History Workshop 26

History Workshop 26, Re-discovering Ourselves, was held at Newcastle-Upon-Tyne Polytechnic between 6 and 8 November 1992. This marked a return to the venue of the 1987 Workshop. The theme of rediscovery was a significant one, as with the final collapse of the Soviet Union in December 1991 the political background to the Workshop was very different. Although the publicity for the Workshop still made explicit the socialist agenda of the Workshop movement, the demise of the Soviet Union had nonetheless caused conceptual difficulties for some members. These changed circumstances were also signified by the Workshop organisers calling for contributions which specifically took in the wider European dimension.

As had become the norm for History Workshop, there was a plenary session before the event split into a number of parallel sessions which ran throughout the rest of the conference. Themes included ‘Anarchism’, ‘Black History’, ‘Class and the Northern Seas’, ‘European Co-operative Movements’, ‘Gender and Politics in Europe’, ‘Green History’, ‘A Century of the ILP’, ‘Mining Pasts: Identity, Image and Historical Presentation’, ‘Popular Resistance to Fascism’, ‘Propaganda by the Deed’, ‘Women’s Work in Europe’, ‘Workers’ Education in Europe’, ‘Europe in European Newsreels’, ‘Youth Policy, Culture and History’, ‘Feminism Against Conservatism in Europe’, ‘The Working Class, Europe and Poetry’, ‘Popular Design in Post War Europe’, and ‘Europe and its Others: Colonialism and Post Colonialism, Religion and Race’.