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Ali Bennett

@alibennett.bsky.social
3.2K followers 314 following 34 posts

Art Historian at University of Oxford. Interests = material culture, collecting, gift exchange & the ivory trade in East Africa and the British empire.

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Ali Bennett @alibennett.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
#HISTSTM #Envhist hive mind: If you were to offer ugrad students any introductory text on art & natural history in the context of travel & empire in the 19c what would you choose? Hoping for examples that raise important introductory questions before proceeding on to key examples in the seminar…
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Evan @evansmithhist.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Anyone interested in reviewing this book for the Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History? @jich.bsky.social uwap.uwa.edu.au/products/afr...
uwap.uwa.edu.au
Africa in Australia
Entangled Objects, Living Histories Richard Vokes   Since the turn of the millennium, ties between Africa and Australia have grown substantially. However, connections between the two continents are no...
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Catherine Frieman @cjfrieman.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
Very first sentence is about the knapped artefacts First Nations people here made with ballast stones. Def of interest to archs!
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Derek R. Peterson @unseenarchive.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
Colleagues will be sorry to hear that historian John Iliffe has this morning passed away in Cambridge at age 87. Iliffe was a maker of the academic field of African history. He took up a post at the University of Dar es Salaam shortly after Tanganyika's independence. 1/
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The Material Culture of Wills Project @materialwills.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
📢PROJECT UPDATE📢 You may have seen the news that the University of Exeter, home of the wills project, has placed 500 academics at risk of redundancy. The project leader Prof. Jane Whittle & project co-investigator Dr Laura Sangha are both at risk, alongside almost all of the History department. 1/
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Ali Bennett @alibennett.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
Using collections to answer the big questions of our time. This was a fascinating day! www.ccc.cam.ac.uk/blog/uganda-...
ccc.cam.ac.uk
Uganda, Cambridge and the Afterlives of Return - Collections Connections Communities
Dr Eva Namusoke, Senior Curator, African Collections Futures, McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research Focused on a return to Uganda, Afterlives of Return is a project within African Collections...
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Ali Bennett @alibennett.bsky.social · 12/06/2026
Looking very forward to participating in this! Please join us on 23 June
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Antony Hook @antonyhook.bsky.social · 14/05/2026
Democracy in Kent is under attack from a Reform administration that is clearly terrified of scrutiny. They are moving to quiet the opposition while prioritising songs and prayers over policy discussion. It is a bizarre and anti-democratic shift for our county. 🧵 1/6
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Ali Bennett @alibennett.bsky.social · 06/05/2026
Very glad to see this. Good work Uganda Studies Group!
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Ali Bennett @alibennett.bsky.social · 16/04/2026
Belatedly posting this contribution to "God's Collections'" on the ‘Relics of the Kibuuka shrine in present-day Uganda’ www.godscollections.org/case-studies...
godscollections.org
Relics of the Kibuuka shrine in present-day Uganda — Gods' Collections
by Alison Bennett
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Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 10/04/2026
CFP: Deadline for submissions: 15 April 2026 Workshop: Monday 15 June 2026, at UCL (London) #Skystorians
ucl.ac.uk
Call for Papers: ECR Workshop on South Asia and the Indian Ocean World
This Early Career Researcher's Workshop provides an interdisciplinary forum for doctoral and postdoctoral scholars from across the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences to present their research and to participate in debate constructive toward the completion of their projects.
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The English Historical Review @enghistrev.bsky.social · 10/04/2026
**Symposium News** We have a few spaces available at our symposium in Oxford next Friday (17 April) on the theme 'When there are no sources'. The event is free, but please sign up using the link below. Our speakers are John Arnold, Hannah Murphy, Jonathan Saha, Miranda Spieler and Tess Wingard.
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Liesbeth Corens @onslies.bsky.social · 06/04/2026
"has become"????
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Edgar Taylor @edgarjacktaylor.bsky.social · 03/03/2026
The Ham Mukasa Public Lecture will be delivered on Friday 6th March at the Makerere University Main Hall at 2pm and online. 'His Life and Legacy. A Public Lecture by James Galabuzi Mukasa, Ham Mukasa's Grandson'. All are welcome.
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Jon Earle @jonathonlearle.bsky.social · 04/04/2026
Thrilled to announce the upcoming colloquium @dumbartonoaks.bsky.social, "Flowers, Landscape Design, and Political Imagination in African History: Bridging the Gap Between Precolonial Pasts and Colonial Encounters," of which Rahab Kinyanjui and I are colloquiarchs. www.doaks.org/events/garde...
doaks.org
Garden and Landscape Studies Colloquium
November 13, 2026 | Jonathon Earle and Rahab Kinyanjui, Colloquiarchs
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Matt Houlbrook @tricksterprince.bsky.social · 11/03/2026
I really can't recommend this book highly enough. It's premise – that it is in loss that we find meaning – was as true for Kate’s subjects in the eighteenth century as it is for historians today.
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John McCafferty @jdmccafferty.bsky.social · 09/03/2026
This is the elephant Mahabir Deb, presented to the emperor Shah Jahan by 'Adil Khan. This elephant was worth 60,000 rupees. c. 1630 (V&A Museum, London)
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John McCafferty @jdmccafferty.bsky.social · 09/03/2026
Two 15th century European images of #elephants and then two early 16th century ones. (Albertina, Vienna)
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Dr Laura Sangha @lsangha.bsky.social · 04/03/2026
The British Trust for Ornithology's cuckoo tracking project has the most charismatic cast of characters. Find out more at: www.bto.org/get-involved...
Photos of the heads of 8 cuckoos, each with a name such as Arthur, Ashok, Cleeve, Jim and so on. The birds have a grey head, short curved dark bill and startling orange eye. They look rather comical, like grumpy wise old men. Map of the African continent with lots of lines in it's northern half and tags with initials on. The map shows the movements of a range of cuckoos that the initials belong to.
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Dr Laura Sangha @lsangha.bsky.social · 05/02/2026
“I needed to respond to the West Africa display as the story of the diaspora was missing”'. Looking forward to seeing Charmaine Watkiss's new works at the Royal Albert Memorial Museum soon. www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...
theguardian.com
‘It’s about hurling yourself into the unknown’: Charmaine Watkiss on turning a UK museum upside down
The artist’s work resurfaces skills and knowledge that colonialism buried. She explains how her drawings and sculpture weave botanical illustration and traditional craft to engage with generational tr...
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Claire Langhamer @clairelanghamer.bsky.social · 04/02/2026
For anyone interested in our 18-month post in British Studies please follow the link below. @ihr.bsky.social www.jobs.london.ac.uk/Job/JobDetai...
jobs.london.ac.uk
Jacob Price Fellowship in British Studies (18 month FTC):London Senate House - Hybrid
The University of London is both the UK’s largest provider of international distance and online learning and the convenor of a federation of 17 renowned higher education institutions.
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Ali Bennett @alibennett.bsky.social · 04/02/2026
Please join us next Wed 11 Feb 2-3.30 in Oxford for ‘Imperial Circulations Climate Knowledge, Port Labor, and Material Worlds’
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Ali Bennett @alibennett.bsky.social · 15/01/2026
New blog post for the fab @bemccollective.bsky.social summarising my recent @rhi-ihr.bsky.social article on labour, global commodities, and material skill in the Port of London’s ivory warehouse sites.manchester.ac.uk/bodies-emoti...
sites.manchester.ac.uk
New journal article on port labour, global commodities, and material skill development: a study of the ivory warehouse in the Port of London and its representation c.1860-1968
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John McCafferty @jdmccafferty.bsky.social · 14/01/2026
Dummy board of a woman peeling apples, c. 1690, of English make (Victoria & Albert Museum) Dummy boards were life-size images placed in stairwells or in front of fireplaces in summer time. They were designed to amuse and also to startle visitors.
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Sadiah Qureshi 🦈 @sadiahqureshi.bsky.social · 11/12/2025
The story of this collection awaits its historian and fullest telling. It really is an amazing insight into multiple forms of historical erasure, neglect, and theft.
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Alexia Yates @ayates.bsky.social · 12/12/2025
So awesome! Terrific and vocal support for the humanities. BUT this university is also near to slow-closing its languages programs and for real these schemes raise questions about economic feasibility arguments.
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Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick @mrcwarwick.bsky.social · 08/12/2025
#CfP Call for Papers Organised by Global History and Culture Centre, University of Warwick: Between Thompson and the Global: Reflections on Labour History Today Workshop: 26-27 June 2026, University of Warwick Deadline for abstracts: 30 January 2026 Submit to globalhistory@warwick.ac.uk
Between Thompson and the Global: Reflections on Labour History Today

We invite papers for a workshop entitled “Between Thompson and the Global: Rethinking Labour History Today”, to be held at the University of Warwick on 26-27 June 2026. This workshop will seek to bring together historians of labour to collectively reflect on a large historiographical shift that has taken place over the last two decades, from the social history of labour (in national contexts) to global and trans-national labour history. The social history of labour “from below” is a tradition initiated by E.P Thompson’s The Making of the English Working Class (1963), and extended over several decades by a robust tradition of politically engaged left-wing historical studies of the working classes: a tradition most powerfully entrenched in British historiography (but with many imprints elsewhere, ranging from the United States to Brazil to South Africa to India). The global history of labour, which revised and questioned many of the features of “Thompsonian” history-writing, has sought to overcome “methodological nationalism” in the writing of labour history, to investigate specific labour histories within a global frame, and to enable trans-national histories of workers and work. It has emerged as an increasingly dominant frame of reference for contemporary studies of labour around the world.
This workshop seeks to place these two historiographical traditions in conversation with each other, to examine the stakes of the passage from the older, “Thompsonian” tradition to the “global turn”, and to think about the changed meanings of “doing labour history” today. Participants are urged to explicitly reflect on the methodological and conceptual issues at stake in the practice of labour history.We would like to invite submissions that address (but are not necessarily limited to) the following themes:
1. To what extent has the global labour history tradition that has flourished over the last 20 years drawn upon or rejected the methodological and conceptual approaches of Thompsonian social/labour history? What other methodologies and concepts have been deployed and proven fruitful?
2. How do we address the burgeoning critique of Thompsonian social/labour history as parochial and Anglocentric (Bressey, 2015; Satia, 2020), and how have historians responded to this challenge and reshaped British labour history accordingly? What can historians of British labour learn from broader global trajectories of workforce formation and labour movements?
3. How might integrating histories of consumption, environment, and reproduction enrich our understanding of labour and its global entanglements?
4.	In what ways can collaboration between historians of Britain and the global south generate new analytical frameworks or unsettle established narratives of class, race, and empire?
5.	What kinds of politically-engaged global social and labour history can best respond to the contemporary challenges of rising global inequality and the appropriation of class politics by some sections of the populist right?
6.	The legitimacy of 'radical' forms of labour-history writing initially arose from politics, from the apparently established centrality of the industrial working class both in society and in projects of social emancipation. That centrality has now been in precipitous decline for a long time. In this context, how might we think about what the ‘politics of doing labour history’ actually implies today?
7. What has been gained and what has been lost in the shift from a labour history dominated by “history from below” to one dominated by global history?
Please send abstracts to globalhistory@warwick.ac.uk
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Alka Raman @alkaraman.bsky.social · 06/12/2025
How does a physical space become a site for global economic history? @alibennett.bsky.social unpacks the significance of African ivory in the Port of London 👇
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History of Art, University of Oxford @oxfordhistoryofart.bsky.social · 17/11/2025
Medieval Visual Culture Seminar 'New directions in the study of ivories from the Islamic world: A talk and handling session' Mariam Rosser-Owen (V&A) & Ashley Coutu (Pitt Rivers) 5pm Nov 20 🗓️ Khalili Research Center 🏢 (Co-sponsored by the Khalili Research Center) www.hoa.ox.ac.uk/event/mediev...
hoa.ox.ac.uk
Medieval Visual Culture Seminar
New directions in the study of ivories from the Islamic world: A talk and handling session
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Ali Bennett @alibennett.bsky.social · 25/11/2025
A brilliant opportunity to work on a new exhibition on the Global Renaissance.
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Alka Raman @alkaraman.bsky.social · 19/11/2025
The first volume of the Special Issue on Global Economic History @rhi-ihr.bsky.social is now out! It features 4 new articles on 4 commodities in global economic history - salt, ivory, raw cotton, and finished cotton goods - all open access. It was a great experience editing this volume!
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Ali Bennett @alibennett.bsky.social · 18/11/2025
Very pleased to have published this new article entitled ‘Port labour, global commodities, and material skill development: A study of the ivory warehouse in the Port of London and its representation c. 1860-1968’ with @rhi-ihr.bsky.social. Huge thanks go to @alkaraman.bsky.social as special editor!
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Royal Historical Society @royalhistsoc.org · 28/10/2025
We are very pleased to be working with @ihr.bsky.social and @findmypast.bsky.social on this new Applied History Fellowship programme. The launch event on Weds 19 November bit.ly/49vcgCS provides further details of the scheme and how to apply #Skystorians
bit.ly
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Ali Bennett @alibennett.bsky.social · 10/10/2025
On flags and ‘patriotism’ in Kent right now 😩 www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/10...
telegraph.co.uk
Access Restricted
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Anne E @anita5446.bsky.social · 13/08/2025
Fascinating article by Nuala Zahedieh about the centrality of canoes in early colonial exploitation 🗃️https://academic.oup.com/past/advance-article/doi/10.1093/pastj/gtaf021/8231030
academic.oup.com
Canoes in the Early English Caribbean: The Role of an Indigenous Technology in Making Mercantilism Work*
Abstract. The Caribbean, with its focus on cash crop production, played a major role in the rise of England’s Atlantic trading system and the making of mod
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University of Glasgow @glasgow.ac.uk · 09/07/2025
Over 90% of the world's museum collections are locked away in storage. Not anymore. UofG’s Museums in the Metaverse is bringing hidden treasures to life through 3D technology. Sign up to be first to hear about the beta launch www.gla.ac.uk/mim
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Liberating Narratives @liberatingnarratives.com · 26/07/2025
After my annual summer break, I'm back with a new series on teaching East Africa in world history. This first post is free and introduces some resources and themes we can use when teaching East Africa. 🗺️🗃️ www.liberatingnarratives.com/a-mixed-popu...
liberatingnarratives.com
“A Mixed Population of Muslims and Zanj”: Teaching East Africa in World History, c.1000 to Present
Discussion of teaching East Africa Africa in World History
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Dr. Verena Krebs @krebsverena.bsky.social · 20/02/2025
Two years later, it still feels surreal that I had the (quite literally) once-in-a-lifetime honour of giving a keynote at the International Medieval Congress in Leeds. Turning that talk into an essay—whose proofs arrived today—is just the icing on the absurdity cake.
Screenshot of page proofs for an essay titled «So, Who Killed the Elephant?». Tracing African-European Entanglements in the ‘Global Middle Ages’, Verena Krebs, Ruhr-Universität Bochum
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Archifau Prifysgol Bangor University Archives @archpbu.bsky.social · 12/08/2025
With it being #WorldElephantDay #ElephantDay we just had to post a photo of the Seal of the borough of Pwllheli featuring an elephant and castle, as it appears on the ceiling of the wonderful Shankland Reading Room here at Bangor University.
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The Linnean Society of London @linneansociety.bsky.social · 12/08/2025
Today is #ElephantDay! Enjoy these illustrations of the largest living land animals from our collections. The first is from C. d’Orbigny's, 'Dictionnaire universel d’histoire naturelle', 1847, and the second from B. Hawkins's, 'A comparative view of the human and animal frame', 1860.
A coloured illustration showing an elephant in motion. Behind is are faint illustrations of people, and other elephants being ridden. Text below reads "Elephant des Indes"An illustration of a human and an elephant stood close together. Through the silhouette of each animal its skeleton is visible in great detail.
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Steven Nelson @snelsonus.bsky.social · 17/07/2025
A bit of good news from the Yale University Art Gallery. www.nhregister.com/connecticut/...
nhregister.com
Yale Art Gallery abandons plans for federal grants over anti-DEI rules, funds African exhibit itself
"We have a world-spanning collection of art, and it is our mission to represent a diversity of cultures," a Yale Art Gallery spokesman said.
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Jonas Fossli Gjersø @jonasgjerso.bsky.social · 12/05/2025
Our latest @jich.bsky.social 'Current Debate' essay entitled 'Trump and the Commonwealth' is now #OpenAccess for a limited time. The journal's former editor Professor Philip Murphy offers some compelling commentary on the US president's ambition of joining the Commonwealth. doi.org/10.1080/0308...
doi.org
Trump and the Commonwealth
Published in The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History (Ahead of Print, 2025)
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Ali Bennett @alibennett.bsky.social · 25/04/2025
If you find yourself in the Margate area, do check out the Powell-Cotton Museum’s redisplay of some of its East African Collections. Especially useful for those interested in missionary collecting but also a new focus on Ugandan figures- not just the solitary British missionary ‘expert’ or explorer
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Freddy Foks @freddyfoks.bsky.social · 18/02/2025
How might ships change the way we understand migration policy in postwar Britain and its empire? My new article in @jbritishstudies.bsky.social offers an answer to that question. Here's a thread to hopefully pique your interest and maybe get you to read it 🧵🚢 www.cambridge.org/core/service...
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Hannah Barker @historyhannahb.bsky.social · 28/02/2025
So excited to see ‘Faith in the Town’ (co-authored my me, @kategibson Jeremy Gregory and Carys Brown & published in Open Access form (free to read) today by @oxfordunipress.bsky.social. Want to know how religious faith was woven through urban life in northern English towns 1740-1830? Then read on …
academic.oup.com
Faith in the Town: Lay Religion in Northern England, 1740–1830
Abstract. Faith in the Town explores the ways in which religious faith affected the lives of men, women, and children in the increasingly urban and industr
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Freddy Foks @freddyfoks.bsky.social · 04/02/2025
Manchester have posted 14 more postdoc positions in 'SHAPE' disciplines - 4x simon fellowships and 10(!) hallsworth fellowships. Simon eligibility is 'within 4 years of PhD award', except career breaks www.humanities.manchester.ac.uk/research/fun... Happy to discuss these via email
humanities.manchester.ac.uk
Simon and Hallsworth Fellowships | Faculty of Humanities | The University of Manchester
Find out the Simon and Hallsworth Fellowships at Manchester, our Faculty of Humanities funding scheme for early career researchers with a doctoral degree.
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Ali Bennett @alibennett.bsky.social · 21/01/2025
Such excellent and important work, @zoecormack.bsky.social and team!
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Loot and Plunder @andrewheavens.bsky.social · 21/01/2025
A piece of Ethiopia's Maqdala plunder comes under the spotlight A diptych linking Dürer and Christian Ethiopia likely taken from Portugal to Ethiopia by Jesuit missionaries. Quotes @zoecormack.bsky.social @alulapankhurst.bsky.social @krebsverena.bsky.social www.theartnewspaper.com/2025/01/21/i...
theartnewspaper.com
Investigation shines fresh light on British Museum’s looted, Dürer-inspired diptych
The piece, one side of which is an enamel copy of a 16th-century woodcut, the other side crafted in Ethiopia, reveals how European icons became incorporated into the African country’s traditions
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Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 15/01/2025
Are you a postdoctoral (or equivalent) researcher in the UK within c. 10 years of your PhD? If so, the @britishacademy.bsky.social 's Early Career Research Network (ECRN) is designed & funded for you. North West & North Wales cluster is now live. 1/2 www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/news/early-c...
Exterior view of the British Academy, viewed from the small park to its north, looking south, with trees in front of the building on Carton House Terrace.
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