LAHP Annual Research Day 2025
We are very pleased to invite our current students and partners to the 2025 LAHP Annual Research Day which will take place in person on Thursday 15th May 2025 at King’s College London. This is a brilliant opportunity to meet fellow students across LAHP cohorts, and to share your work in a fun and relaxed way. The event will include morning tea and coffee, lunch, and a drinks reception at the end of the day.
We hope that as many of you as possible will be able to attend the event and encourage students from all cohorts to join us and think about their research collectively. The event will include short student presentations, thesis and photo competitions, and a presentation from a keynote speaker. Please see below the full programme for the day.
Date/Time: Thursday 15th May 2025, 10am – 6pm
Location: Lecture Theatre 1, Bush House, Strand campus, 30 Aldwych, London, WC2B 4BG
Programme:
| Time | Location | Activity |
| 10:00 – 10:30 | Breakout Space | Registration / Tea and Coffee |
| 10:30 – 10:45 | Lecture Theatre 1 | Welcome and introduction LAHP Director Prof Johanna (Jo) Malt |
| 10:45 – 11:45 | Lecture Theatre 1 | Student presentations (4 students participating,15 minutes each): 10:45 – 11:00 Philippa Booth – Royal College of Music ‘Disordered Eating in Musicians: A Mixed-Methods Exploration’ 11:00 – 11:15 Thomas Parker – University College London ‘The Aesthetics of Noise: Latent Fields of Potential Architecture and Operations in the Non-Visual’ 11:15 – 11:30 Rosie Price – King’s College London ‘The Body is a Situation by Rosie Price. A book of personal and philosophical essays about desire and freedom in the context of sexual violence’ 11:30 – 11:45 Sophy Higgins – King’s College London ‘High flying: aviation and the upper classes in the interwar years’ |
| 11:45 – 12:15 | Lecture Theatre 1 | Student presentations – Group Q&A – facilitated by Jo Malt |
| 12:15 – 12:30 | Breakout Space /Breakout Rooms | Break |
| 12:30 – 13:00 | Lecture Theatre 1 | 3-minute thesis competition (6 students participating): Ffion Hildred – University College London ‘Belonging in the British Army: Investigating identity and the self through corporeality’ Sohaila Baluch – Royal College of Art ‘Inhabiting Discomfort: On Being a British South Asian Woman’ Adele Howes – Queen Mary University of London ‘Understanding the evolution and platformisation of domestic practice’ Laurence Wen-Yu Li – Royal College of Art ‘Fashioning the Body: Silk Ribbons on Late Qing Chinese Women’s Clothing’ Valerie Yeung – University College London ‘Untangling Early Islamic glass trade along the Silk Roads’ Francesca Balestro – University College London ‘“Emergency”: the anterior future of climate change and the contemporary novel’ |
| 13:00 – 14:00 | Breakout Space | Lunch |
| 14:00 – 14:30 | Lecture Theatre 1 | Keynote speaker presentation: Dr Sundeep Lidher, Lecturer in Black and Asian British History (post-1800) in the Department of History at King’s College London Sundeep is Lecturer in Black and Asian British History (post-1800) at King’s College London. Her PhD (Cambridge, 2021) explored the evolution of British citizenship and immigration policy in the years between 1945 and 1962. Over the years, and alongside her historical research, Sundeep has worked on various public history projects to make British histories of migration and empire more visible in England’s secondary schools. From 2016-2018, Sundeep co-led the multi-award-winning AHRC-funded ‘Our Migration Story'[www.ourmigrationstory.org.uk] website project. Between 2018-2020, she worked with colleagues to develop the AHRC-funded ‘Beyond Banglatown’ [www.beyondbanglatown.org.uk] website for schools. Most recently, between 2020-2022, Sundeep acted as Co-Investigator on an ESRC-funded research project exploring the role of teacher training in delivering more ‘diverse’ British histories in secondary schools. Findings from Sundeep’s public history projects have been published in the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, the Journal of Ethnic and Racial Studies, and in various policy briefings. Keynote title: Engaged Histories: Scholarship, Schools, and ‘Our Migration Story’ Introduction by LAHP student Sophy Higgins (KCL) |
| 14:30 – 15:00 | Lecture Theatre 1 | Q&A with Dr Sundeep Lidher, facilitated by Sophy Higgins |
| 15:00 – 15:15 | Breakout Space /Breakout Rooms | Break |
| 15:15 – 16:30 | Lecture Theatre 1 | LAHP alumni panel discussion and Q&A – ‘Career Pathways’: Panel Members: Dr Nick Makoha (joining online) Dr Nick Makoha is a Ugandan poet and playwright based in London and founder of Obsidian Foundation. His new collection The New Carthaginians is published on Penguin. Winner of the 2021 Ivan Juritz Prize and the Poetry London Prize. In 2017, Nick’s debut collection, Kingdom of Gravity, was shortlisted for the Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection and was one of the Guardian’s best books of the year. His poems have appeared in Poetry, the Cambridge Review, the New York Times, Poetry Review, Poetry Wales, Rialto, Poetry London, TriQuarterly Review, 5 Dials, Boston Review, Callaloo Birmingham Lit Journal and Wasafiri. (2019-20 LAHP cohort, KCL) Dr Rianna Walcott Dr Rianna Walcott is an Assistant Professor of Communication at the University of Maryland, and Associate Director of the Black Communication and Technology (BCaT) Lab as part of the DISCO Network. A LAHP alumna (2017-18 cohort), Dr Walcott earned her PhD in Digital Humanities at King’s College London for her research on Black (and specifically Black British) communication practices across social media platforms, locating the evolution of a hybrid ‘Black British’ identity against the wider Black diaspora. She combines digital research, Black feminist praxis, decolonial studies, arts and culture, and mental health advocacy in her work. In the time left over, she moonlights as a jazz singer. (2017-18 LAHP cohort, KCL) Dr Eliot Benbow Dr Eliot Benbow is currently a Research Associate at the Institute of Historical Research on the Unlocking Upcycled Medieval Data AHRC-DFG research project. Between April 2024 and April 2025 he worked as a Research Associate at MoLA (Museum of London Archaeology) on the Bartmann Goes Global AHRC-DFG project. Between September 2019 and March 2024 he worked on a LAHP CDA with Queen Mary University of London and the Museum of London entitled “The Shrine, the Marketplace, and the Home: Religious Materiality in London during the Long Fifteenth Century (1370-1530)” His work considers the intersections of medieval devotion, trade and migration with a focus on London and material culture. Panel discussion facilitated by Jo Malt. |
| 16:30 – 17:00 | Lecture Theatre 1 | Prizes and final words Winners and runners up announced for the 3-minute thesis competition and the image competition LAHP Directors: Jo Malt and Prof Tony Fisher |
| 17:00 – 18:00 | Breakout Space | Drinks reception |