Oxford History Project Book 1

[Janne Desir]

Welcometo The History of Dyslexia, a project tracing the origins of dyslexia. We're interested in its development in science, civil society and policy - from its first diagnosis by physicians in the late 19th century, to its present widespread and hard fought recognition in UK education. Explore this website to find out more about the early advocates, pioneers and researchers of dyslexia who got us where we are today.

Currently, the project is exploring three main strands: the science of reading, creating an authoritative account of the scientific debates over the definition of dyslexia and its causes; the politics of dyslexia, exploring how scientists and campaigners struggled to make the goverment take dyslexia seriously; and the everyday experience of dyslexia, uncovering how dyslexic people and their families came to understand the subject.

To inform each of these, the project is creating the UK Dyslexia Archive - a collection of oral histories of major actors in dyslexia's history and other relevant materials, including personal papers, case notes and unpublished histories.

The project extends its sincere thanks to all those who have contributed to the archive so far. The project is funded by the John Fell Fund (ref. 152/045) and the Wellcome Trust Institutional Strategic Support Fund 2014-16.

Truly interdisciplinary in our perspective, the project provides a platform to invigorate, and enrich, the more traditional disciplines of business history, labour history, economic history, political economy, and institutional sociology.

Representatives from the Polish, Lithuanian, Croatian, Slovak and Swedish Embassies, and the Romanian Cultural Institute, visited Oxford on 21st October for the official launch of the project, entitled Jagiellonians: Dynasty, Memory and Identity in Central Europe.

Dr Natalia Nowakowska of the History Faculty and Somerville College, who is leading the project, said: 'The project aims to deepen our understandings of how royal dynasties in this period operated, and what kind of human and political institution they were. It will look at how the very different ways in which the Jagiellonians are remembered today across Central, Eastern and Northern Europe, and how they have shaped national identities. Ultimately we want to understand, through the Jagiellonians, what Central Europe is, a question which is just as pertinent now as it ever was.

'Our aim is that, by the end of this project, far more people will understand who the Jagiellonians were, and the role they played in our shared European history. The Jagiellonians were cosmopolitan, highly international, and raise questions about the boundaries and identity of Europe itself: in that, they are surely a dynasty for our times.'

The dynastic line came to an end with King Sigismund Augustus of Poland-Lithuania, who married three times but failed to produce an heir. His second marriage is heavily mythologised in Central Europe. He married Barbara Radziwiłł, a Lithuanian noblewoman who was thought unfit to be queen, creating a major political scandal.

On becoming a Trustee two years ago I was asked to develop an oral history project relating to the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery. This is an ongoing project that will grow over time and hopefully help capture some of the backgrounds, stories, philosophies and memories of various symposiasts over the years, be they former trustees, organisers, or general attendees who are willing to share their experiences publicly.

We invite Syrian participants from all backgrounds and walks of life. Everyone is welcome. The project strives to be apolitical, humanitarian and community facing. Participants are free to tell their stories in their own words in Arabic or English or alternating between both languages. We hope to create a lasting institutional archive of around 50 recorded interviews for future historians and researchers using filmed testimonies, zoom recordings and photos.

The project arose from conversations held during a Centre for Gender, Identity and Subjectivity (CGIS) Summer 2020 workshop, attended by members of Oxford and Glasgow University. It was initially conceived as an oral history project recording the impact of the Corona Virus pandemic on under-represented and minority communities in the UK.

During Summer of 2020, with the aid of BBC and free-lance film cameraman Nick London, we were able to film participants on location at home and across the United Kingdom. While the initial aim was to record perceptions of life in lock-down, participants were keen to recount many other aspects of lived experience both in Syria and the UK. The testimonies took shape as loosely structured life-stories, often more than 120 minutes long.

In Autumn 2020 we decided to continue the project despite the lock-down restrictions using recorded zoom interviews. This represented a departure from standard oral history practices. We were sensitive to the potential pitfalls of remote communication. All interviews are encrypted and securely stored, no licence is granted to Zoom or third parties to use content. We were also acutely aware that eye contact and other vital embodied social cues and signals might be missed or misinterpreted. The almost imperceptible time lag between voice and image transmission contributes to the tiring and unsettling nature of everyday zoom interactions. However, against all expectations, the interviews were extremely fruitful and hugely rewarding. The zoom setting promoted an accelerated intimacy. Participants felt comfortable in their home space and were tolerant of the constraints posed by the digital medium, not least instances of interrupted internet. It appeared to me that the remote divide encouraged everyone to immediately connect on a more informal and personal level. The potentially stressful and intrusive pre-interview social rituals, including perceived obligations of hospitality, were no longer applicable. The digital platform created a curiously freeing, intimate and informal space.

The new digital communication platforms arising from the pandemic represent a novel and exciting chapter in oral history methodology. Historians will be able to interview participants across the globe using an economic, lasting and environmentally friendly medium that, if used ethically, with care and sensitivity, and in combination with established practices may prove to be extraordinarily fruitful. The use of digital communication platforms will of course give rise to new ethical and legal challenges and constraints, but this is also the case for more established forms of live-subject research, not least on account of the recent changes to GDPR legislation.

Bee Wilson grew up in Oxford in a family of academics. She studied history as an undergraduate at Cambridge and obtained a Masters in political science from Penn State University. Her interest in the history of ideas and the history of political thought lead her to complete a PhD on French utopian socialism. She came to food from a taste perspective; childhood memories include fighting her sister for the last jam tart and the smell of warm coffee beans at Cardews of Oxford where she accompanied her mother shopping, before heading to the delicatessen followed by the butchers, where she remembers the sight of game birds hanging up.

David Sutton (born 18 October 1950) grew up in Stourbridge, a market town in the West Midlands, moving to Saffron Waldon before his studies and career took him from Leicester to Dublin, Sheffield, Paris, Coventry and Reading, where he now lives. He was awarded his PhD in 1978 from the University of Leicester, where his tutor and mentor was the poet G. S. Fraser. David trained as a librarian at Trinity College Dublin and the University of Sheffield. He worked at the British Library for a period before studying food history under Professor Jean-Louis Flandrin at the Universit de Paris Huit Vincennes from 1978 to 1980. After his studies in Paris, David returned to his previous career, and is currently Director of Research Projects, based in the University Library, at the University of Reading. In 1982 David became the senior research officer of the Location Register of English Manuscripts and Letters project. Since 1984, David has been the UK editor of WATCH (Writers Artists and Their Copyright Holders), a joint project between the University of Reading and the University of Texas at Austin.

Helen Saberi was born and lived in Yorkshire until she was nineteen years old. After secretarial college in Leeds she applied for a post in the Foreign office and moved to London. She was posted first to Warsaw, Poland and then to Kabul, Afghanistan where she stayed until 1980 when she returned to England.

Dr Len Fisher is a scientist, writer and broadcaster whose work shares how scientists think about the problems of everyday life. Author of a number of books, including the 2002 How to dunk a Donut, he has won an Ig Nobel Prize for showing how physics could be used to work out the best way to dunk a biscuit. Len has written and broadcast extensively about the role of science in food, cooking and gastronomy. He was born in Sydney Australia. His father was English but recognised education as a path out of poverty and encouraged his children to be academic.

Len originally trained as a physical chemist, working in the area of colloid and surface science, although he has since taken a degree in biology and an MA (with distinction) in philosophy. After nearly two decades working in food research in Australia, with excursions into biomedical science, nano-technology, mining engineering, and philosophy, Len moved to the UK, first in the anatomy department at University College London, and then in the Physics Department at the University of Bristol, where he still holds an honorary position, and which he combined for a while with teaching science communication at the University of the West of England.

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