Name and shame: how I reclaimed a lost identity
The history blog is very pleased to host this guest blog. In it Jeremy Schultz explains the reasons behind his grandfather’s decision to change his Jewish surname at the outset of World War II, and his own recent decision to change his name back again. Jeremy is a psychotherapist, and the brother of Deborah Shaw, […]
Smugglers, servants, and students: transporting Catholic materials to post-Reformation England
On 9 March 2022 Dr Aislinn Muller from the University of Cambridge gave a paper in our History Research seminar series, looking at the circulation of Catholic devotional objects in post-Reformation England, a time when acts of parliament had banned them in the late-sixteenth and early-seventeenth century. She assessed the routes by which objects such […]
What’s in a name?: Etymology of Istanbul through the Ages
On Wednesday 9 February Dr Gemma Masson (University of Birmingham) presented a paper in our History Research seminar series on the history of the development and changes to the name of the city of Istanbul. As well as explaining the constructions of these names, the paper placed developments in the city’s name within the context of their times. […]
‘An hour or two of welcome relaxation’: The cinema business in wartime Britain
On 12 January 2022 our own Dr Rob James, Senior Lecturer in Cultural and Social History, presented at the first History research seminar of the new year (Happy New Year everyone!) with a thought-provoking paper on the effect of world war on the cinema trade in Britain. If you missed the paper, the recording is available […]
Don’t lose your head – surviving a dissertation on King Charles I’s killers
Below, one of last year’s third-year students, Alex Symonds, gives some timely advice on how to survive writing your dissertation. Alex’s dissertation was entitled “‘Cruel Necessity’: Understanding the Influences on the Commissioners in the Trial of Charles I”. As Alex’s supervisor, I knew she had it in her to do very well, but my mouth […]
Peter Misch (1909-1987): a holocaust survivor in wartime China
On 8 December 2021 our own Dr Rudolph Ng, Lecturer in Global History, presented a fascinating paper tracing the extraordinary journey of a young geologist who fled Nazi Germany in 1936 and then taught for a decade in wartime China, before making a successful postwar academic career in the United States. If you missed […]