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Registration open for Port Cities and Maritime Cultures Conference

Posted: Tuesday 13th May 2025

Registration open for Port Cities and Maritime Cultures Conference

 

Event date: 10-11 June, 2025

Location: University of Portsmouth, Richmond Building

 

Sign up for the inaugural conference organised by the Centre for Port Cities and Maritime Cultures

 

The Centre for Port Cities and Maritime Cultures (PCMC) welcomes delegates to its inaugural international conference, held in collaboration with the Department of History at Hong Kong Baptist University.

This interdisciplinary conference aims to unite scholars and practitioners from around the globe who work at the intersection of urban and maritime studies, humanities, and social science research and impact.

Sessions will focus on a variety of themes, including sailortown, marginalised voices in maritime communities, international horizons and maritime mobilities, maritime museums and the modern waterfront.

Professor Brad Beaven and Dr Karl Bell, Co-directors of PCMC, said: "We are delighted to receive this support from Lloyd's Register Foundation for our inaugural international conference. The Centre for Port Cities and Maritime Cultures puts learning from our maritime past at the core of our mission. The sponsorship will enable us to open the conference to a broader range of participants, to continue to encourage emerging and independent scholars, and forge new dialogues with our partners in heritage and public history institutions."

The standard rate for conference attendance is £150. The reduced rate for students is £80. 

The conference will be held at the University of Portsmouth's Richmond Building, Portsmouth, PO1 2DZ.

Register for conference

The conference programme is below:

Tuesday 10th June

08:30-09:00

Registration

09:00-09:10

Introduction and housekeeping:
Dr Guy Collender, Post Doctoral Senior Research Associate,
Centre for Port Cities and Maritime Cultures (PCMC), University of Portsmouth

 

Welcome: Professor Paul Smith, Dean,
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Portsmouth

9:10-10:30

 

3 x 20 minute presentations, followed by 20 minutes of questions

Session 1: Navigating life in sailortown

 

Chair: Professor Brad Beaven, Professor of Social and Cultural History, and Co-Director of PCMC, University of Portsmouth

 

  • Girlhood in a port city: Landscape, interiors and emotions
    Dr Emily Cuming, Senior Lecturer in English Literature,
    Liverpool John Moores University

 

  • Navigating maritime-urban boundaries: Sailortowns in nineteenth-century Germany

Dr Mathias Seiter, Principal Lecturer in History, and Member of PCMC, University of Portsmouth

 

  • Sailortown Revisited: Women, Children and the Social Life of Port Districts, c.1900

Dr Kristof Loockx, Postdoctoral Researcher, Centre for Urban History, University of Antwerp

10:30-11:00

Tea/coffee

11:00-12:20

 

3 x 20 minute presentations, followed by 20 minutes of questions

Session 2: Historical perspectives on major port cities

 

Chair: Dr Mathias Seiter, Principal Lecturer in History, and Member of PCMC,
University of Portsmouth
 

  • Malevolent waters: Nineteenth-century journalistic explorations of urban decay on the Thames and Gothenburg Rivers, 1850-1900
    Professor Brad Beaven, Professor of Social and Cultural History, and Co-Director, PCMC, University of Portsmouth, and
    Dr Tomas Nilson,     Senior Lecturer in History, School of Education, Humanities and Social Sciences, Halmstad University, and Associate Member of PCMC
     
  • Company Copenhagen: Architectural, economic and social influences of merchant companies on a European capital, 1602-1950

Benjamin Asmussen, Senior Researcher of Maritime History,
National Museum of Denmark

 

  • Navigating empires: Peranakan communities and Singapore’s cultural industry, 1819-1970

Dr Kam Chau Kwok, Lecturer, Department of History, Hong Kong Baptist University

12:20-13:20

Lunch

13:20-14:40

3 x 20 minute presentations followed by 20 minutes for questions

Session 3: Recovering marginalised voices in maritime communities
 

Chair: Paola Palma, Research and Innovation Development Manager, Department of Research and Innovation, and Executive Committee Member of PCMC, University of Portsmouth

 

  • SHE_SEES Portsmouth exhibition: Rewriting women into maritime history through creative co-production, enhanced visibility, and historical research

Dr Melanie Bassett, Senior Research Fellow in Public Engagement, and Executive Committee Member of PCMC, University of Portsmouth, and Sarah Mott, Interpretation Coordinator, Heritage Centre, Lloyd’s Register Foundation

 

  • Recovering marginalised voices: Unearthing invisible seafaring histories of empire

Asif Shakoor, Independent scholar

 

  • What does the sea mean to me: Connecting isolated communities to local blue spaces

Sam Southern, PhD student, School of Society and Culture, University of Plymouth

14:40-15:10

Tea/coffee

15:10-16:30

 

3 x 20 minute presentations followed by 20 minutes for questions

Session 4: International horizons and maritime mobilities

 

Chair: Dr Karl Bell, Associate Professor of Cultural and Social History, and Co-Director of PCMC, University of Portsmouth

 

  • Children in transit: Childhood sea voyages to Shanghai, c. 1860-1940s

Professor Catherine Ladds, Department of History, Hong Kong Baptist University

 

  • Forging maritime modernity: Early Sino-European naval education and the pioneering Chinese maritime students, 1870-1900
    Dr Charlotte Steffen, Affiliate Researcher, Limassol Patticheion Municipal Museum, Historical Archive and Research Centre

 

  • Working-class lives in the Port of London: Combining hyperlocal solidarity and international horizons, 1880s-1930s

Dr Guy Collender, Post Doctoral Senior Research Associate, PCMC, University of Portsmouth

16:30-16:40

Tea/coffee

16:40-17:30

 

40 minute paper, 10 minute questions

Keynote address:

Health Equity and Public Health in Port Cities: Hong Kong and the Beriberi Problem (1890s-1940s)

Professor Tim Man Kong Wong, Director, Academy of Chinese, History, Religion and Philosophy, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences,
Hong Kong Baptist University, and Associate Member of PCMC

17:30-18:15

Wine reception

 

 

Wednesday 11th June

08:30-09:00

Registration

09:00-10:40

 

4 x 20 minute papers, followed by 20 minutes for questions

Session 5: Routes to power and resources, and accompanying prejudices

 

Chair: Dr Melanie Bassett, Senior Research Fellow in Public Engagement, and Executive Committee Member of PCMC, University of Portsmouth

 

  • Gatekeeping in the water transport system of early Ming China,

Professor Ka Chai Tam, Associate Professor, Department of History, Hong Kong Baptist University

 

  • Fortresses and pirates, rivalries and treaties: A historical snapshot of the Yashwantgad Fort
    Saanika Patnaik, PhD student, Ashoka University

 

  • Coastal Cymru: The Welsh coast and transport heritage in the context of transformation
    Dr Louise Moon, Technical Lead - Heritage, Legacy and Sustainable Impact, Transport for Wales, and Associate Member of PCMC

 

  • No more booze: The expulsion orders against the Chinese in Venezuela, 1938-1941
    Dr Rudolph Ng, Lecturer in Global History, and Executive Committee Member of PCMC, University of Portsmouth

10:40-11:00

Tea/coffee

11:00-12:20

 

3 x 20 minutes papers, followed by 20 minutes for questions

Session 6: Today’s waterfront: Preserving urban-maritime heritage and embracing modernity

 

Chair: Dr Rudolph Ng, Lecturer in Global History, and Executive Committee Member of PCMC, University of Portsmouth
 

  • Preserving maritime New York City: Engaging public history in the Port of New York and New Jersey
    Dr Johnathan Thayer, Associate Professor, Queens College, City University of New York; Associate member of PCMC

and Stefan Driesbach-Williams, Archivist, The Seamen’s Church Institute, New York, New York

 

  • Problems and challenges in the conservation of maritime heritage in the port and city of Callao, Peru

Carlos Ausejo, PhD student in History, Member of PCMC,
University of Portsmouth

 

  • The waterfront city of the 21st century: The spectacularisation and consumption of the urban-water interface
    Dr Enrico Tommarchi, Lecturer in Urban Planning, Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, University of Dundee

12:20-13:20

Lunch

13:20-14:20

 

2 x 20 minute presentations followed by 20 minutes for questions

Showcasing maritime museums

 

Chair: Dr Rob James, Senior Lecturer in Cultural and Social History, and Executive Committee Member of PCMC, University of Portsmouth

 

  • Local maritime museums in East Anglia’s port towns and the role of nostalgia in constructing community identities

Henry Gayfer, PhD student in Museum Studies,
University of Leicester

 

  • Showing your best side: Photogrammetry and museum collections

Will Heppa, Curator of Artefacts,
National Museum of the Royal Navy

14:20-14:35

Tea/coffee

14:35-14:55

Reflections and next steps: Dr Mel Bassett, Senior Research Fellow in Public Engagement, and Executive Committee Member of PCMC, University of Portsmouth

14:55-17:00

Optional free tour of the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, including SHE_SEES exhibition and the Mary Rose Museum