• Skip to content
  • Skip to footer
  • Accessibility options
University of Brighton
  • About us
  • Business and
    employers
  • Alumni and
    supporters
  • For
    students
  • For
    staff
  • Accessibility
    options
Open menu
Home
Home
  • Close
  • Study here
    • Courses and subjects
    • Find a course
    • A-Z course list
    • Explore our subjects
    • Academic departments
    • Visiting the university
    • Explore: get to know us
    • Upcoming events
    • Virtual tours
    • Chat to our students and staff
    • Open days
    • Applicant days
    • Order a prospectus
    • Ask a question
    • Studying here
    • Accommodation and locations
    • Applying
    • Undergraduate
    • Postgraduate
    • Transferring from another university
    • The Student Contract
    • Clearing
    • International students
    • Fees and finance
    • Advice and help
    • Advice for students
    • Advice for parents and carers
    • Advice for schools and teachers
    • Managing your application
    • Undergraduate
    • Postgraduate
    • Apprenticeships
  • Research
    • Research and knowledge exchange
    • Research and knowledge exchange organisation
    • The Global Challenges
    • Centres of Research Excellence (COREs)
    • Research Excellence Groups (REGs)
    • Our research database
    • Information for business
    • Community University Partnership Programme (CUPP)
    • Postgraduate research degrees
    • PhD research disciplines and programmes
    • PhD funding opportunities and studentships
    • How to apply for your PhD
    • Research environment
    • Investing in research careers
    • Strategic plan
    • Research concordat
    • News, events, publications and films
    • Featured research and knowledge exchange projects
    • Research and knowledge exchange news
    • Inaugural lectures
    • Research and knowledge exchange publications and films
    • Academic staff search
  • About us
  • Business and employers
  • Alumni, supporters and giving
  • Current students
  • Staff
  • Accessibility
Search our site
Very grainy de-focused black and white image showing soldiers in a wide terraced street. Middle ground standing with rifles, foreground walking towards camera with helmets and rifles. Civilians on pavement and walking across the road. Image of Belfast str
Centre for Memory, Narrative and Histories
  • What we do
  • Join us for study, work or visit
  • Who we are

Welcome to the Centre for Memory, Narrative and Histories

The Centre for Memory, Narrative and Histories at the University of Brighton fosters research excellence in modern cultural history and cultural memory studies.  

Our researchers investigate the complex relationships between past, present and future, foregrounding subordinate and marginalised history and memory in relation to official narrative, and focusing on questions of power, identity and experience.  

The Centre for Memory, Narrative and Histories is committed to historical research that challenges social inequalities, oppressions and injustices, interrogates received meanings of the past, and produces alternative accounts that help to generate transformative thinking and politics. 

Emphasising the plural 'histories', our interdisciplinary centre brings together researchers with related and complementary interests, providing a focus for research development and a platform for engagement with the wider academic community and partners working outside of higher education.

  • Latest activities, events and opportunities - visit our Memory, Narrative and Histories blog site.
  • We welcome new members and associates at the Centre for Memory, History and Narratives. Please visit our 'Join us for study work or visit' page.

 

PhD applicants - find out more about studying within the centre

Contact the centre regarding membership enquiries, doctoral study, research collaboration or to receive regular news.

Memorynarrativehistories@brighton.ac.uk 

  

Colour photograph of dancers, showing two figures in vintage dresses and shoes on a lit panel colour-block dancefloor.

What we do

Grainy coloured photograph. Children together with older figures examine brightly coloured cloth outdoors.

Join us for study, work, visit

Black and white indoor image of working group. Long tables. Two women at a table with threads and equipment dominate. Further tables and men in waistcoats and ties.

Who we are

Our latest research activity 
Visit our blog site for work-in-progess, events and opportunities. 

Our research in detail
Explore our centre on the university database of research and knowledge exchange.
 

Head and shoulders portrait of Deborah Madden, Director of the Centre for Memory, Narrative and Histories

An introduction from the Director of the Centre for Memory, Narrative and Histories, Dr Deborah Madden.

The Centre for Memory, Narrative and Histories is a unique centre for historical research located at the University of Brighton. Our uniqueness stems from three principles that shape our approach and the way we work.

Unlike more narrowly-focused research centres, Memory, Narrative and Histories embraces the full spectrum of practices developed to make sense of 'the past', of historical processes, and of temporal experience.

Our investigations range from oral history, life writing and testimony, to forms of cultural representation in the popular media, literature and the creative arts; from memory and commemoration to the creation and use of archives and collections; and from scholarship in cultural, social and political history to local and community history and public heritage. This eclectic breadth of interest enables us to ask questions about the interconnections and synergies that exist between these practices and the cultural circulation of meanings that result. 

The Centre for Memory, Narrative and Histories promotes interdisciplinary research enquiry and dialogue. We bring together researchers who approach their mutual interests from diverse angles, utilising research methods, concepts and theories from history, cultural studies and memory studies, and drawing also on, inter alia, literary, visual and screen studies and narratology to explore forms of representation in the past and about the past; on social anthropology and cultural geography to address relations between temporality and space/place; on psychoanalysis and sociology to situate understandings of the past, present and future within structures of selfhoods and society.

Our interdisciplinary research is organised principally, but not exclusively, according to themes which link individuals with cognate interests: in racism, Empire, colonialism and their contestation; in war, conflict and 'post-conflict' transformation; in health, illness and recovery; in cultural heritage; and in transnational histories and memories. 

The research centre aspires to produce research which is  transformative with respect to political violence and oppression, social inequality and injustice. In this, we recognise a necessary relationship between academic scholarship and the many kinds of historical knowledge created outside the academy, by artists, activists, curators, teachers and other professionals, and by communities and social groups in the course of everyday life. Our centre affords a space for connection and conversation between people from different locations who share our conviction that history and memory are profoundly important in present circumstances and in relation to needs and imaginings of the future. 

Membership of the research centre is open to all University of Brighton staff and postgraduate researchers with relevant interests, with Associate Membership an option for colleagues outside the University. We welcome enquiries for supervision from prospective doctoral students ­– our PhD members play a crucial role in the vibrancy of the centre’s research culture – and for engagement and collaboration from academics and practitioners; and we invite contact from anyone who is simply interested to attend one of our programme of public events.

Dr Deborah Madden

News from the Centre for Memory, Narrative and Histories

CMNH on the University of Brighton news pages

 

Funded PhD opportunities in the UK 2023 at the University of Brighton

Funded PhD opportunities in the UK 2023 at the University of Brighton

Funded PhDs across sciences, arts, humanities and social sciences. Study for your postgraduate research degree.

13 January 2023

'You're Dead to Me': Three of our PhD students take Radio 4 research placements

'You're Dead to Me': Three of our PhD students take Radio 4 research placements

History-focused PhD students at the University of Brighton took three highly competitive placements for research roles on the popular Radio 4 show.

9 January 2023

Not just Shakespeare’s daughter… New study to bring Susanna out from her famous father’s shadow

Not just Shakespeare’s daughter… New study to bring Susanna out from her famous father’s shadow

University of Brighton's Dr Ailsa Grant Ferguson is undertaking the first in-depth study of how we remember Shakespeare's eldest daughter, Susanna.

8 March 2022

Brighton researcher highlights slave trade massacre link to London landmark

Brighton researcher highlights slave trade massacre link to London landmark

Dr Anita Rupprecht has used the podcast series Slavery and the City to discuss links between London’s Guildhall and an infamous 1780s slave ship massacre.

13 May 2021

Using the 2021 Census for a new examination of British society past and present

Using the 2021 Census for a new examination of British society past and present

Dr Deborah Madden will lead a collaborative humanities project using the upcoming census for creative learning sessions with under-represented local groups.

5 March 2021

Exploring claims to Beethoven’s legacy

Exploring claims to Beethoven’s legacy

Dr Aakanksha Virkar Yates appears on BBC Radio 3 on 25 September to discuss Beethoven’s artistic and philosophical legacy and his influence on politics.

24 September 2020

Displaying 1 to 6 of 6 Next Previous |

 

 

Our researchers write for

Logo for news service The Conversation

  • Queen Elizabeth II: the politics of national mourning left no space for dissenting voices Deborah Madden
  • Beethoven 250: how the composer’s music embodies the Enlightenment philosophy of freedom Aakanksha Virkar

Visit our blog site of work in progress, current opportunities and events

 

Techne Conflux: Animating the Archive: Co-Constructing Counter-Memories in Landscapes

Techne Conflux: Animating the Archive: Co-Constructing Counter-Memories in Landscapes

  Techne Conflux: Rethinking Archival Research, Methods and Practice Techne Conflux: Animating the Archive: Co-Constructing Counter-Memories in Landscapes   Professor Christiane Carri (HES-SO Valais-Wallis, Switzerland and VRF, University of Brighton).

‘You’re Dead to Me’: Three of our PhD students take Radio 4 research placements

‘You’re Dead to Me’: Three of our PhD students take Radio 4 research placements

‘You’re Dead to Me’: Three of our PhD students take Radio 4 research placements CMNH PhD students at the University of Brighton took three highly competitive placements for research roles on the popular Radio 4 show.

1968 and after: French radical posters and press at the crossroads of new left and ‘counterculture’ .

1968 and after: French radical posters and press at the crossroads of new left and ‘counterculture’ .

1968 and after: French radical posters and press at the crossroads of new left and ‘counterculture’ .

Joint CAPPE and CMNH Symposium: CfP – In the Shadow of Eugenic Thinking: Legacies of Eugenics in the UK

Joint CAPPE and CMNH Symposium: CfP – In the Shadow of Eugenic Thinking: Legacies of Eugenics in the UK

Call for Papers – In the Shadow of ‘Eugenic Thinking’: Legacies of Eugenics in the UK   A Joint CAPPE and CMNH one-day Symposium   3rd May, 9.

 

Read more from our updates, events and work-in-progress on our CMNH blog site.

Back to top
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • TikTok
  • YouTube
  • LinkedIn icon

Contact us

University of Brighton
Mithras House
Lewes Road
Brighton
BN2 4AT

Main switchboard 01273 600900

Course enquiries

Sign up for updates

University contacts

Report a problem with this page

Quick links Quick links

  • Courses
  • Open days
  • Order a prospectus
  • Academic departments
  • Academic staff
  • Professional services departments
  • Jobs
  • Privacy and cookie policy
  • Accessibility statement
  • Libraries
  • Term dates
  • Maps
  • Graduation
  • Site information
  • Online shop
  • COVID-19

Information for Information for

  • Current students
  • International students
  • Media/press
  • Careers advisers/teachers
  • Parents/carers
  • Business/employers
  • Alumni/supporters
  • Suppliers
  • Local residents