerma.bsky.social @looprech.bsky.social
#poésie #anglophone #écriturecréative #traduction #stephenromer #étudesanglophones

22.01.2026 16:41 👍 7 🔁 6 💬 0 📌 2
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Découvrez les travaux indispensables du GRER sur le racisme et l'eugénisme. Notice signée M. Prum.
doi.org/10.71909/cqn...
@saesfrance.org @afea.bsky.social @lerma.bsky.social @echelles-umr8264.bsky.social
#racisme #eugénisme #discriminations #étudesanglophones

22.01.2026 11:01 👍 7 🔁 8 💬 0 📌 0
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Alexandre BELJAME. Portrait du premier MCF de langue et littérature anglaises, spécialiste du 18è siècle, par L. Cottegnies
doi.org/10.71909/t9b...
@saesfrance.org @afea.bsky.social @lerma.bsky.social
#18esiècle #Shakespeare # littératureanglophone #traduction #étudesanglophones #Sorbonne#SEAA17-18

20.01.2026 07:01 👍 7 🔁 6 💬 0 📌 0
This is the abstract for the article 'Labour's choices: The political economy of Keir Starmer's party', by Colm Murphy. It reads: 'This article explores the dilemmas at the heart of the economic strategy of Keir Starmer’s government by tracking developments in British (centre-)left political economy since the Global Financial Crisis of 2008. It first traces the emergence of a shared narrative of political economy circulating among the UK and transatlantic centre-left, as well as some further left and right, over the 2010s and into the early 2020s. Identifying the core diagnoses and prescriptions contained within this narrative, this article situates them in economic, ideological, and political developments since 2008. It then traces the fragmentation of this economic imaginary from 2022. In combination with an unhappy transition to office, this fragmentation has generated a deeply confused and internally contradictory economic strategy in the UK Labour government. This paper then explains this process by placing ideological and political developments in their material and external contexts. A worsening macroeconomic and geopolitical context actively decomposed the constituent parts of the narrative and challenged some of its assumptions; in turn, this revived submerged disagreements within the governing party. The paper consequently argues that while these tensions can be explained partly by ideological closure, they derive to a significant and probably greater extent from institutional and material factors, especially questions of statecraft and the UK’s misfiring growth regime in an increasingly gloomy global context. The paper ends, however, by cautioning against an overbearing determinism. It indicates the remaining arenas for political agency open to the government, should it prove able and willing to act.'

This is the abstract for the article 'Labour's choices: The political economy of Keir Starmer's party', by Colm Murphy. It reads: 'This article explores the dilemmas at the heart of the economic strategy of Keir Starmer’s government by tracking developments in British (centre-)left political economy since the Global Financial Crisis of 2008. It first traces the emergence of a shared narrative of political economy circulating among the UK and transatlantic centre-left, as well as some further left and right, over the 2010s and into the early 2020s. Identifying the core diagnoses and prescriptions contained within this narrative, this article situates them in economic, ideological, and political developments since 2008. It then traces the fragmentation of this economic imaginary from 2022. In combination with an unhappy transition to office, this fragmentation has generated a deeply confused and internally contradictory economic strategy in the UK Labour government. This paper then explains this process by placing ideological and political developments in their material and external contexts. A worsening macroeconomic and geopolitical context actively decomposed the constituent parts of the narrative and challenged some of its assumptions; in turn, this revived submerged disagreements within the governing party. The paper consequently argues that while these tensions can be explained partly by ideological closure, they derive to a significant and probably greater extent from institutional and material factors, especially questions of statecraft and the UK’s misfiring growth regime in an increasingly gloomy global context. The paper ends, however, by cautioning against an overbearing determinism. It indicates the remaining arenas for political agency open to the government, should it prove able and willing to act.'

My latest article is out in British Politics. I try to account for the distressed confusion gripping the UK government's economic strategy. In honour of the article's namesake, I include a tortured football analogy.

It's free to read (open access) here.

link.springer.com/article/10.1...

18.01.2026 17:16 👍 42 🔁 19 💬 2 📌 1

Daniel Foliard @danielfoliard.bsky.social et Éliane de Larminat sont dans Le Cours de l'histoire @franceculture.fr @xaviermauduit.bsky.social pour une série intitulée "Photographie, une histoire sans clichés" 📸

➡️ www.radiofrance.fr/francecultur...

➡️ www.radiofrance.fr/francecultur...

19.01.2026 07:13 👍 10 🔁 8 💬 0 📌 0
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Author's letters 'massive bit of the jigsaw' in abolition campaign Researchers are transcribing and digitising hundreds of letters from abolitionist Hannah More.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

18.01.2026 10:47 👍 15 🔁 6 💬 1 📌 1
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This opens up wider questions about how far the UK and Canada in the 5 eyes intel sharing framework as well as other former allies of the United States can still provide the Americans with any sensitive intelligence information at all

18.01.2026 12:44 👍 4172 🔁 1919 💬 169 📌 327

📢 : There is still time to submit your proposal for the "1725 to 2025: Historical & Contemporary Links Between Scotland and South Asia" symposium in Edinburgh. You might even get to hear me talk about Indian revolutionaries, Russian maximalists, and bomb plots in Edinburgh, Paris, and Muzaffarpur.

18.01.2026 12:46 👍 5 🔁 5 💬 1 📌 0
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Empires, Plants & Gardening: Kew in Jamaica The second talk in our series exploring the influence of political and economic power on garden-making

I'll be talking about the Hope Botanic Gardens in Jamaica on 27th Jan, using records from the colonial archives at Kew Gardens 🌴

Signup here: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/empires-pl...

17.01.2026 12:55 👍 11 🔁 9 💬 1 📌 2
Policy Partnerships Officer - QMUL Jobs ID: 8276. Title: Policy Partnerships Officer. Application Deadline:

Interested in the intersection between policymaking, especially in the UK, and academic research? Come work with us! The @mileendinstitute.bsky.social at @qmulsse.bsky.social is advertising for a new Policy Partnerships Officer. Details and application here:

qmul-jobs.tal.net/vx/mobile-0/...

15.01.2026 13:00 👍 7 🔁 23 💬 0 📌 0
Sheet of information on the locating loss project which aims to explore histories of infertility through landscapes and spaces. Please Dm me for more info if needed!

Sheet of information on the locating loss project which aims to explore histories of infertility through landscapes and spaces. Please Dm me for more info if needed!

Hello! I am sharing information about my @researchireland.ie project Locating Loss: histories of infertility in landscapes and spaces. I would love to connect with researchers/ practitioners from a wide range of backgrounds and disciplines, so please share widely! Sharing again for morning Bluesky!

15.01.2026 07:47 👍 24 🔁 26 💬 4 📌 0
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Dwelling on the Margins of Empire by Lisa Binkley considers histories of home from the margins, highlighting the perspectives of displaced, colonised, and disenfranchised groups in imperial and settler colonial contexts.

Out now! https://bit.ly/4iGA0GO

15.01.2026 09:22 👍 3 🔁 3 💬 0 📌 0