Latest Posts
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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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It’s Halloween, Full Moon and a Blue Moon – but what does that mean? by Professor Anne Lawrence-Mathers
It is very hard to miss the fact that Saturday 31st October is Halloween, and that this year the date coincides with a full Moon. Still more unusually this full Moon will be acclaimed as a ‘Blue Moon’ since it… Continue reading
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#BLM Voices of the Dream Ancestors: from National Hero to the Aboriginal Rights Movement by Tamisan Latherow
CONTENT WARNING: This post may contain voices, images or names of people who have died. *Note, throughout this article we use the terms Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander. This term was chosen specifically due to the naming conventions of the… Continue reading
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#BLM ‘a good breedin’ ‘oman sho did fetch de money,’ by Aisha Djelid
On the 10th January 1859 a court in Charleston, South Carolina, advertised the sale of Betty, a twenty-five-year-old enslaved woman. Betty was a ‘breeding woman,’ meaning that slaveholders valued Betty for being young, strong, healthy and, crucially, fertile. Advertised as a… Continue reading
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#BHM ‘Beyond the Reggae Bassline’ by Professor Matt Worley
For Bunny ‘Striker’ Lee, whose death was announced as I wrote this blog (1941–2020) I first heard Reggae as a child, the rhythms sending me to sleep as a I lay on a camp-bed in Nottingham. My Grandma lived on… Continue reading
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