Centre for History, Culture and Memory (CHICAM)

Huddersfield’s Centre for History, Culture and Memory (CHICAM) is a community of researchers who work in a range of historical and literary fields.  Our connections extend outwards through collaborative projects, affiliates and networks and our members include postgraduate students, early career researchers, University of Huddersfield academics and affiliates at other institutions.  CHICAM’s purpose is the collaborative interrogation of meanings, values, cultures and commemorations across the Medieval, Early Modern, Modern and Contemporary Periods.  Alongside historians, museum professionals, archivists and literary specialist, we include creative writing practitioners, whose award-winning work often centres on the past and explorations of the historical imagination.  

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 Centre’s Director, Dr Rebecca Gill, warmly welcomes all interested scholars and students to attend our next event, follow us on Twitter @CHICAMatHud or join our mailing list.