Centre for History, Culture and Memory (CHICAM)

Huddersfield’s Centre for History, Culture and Memory (CHICAM) is a diverse community of academics from a range of backgrounds.  We are historians, literary scholars, linguists, musicians and practitioners of art, design and healthcare.  Our work is rooted in the methodological rigours of our individual disciplines, extending outwards to form collaborative projects and networks.  Our members range from postgraduate students and early career researchers to senior university leaders, and our work interrogates meanings, values, cultures and commemorations across the Medieval, Early Modern, Modern and Contemporary Periods, extending geographically from the USA to India and beyond.

CHICAM provides a vital forum for discussion and dissemination through local, national and international networks.  Our work embraces ‘culture and the past’ as well as ‘culture in the past’ – an approach that produces innovative, hybrid forms of historical research that often cross boundaries, sometimes defy academic conventions, and always find their base in academic rigour.  Our approaches to public history extend beyond the exploration of commemoration and memorialisation.  We embrace new understandings of the role of affect in historical research and our work explores ideas around the ‘guardianship of memory’.   We engage frequently with partners outside academia, with whom we work collaboratively to co-produce a range of public history projects.

Our longstanding reputation in medieval and early modern culture and in health histories, along with our rapidly expanding expertise in global and transnational history and the history of emotions, means that we have fostered high-quality projects with dynamic partners and institutions both locally and abroad. Among our many existing academic collaborations are projects with colleagues at Ruprecht-Karls University, Heidelberg, Germany, The University of Paris, France, and Osaka City University, Japan, whilst among our community partners we count the Royal Armouries Museum, Leeds, The National Trust, UK and the European Association for the History of Nursing, based in Milan, Italy. 

Our ambitious agenda is led by the Centre’s Director, Prof Christine Hallett, and the Centre’s Manager, Dr Chelsea Sambells and is supported by a steering group consisting of our Group Leads, Dr Vikram Visana, Dr Sarah Bastow, and Dr Lindsey Dodd.  We warmly welcome all interested scholars and students to attend our next event, follow us on Twitter, or join our mailing list.

CHICAM supports four interlocking and mutually-supportive research groups: