R3 Sixth Annual Undergraduate Research Symposium 2025/26

Tuesday 19 May 2026 from 12:00-17:00 in Simon Building 4.04. 

12-12:10pm – Introductions and Welcome

12:10-1:20pm Panel 1: The Politics of Race in Modern Britain

Chair: Dr Alex Campsie

Hunter Mirpuri (History)- Making Britain Home: Culture, Community, and Resistance in Black British History

Ava Goldin (English Literature and History) - The Limits of Integration: Diasporic Space and Caribbean Migrant Fiction in Postwar Britain.

Lucy Latham - How have historians explained the rise of Black Power in Britain during the 1960s? 

Maddy Jennings (History and Sociology)- The 'Inner City': A Stigmatised Space or Modern-Day Institutionalised Imperialism.

Eva Gowen (History and Arabic) – The History of Manchester’s music scene and its representation in current political discourses.

1:20-2:20pm Panel 2: Tools of colonial rule, Colonialism and Post-colonial Subjectivities 

Chair: Dr Paola Vargas Arana

Amariah Annabel Antah (Educational Psychology)- How does the British education system construct, limit and police Black students’ identities?

Petra Tona (History and Arabic)– Language as a tool to culturally colonise and absorb colonial subjects under European/White hegemony.

Anna Whelan (Politics and Modern History)- A study of British imperialism in Ireland, India, and South Africa and how this prefigured totalitarianism in Europe, applying a totalitarian framework to British colonial governance. 

Jannah Ahmed (Arabic and Middle Eastern Studies)- An exploration into the process of postcolonial identity creation through the lens of postcolonial Arab world literature with applied post-colonial theory.

2:20-2:30pm - comfort break 

2.30-3.30pm Panel 3 Colonialism in Asia 

Chair: Dr Olivia Mitchell 

Laurenne Pickard (History and French)- ‘Almost the Same, but Not White': The 6th Nizam of Hyderabad's Performance of Authority Under British Paramountcy.

Sania Saijjad (Politics and Modern History)- Constructing the 'Muslim Fanatic': British Sovereignty and Colonial Discourse in South Asia, 1857-1888.

Deeyah Mannan - Arms and Armour of the Sikh Raj: Fragments of Punjab.

Samdisha Chawl (History and Sociology) - How was theatre used as a stage for ideological contestation in colonial India 1907-47?

3.30-4.30 Panel 4: Gender, Colonial Rule, and Decolonisation 

Chair: Dr. Jesús Cháirez-Garza 

Polly Hill (History) - ‘Celestial Beauties’ and  Abhorrent Devils’: Chinese Female Representations in 19th Century American Media.

Keera Kalirai (History) - Who Speaks for the Widow? A Comparative Study of Responses to Roop Kanwar’s Sati.

Helena Conybeare (Politics and Modern History)- Interpreting Gendered Silence: how have women’s experiences of sexual violence been invisibilised in narratives of King Leopold II’s Congo Free State?

Amara Saputra (Politics and International Relations)- Decolonization of development in the Global South.

4:30-4:40pm Thanks and close before sending people to the R3 Awards Ceremony which will take place in the History Common Room in Samuel Alexander Building, Rm. W2.14.