Public Events
Hawza Project to meet at Royal Holloway
Professor Vanessa Martin is collaborating with Robert Gleave of Exeter University, the Director of the 'Hawza Project', or as it is officially known, 'Clerical Authority in Shiite Islam: Culture and Learning in the Seminaries of Iraq and Iran', in organising a workshop at Royal Holloway. The project is funded by the British Academy and sponsored by the British Institute of Persian Studies, and the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies. It brings together both established and emerging scholars to examine the role of the Shi'i seminary system (known as the hawza) in the construction and maintenance of clerical authority in Shi'i Islam. There will be further workshops at Royal Holloway later in 2010 and in March 2011.
Royal Holloway Lecture Receives Grant to Host Conference on China
Weipin Tsai, Lecturer in Modern Chinese History, has received grants from the American Council of Learned Societies and the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation to hold a conference in Royal Holloway on 1-2 September 2010. The title of the conference will be 'The power of information in shaping Chinese modernity: a historical investigation from the late Qing to early Republican'.
Welcome
We are the largest History Department in the University of London, and one of the largest in the country, with an undergraduate student body of about 600; this means a wide diversity of recruitment, with a mixture of students from different backgrounds, ages, and ethnic groups, and from both sexes.
Royal Holloway's position as one of the UK's leading research-intensive institutions was confirmed by the results of the most recent Research Assessment Exercise (RAE 2008) conducted by the Higher Education Funding Council (HEFCE). The new scoring system for the RAE 2008 measures research quality in four categories, with the top score of 4* indicating quality that is world-leading and of the highest standards in terms of originality, significance and rigour. 60% of the College's research profile is rated as world-leading or internationally excellent, outperforming the national average of 50%. The College is ranked 16th in the UK for research of 4* standard and 18th for 3* and 4* research.
Students have access to some of the richest facilities for historical research anywhere in the world: in addition to the College’s substantial library collections, there is the National Archives, British Library and libraries of the University of London.
Englefield Green, the nearby village, provides relaxing recreation, and Egham itself has a long history, most noteworthy for the signing of Magna Carta at nearby Runnymede.
What's New
Professor Pauline Croft on BBC Radio 4
Professor Pauline Croft speaks about Henry VIII's country houses on the popular BBC Radio 4 programme "Making History" on Tuesday, 27 October 2009, at 3:00 p.m.
Jane Hamlett awarded grant to study interiors of residential institutions
Dr Jane Hamlett has been awarded 229,792 pounds from the Economic and Social Research Council to conduct the first ever comparative historical study of the interiors of residential institutions, including lunatic asylums, as they were once known, lodging houses and public schools. As part of her research, Dr Hamlett will be exploring the Holloway Sanitorium at Virginia Water, which was established by Thomas Holloway, the founder of Royal Holloway in 1879.
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