a note from Hookland about the purpose of fakelore and weirdfolk



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Chartist Walking Tour of London, with British Library Labs

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map of the route, overlaid on Richard Horwood's 1799 map of London On Monday 21 September, as part of my British Library Labs project, we held a Chartist day and walking tour around West London. The Political Meetings Mapper has uncovered over 125 venues in London used for Chartist meetings in the 1840s. The BL Labs team took over 30 academics and members of the general public round a tour of some of the sites that I found still standing today.  We were pleased so many people turned up in costume, and everyone got to wear a traditional red, cream and green rosette! Thanks to every one for coming along, and braving the rain. Thanks also to Mahendra Mahey of the BL for doing the running round organising logistics, and to Adam Lloyd Jones for the filming.  We began with some talks in the Foyle Centre for Conservation conference suite. Mahendra Mahey introduced the work of BL Labs. I then discussed the Political Meetings Mapper and gave a background to Chartis...
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Spatial theory, cultural geography, and the 'spatial turn'

I'm currently working on various seminar papers, and the mood among many historians is that we need theory back in history. James Vernon made an impassioned plea for a return to theory in his plenary lecture for the 2011 Social History Society conference. Basically his message was 'what are we afraid of?' A focus on empiricism has meant we have lost sight of the big ideas, and the big frameworks that shape history. The SHS used to have a theory strand for its conference, but we dropped it a few years ago because the number of papers offered was in decline. In response to Joyce, however, the SHS has reintroduced the 'theory and methods' strand for the next conference. Perhaps this is a sign that theory is back on the agenda. I too have neglected theory for the past few years. I went on a cultural geography bender in the last year of my DPhil research, and also immersed myself in social movement studies. My first article, 'The Search for General Ludd' was im...
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