Midlands History and Cultures research - University of Birmingham

Utopias in Crisis: The past, present and future of Bournville Village Trust

Professor Matt Houlbrook and Dr Tara Hamling

Utopias in Crisis is the first major research project of a new partnership between Bournville Village Trust and the Department of History, University of Birmingham.

This partnership is driven by a shared mission. To develop historical research in with the people and communities of Bournville and Birmingham. In doing this, we will shine new light on the diverse and multiple histories of the area, and showcase how heritage can be a force for good.

In the face of current existential social, economic, and environmental crises, this project poses a simple but profound question: What should the reforming social vision that defined Bournville Village Trust's foundation in 1900 look like today?

We will demonstrate the utility of historical research to bring new perspectives on contemporary challenges faced by housing providers and charitable trusts. We will return to the utopian thinking that forged BVT, reflect on our unique successes, and critically examine our past failures. Doing so, we will develop new models and strategies for sustainable service provision in the twenty-first century.

Haunted Midlands

Dr Jimmy Packham and Dr Imogen Peck

The Haunted Midlands project examines the ghosts and other spectres that haunt the literary and cultural histories of England’s Midlands. The project shines a light on the important role that the Midlands has played in the development of British and global gothic traditions: from Birmingham’s connection with classic spooky tales like A Christmas Carol and ‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow’, to the relationship Dudley has with Hollywood’s golden age of horror cinema, via the region’s haunted waterways, its sprawling suburbs, the ecological-industrial landscape of the Black Country, and the ghost-hunting of the University’s own first Principal, Oliver Lodge. The project also explores how the gothic – and its language of liminality, spectrality, repression and dis/possession – helps us better understand the role of this expansive but curiously nebulous and indefinable region in the cultural imagination.