Sam Miller
Research Topic
Interpreting Marx to Change the World: Women Activist Translators, 1850-1950
Supervisors: Jane Garnett and Brian Young
I am a first-year, full-time Probationary Research Student studying for a DPhil in History at Jesus College under the co-supervision of Professor Jane Garnett and Dr Brian Young. My research centres on recovering and situating the contributions of three translators, Helen Macfarlane, Cedar Paul, and Dona Torr, to the reception and interpretation of Marx in an English-language context. My project combines my interests in: women’s intellectual history; the practice, histories, and theories of translation; and histories of working-class and socialist education.
Talks and Papers
Papers
"Don't let us tie ourselves up in the thread of history!": Women, Class, and the Making of History in the Life and Writing of Winifred Horrabin
Twelve-minute paper on twentieth-century working-class education activist, life-writer, and film critic, Winifred Horrabin's writing about history in her published and unpublished writings, based on archival research, delivered at the Feminist Thinking Graduate Conference at Somerville College on 15 February 2025.
The Translator, the Hobgoblin, and the Making of the English Manifesto.
Fifteen-minute paper on Helen Macfarlane’s translation of The Communist Manifesto, delivered at Chartism Day (Society for the Study of Labour History) at the University of Reading on 7th September 2024.
Talks moderated
Women, Feminism, Oral History, and the Miners’ Strike.
Speakers: Dr Florence Sutcliffe-Braithwaite (University College London) and Dr Natalie Thomlinson (University of Reading).
I moderated a discussion with the co-authors of Women and the Miners’ Strike, 1984-5 (published in 2023) on 1st May 2024. The discussion was an event in the Feminist Thinking seminar series, in collaboration with the Intersectional Humanities Research Hub. I invited the speakers and planned the event, which was timed around the fortieth anniversary of the 1984-1985 Miners’ Strike and held at the Okinaga Room at Wadham College.
