Julia Laite gives latest Royal Historical Society lecture

6 May 2024

On Friday 3 May the Royal Historical Society hosted the latest in its 2024 series of lectures. Friday’s lecture —  ‘Possible Maps: Ways of Knowing and Unknowing at the Edge of Empire (Newfoundland c. 1763-1829)’ — was delivered by Professor Julia Laite (Birkbeck, University of London).

Julia’s lecture explored official and unofficial, and colonial and Indigenous, ways of mapping and knowing Newfoundland in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The island’s foreshores and coastal waters were considered of vital economic and strategic importance to the British, while its hinterland was thought too barren and empty for landward expansion. With the aide of four ‘possible maps’, Julia’s lecture reconsidered the place of this ‘unknown’ island and its difficult history within the British Empire.

Recordings of Julia’s lecture will be available soon.

Forthcoming lectures and events from the Royal Historical Society

On Thursday 23 May, the Society visits historians at Brunel University. The visit concludes, at 5pm, with a guest lecture by Professor Corinne Fowler (University of Leicester) who will be speaking on ‘Country Walks Through Colonial Britain’.

The lecture, which comes shortly after publication of Corinne’s new book, Our Island Stories. Country Walks through Colonial Britain, will explore the impact and legacy of British colonialism on the British countryside. The lecture is part of Brunel University’s Research Festival and all are welcome to attend. Booking is available here.

Other forthcoming events include training sessions and panel discussions on: