ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY: WHY DO ANNIVERSARIES MATTER?

PANEL DISCUSSION ALL WELCOME

5.15pm, Monday 4 November 2013 at the HRI, 34 Gell St, Sheffield, S3 7QY

Chaired by Professor Helen Weinstein, broadcaster, historian and member of BBC History Editorial Advisory Board
As part of Sheffield HSTSOCs Remembrance Week and in association with the University of Sheffields History Matters blog, academic, public historian and broadcaster Helen Weinstein will introduce and chair a panel discussion on the significance of anniversaries and centenaries. With the centenary of the outbreak of World War I next year, historians will ask: why do anniversaries matter? What significance do they hold in the modern world? How do they shape media coverage of history and affect the ways in which we remember? The fascinating and diverse panel will cover the medieval to the modern era, including specialists on 1492, the Irish Decade of Commemorations, the Significance of the Centenary Project and the Sheffield 1914: Lives and Headlines project.

Participants include: Dr Caoimhe Nic Dhibhid, Dr Caroline Dodds Pennock, Lydia Rollinson, Amy Ryall, Helen Smith and Dr Charles West
Professor Helen Weinstein is a historian of contemporary culture, researching how narratives of the past function in our society and how identities are constructed in the present using the past. As a member of the BBC History Editorial Advisory Board, she is heavily involved in shaping the national dialogue on the commemoration of the First World War as an advisor and broadcaster at the BBC. In addition, Helen is making some of the BBC documentary and online content for the World War One commemoration with her team at Historyworks TV Ltd. Helen is also a very experienced broadcaster and producer, as well as a founding director of the Institute for the Public Understanding of the Past, University of York. She is now a Research Professor as a Fellow of Clare Hall, University of Cambridge, where she is completing a book which is an analysis of public engagement, policy and participation, entitled The Public Past: History, Meaning, and Society (forthcoming, Routledge, 2014). If you are unable to attend, you can submit a question for the panel via twitter to @unishefhistory, where the event will also be live-tweeted. The hashtag for the event is #historymatters. We will be continuing the discussion afterwards on the History Matters blog at http://www.historymatters.group.shef.ac.uk/. For more information, contact Dr Caroline Dodds Pennock (c.pennock@sheffield.ac.uk or @carolinepennock).