On 1 December, the Heritage Institute will be celebrating the release of three new books at a special event in the Leggate Theatre, at the University’s Victoria Gallery and Museum.
Marking the publishing of three significant and exciting books from University of Liverpool academics, the event will include music, readings and refreshments. Guests will receive a taste of the Middle East in the form of a traditional sweet box to take away, plus a chance to meet the authors and editors of the new publications.
The three books explore the worlds of urbanism, architecture, colonialism and migration and shine new lights on how cultures persist, evolve and expand in an ever-changing world.
Envisioning the Indian City edited by Supriya Chaudhuri, Nandini Das, Iain Jackson and Ian Magedera
This book offers a set of new, ground-breaking studies of Indian cities as sites of physical, cultural and historical encounter.
It places three colonial cities – Goa, Calcutta/Kolkata and Pondicherry/Puducherry – side by side with the postcolonial city of Chandigarh, created by the independent Indian state, to examine the specificities of cross-cultural exchanges, physical settings, urban flows, social imaginaries and built spaces, as developed over time and experienced by a variety of urban actors.
If the city is, as Henri Lefebvre described it, a space of ‘encounter, assembly, simultaneity,’ colonial cities demonstrated the encounter of European imperialism and capitalism with the non-European populations and cultures they sought to subjugate.
Architecture, Empire, and Trade – The United Africa Company by Iain Jackson, Ewan Harrison, Michele Tenzon, Rixt Woudstra and Claire Tunstall
This open access book tells a new and untold history of the architecture of West Africa in the colonial era, as revealed for the first time through the archives of the United Africa Company (UAC).
From the imperial Royal Niger Company’s charter in the 1890s through to its suave African department stores of the 1960s, the UAC – a British company firmly embedded in the economies of colonialism, extraction, and exploitation – became the largest commercial firm in West Africa, involved in almost every commercial enterprise and sector, and responsible for procuring architecture, infrastructure, and city real-estate across a vast region.
Tracing Intangible Cultural Migrant Heritage in the UK edited by Supriya Chaudhuri, Nandini Das, Iain Jackson and Ian Magedera
This book explores the role of intangible cultural heritage (ICH) among migrant communities in the UK.
It examines how diverse cultural practices, from life celebrations to death commemorations, have travelled with communities, evolved in new settings, and taken root in the UK. Through case studies from different community groups, spanning oral traditions, performing arts, social customs, and craftsmanship, this book illustrates how ICH becomes a vital part of everyday life, identity, and belonging within the UK’s multicultural mosaic.
Professor Iain Jackson, Dr Ataa Alsalloum and Dr Ian Magedera will be at the launch to talk about their work in more detail.
Speaking ahead of the event, Professor Soumyen Bandyopadhyay, Director of the Heritage Institute, said: “The Institute is deeply honoured to be able to host this event marking the publication of these three exciting books. Celebrating the diverse human stories from around the world and shining a rigorous academic light on how culture and heritage grow, change and are recorded is at the very heart of the Heritage Institute’s work. To help launch these new and vital pieces of research into the world is a real privilege for us, and we are looking forward to meeting everyone on 1st December.”
The event runs from 1pm to 4pm in the beautiful Leggate Theatre in the Victoria Museum & Gallery. Click here to register to attend.