Latest Posts
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“Deference or drudgery? The census, community, and Berkshire servant life”, by Peter Jolly for Local and Community History Month
Undertaking a demographic study of Berkshire domestic service has opened my eyes to how distinctive and varied were communities within the historic county at the turn of the twentieth century. Given the impossibility of analysing all 15,000 county female servants, I… Continue reading
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Shulie, and the place of the feminist past in the feminist present, by Dr Natalie Thomlinson
‘Sex class is so deep as to be invisible.’ So begins American feminist Shulamith Firestone’s 1970 global blockbuster The Dialectic of Sex. I remember vividly the first time I read it as an undergraduate: I’d certainly encountered feminist texts before, but none… Continue reading
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Why the Greenham Common peace camp needs to be remembered 40 years after its inception, by James Watts
Amidst the disruption and uncertainty that we have started the year with, 2021 marks both the 40th anniversary of the inception of the Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp and the 30th anniversary of the final US cruise missiles leaving Greenham… Continue reading
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Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp’s Lynette Edwell, interviewed by Amy Longmuir and James Watts for Women’s History Month
As part of our #GlobalGreenham40 campaign, we are delighted to have been given the opportunity to speak with Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp and Cruisewatch activist Lynette Edwell about her involvement in the movement and the importance of being a… Continue reading
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Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp’s international ‘web’ and the anti-nuclear movement, by Amy Longmuir
The history of Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp near Newbury, Berkshire has been well documented in popular history and the media to narrate the development of the camp as an important element of the nuclear disarmament movement. Missing from this,… Continue reading
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Christmas Cancelled? Nothing is new, ask the puritans of 1647 by Dr Rachel Foxley
In 2020 we are approaching Christmas with warnings ringing in our ears, as well as encouragement to celebrate – and that’s just from the Prime Minister, whose characteristically mixed messaging tells us to be jolly, but also to ‘be jolly… Continue reading
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Dreaming of a White Christmas? It may all be in the stars! by Professor Anne Lawrence
Recent forecasts and news stories have raised hopes of a white Christmas, even though the Met Office has pointed out that there has only been a widespread covering of snow on Christmas Day in the UK four times in the… Continue reading
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When should we start putting up decorations and celebrating Christmas festivities? Are you team Nov 1st? Dec 1st? A week before? Professor Helen Parish takes a look…
Our own Professor @HelenLParish takes a historical view of this question and how this debate has raged for centuries! In the words of Perry Como’s classic, “it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas”. The pandemic has got many yearning… Continue reading
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Female statues: Couldn’t Mary Wollstonecraft have kept her clothes on? by Dr Jacqui Turner
Nobody really knows how many statues of women there are in the UK. It is even more difficult to know what type of women they represent; invariably they are divided between royals, religious icons and, well, everyone else. Frustratingly, we… Continue reading
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What’s going on in Ethiopia and why it’s a big deal by Francesca Baldwin
Hours ago, Ethiopia’s government carried out a military attack on Tigray, Ethiopia’s most northern state. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed alleges this is in response to an earlier strike by the region’s ruling party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), although… Continue reading
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