Meg Foster
As the self-proclaimed ‘Glastonbury of conferences’, the Modern British Studies (MBS) conference promised to showcase cutting-edge research, and it certainly did not disappoint. Quite apart from opening proceedings with an early-career researcher panel on precarity in MBS, one of the first plenaries was on ‘Teaching Modern Britain: inclusive pedagogies’. In the academic conference scene, it is rare to find any explicit reference to teaching practice, let alone in a ‘prime time’ spot like a plenary.
What is even rarer is the approach that the panellists took to the discussion. This was not an abstract debate about the curriculum or new classroom technologies (although these topics did come up); this was a discussion from the standpoint of four academic presenters about their own unique experiences, and how to represent, accommodate and translate these diverse perspectives into critical teaching practice. The panel, chaired by Matthew Francis, was composed of Mo Moulton, who spoke as a trans academic, Christienna Fryar as an historian and woman of colour, Lucy Robinson as an academic with an invisible disability and Susan D. Amussen as professor who taught disadvantaged students.
Cambridge Gender and Sexuality History Workshop 