If they ask me for suggested speakers I’ll email you about it.

I did two fairly informal lecture/seminar/workshops last year with undergraduates from Texas. I’m assuming they’ll contact me again soon. They come over to QM every summer to do a kind of mid-stage/2nd year optional course on ‘British Studies’. There are numerous ‘pathways’ within that: culture, politics, history, sociology, etc, etc. All these pathways have several ‘taught’ sessions each day, so they’re always looking for dozens of speakers on interesting topics, no matter how tangential. They also like the speakers to make things slightly personal and subjective – not quite “off the top of the head”, but not far off. I talked about two theatrical topics, but have also offered to talk about ‘Contemporary Britain outwith London’ (there tends to be a London bias because they’re based here, and they find the concept of ‘Scotland’ rather interesting.)

So I’m thinking….something on the Blitz, or Total War – either in London or Britain as a whole? (If they don’t ask Dr Todman first.) And/or they might be interested to hear an Aussie talk about the ‘colonial’ relationship with the UK – historical, political, and/or 1970s-TV-pop-cultural. The field is wide open. I found the students lovely (very focused, but they’re ‘on holiday’ too); none of mine had ever set foot in the UK before and nearly all had never been out of the US; they’re always looking for suggested speakers, and the pay rate (cash in hand!) is excellent. They love ‘exotic’ accents like mine – and yours – too.

If they ask me for suggestions, might you be interested, even vaguely? Their QM contact is my secondary supervisor, Peter Catterall. He is a great guy who it would be worth you meeting anyway. (Kudos for me too for finding interesting people!)

“Total War and Social Change: Europe 1914 – 1955″