Latest Posts
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How to Find an Early Modern Witch, by Claire Smith
If you wanted to find a witch during the early modern period, one of the more notable people you could ask was Matthew Hopkins, self-declared Witchfinder General from 1644-1647. If, in the twenty-first century, you want to find evidence of… Continue reading
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Sugar and Slavery: Reproductive Mills, by Jude Reeves
I have been given the opportunity to share my experience working as an intern at the Mills Archive Trust on Watlington Street, a registered charity dedicated to the protection and preservation of records of milling history, in the summer of… Continue reading
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Abdulrazak Gurnah, the 2021 Nobel Literature Prize, and a Challenge to White Fragility, by Dr Heike I. Schmidt
NPR, the US American public radio station, was broadcasting some critical reporting on the day of the announcement of the 2021 Nobel Literature Prize, 7 October. The journalists were discussing that, while the Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thiong’o had been… Continue reading
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Celebrating Black History Month: Citizenship, Belonging and the Political Imagination of Women in Rhodesia, by Shepherd Mutswiri
Re-posted from our Gender History Research Cluster I was struck by the imposing Irish symbols and their historical meaning. The Irish Defence Forces marched on stage holding the Irish flag which had been chosen as the national flag during the… Continue reading
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How to prepare for your seminars, by Abbie Tibbot
Hello everyone! My name is Abbie and I’m a PhD student in the History department. University is a lot to take in when you first get here but, when you’re feeling a bit more settled, it’ll be time to get… Continue reading
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The Cold War, the Drug War, and… Summer Camp in the 1980s, by Richard M. Balzano
The Cold War shaped the latter half of the American twentieth century, and the bipolar standoff and its peripheral contests could be felt in every corner of domestic American life. Washington’s security pursuits often generated results that contradicted domestic goals,… Continue reading
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The Joys of Being an Africanist: Summertime in Tanzania, by Dr Heike I. Schmidt
Part II Conducting oral history interviews as well as participant observation are the prerogatives of the modern historian. These methods also need to be carefully learned and critically questioned as the research itself generates primary sources. They require the researcher… Continue reading
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The Joys of Being a Historian: Summertime in Tanzania, by Dr Heike I. Schmidt
Part I I knew exactly what I was doing. I planned my fieldwork to utter perfection. After all I was an experienced postdoc, having spent about three years living in Zimbabwe while studying and researching the country’s past. Now working… Continue reading
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Marrows Over Maths: The history of England’s school harvest camps, by Tamisan Latherow
There are certain images from the mass media that, as a child of the 1980s growing up in America, are ubiquitous to summer for me. The 1961 Disney film, The Parent Trap, staring Hayley Mills is one of them. Mills,… Continue reading
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How did a fear of climate lead to a climate of fear in which demonic witchcraft loomed large? Professor Helen Parish explores the connections between weather, witchcraft, faith, fears, and the human imagination…
In the first blog in this summer series, my colleague Ruth Salter invited us to hang up our umbrellas and celebrate the role played by St Swithin in our summer weather. While Ruth encouraged us to turn our eyes to… Continue reading
READING HISTORY 