Connecting Histories

Gemma Romain works at The National Archives, Kew on a Heritage Lottery Fund project called ‘Your Caribbean Heritage’, cataloguing and researching colonial office original correspondence from the British Caribbean. She co-edited with David Cesarani, ‘Jews and Ports Cities, 1590–1990: Commerce, Community and Cosmopolitanism’ (Vallentine Mitchell, 2006). Previously, she carried out her Ph.D. at the Parkes Institute, University of Southampton, where she compared and analysed ethnic memories and histories of African-Caribbean and Jewish communities in modern Britain. She was also a researcher and writer for the ‘Connections: Hidden British Histories’ project, a historical exhibition exploring Asian, Caribbean, and Jewish history in Britain. Additionally, she is a Committee Member of the Society for Caribbean Studies, UK, and an Executive Member of the Jewish Council for Racial Equality (JCore).

"A clear introduction to a number of important debates concerning autobiography and memory" --Journal of British Studies"

• Chapter 1 An Introduction to Historical and Ethnic Memory in Life History; Part 1 Paradoxes of Migration; Chapter 2 Myths, Silence and Autobiographical Contexts; Chapter 3 The Self-Knowing Autobiographical Voice, Meta-Memory and the Deconstruction of Myths; Part 2 ‘By the Waters of Babylon’; Chapter 4 Theorisations of the Diaspora; Chapter 5 Memories of ‘Dwelling’ and Migration; Part 3 Hidden Histories, Collective Memory, Remembering and Forgetting in Black and Jewish Ethnic Memory; Chapter 6 Re-remembering and Forgetting Histories; Chapter 7 Mythology and History; Chapter 8 Conclusion;