Interviews with Historians Exhibition

Please join us in the IHR Common Room, for a new exhibition: Interviews with Historians. There is no need to pre-book, please just drop by the IHR Common Room during out opening hours.

Interviews with Historians was a landmark series of interviews between prominent historians, created in the 1980s and early 1990s. The Interviews were filmed in a talking-heads style between older interviewees and younger interviewers. In them, the interviewees reflect on their lives and their historical interests, how the historical profession and historical research has developed, and where it might develop in future. The collection provides a fascinating insight into the lives of the historians interviewed, as well as rich information about their academic and social milieu and the professional lives of British historians in the 20th century. The exhibition marks the publication of the Interviews with Historians collection afresh, online on the IHR’s website, after a long period of unavailability. 
 
This exhibition features an opportunity to watch the Interviews at the place of their creation, the IHR. You can view ephemera from the original production and the subsequent project to digitise the videotapes to create a new online collection. You can also listen to a new IHR podcast series, A Historian’s Life, which picks up on the themes of the original Interviews, with a new set of historians reflecting on their lives.
 
Curation
This exhibition was curated by Adam Knight. Adam is an artist and Senior Tutor (Research) at the Royal College of Art on the Graduate Diploma in Art & Design. He teaches across art and design specialisms with a focus on fine art practice. He was Artist in Residence at the IHR in 2023. Adam was assisted in curating the exhibition by the Library & Digital team at the IHR and by Vanessa Rockel, History Community Liaison Office, IHR.
  
Find out more

• To access the Interviews with Historians collection: https://www.history.ac.uk/library-digital/ihrs-digital-collections/interviews-historians
• To access A Historian’s Life: https://www.history.ac.uk/podcasts/a-historians-life
• To contact Adam and the curatorial team: [email protected]