How I learned to stop worrying and chose my dissertation topic
Third year student Sophie McKee gives some frank and timely advice about the process of choosing a dissertation topic. I’m not bitter that she rejected my topic, really – ed. When Rob James asked me to write a blog post about writing about dissertations we both enjoyed a wee chuckle. For I, after going back […]
Goblin scullery maids, ghostly miners and cannibal sailors: my experience of studying for a PhD at the University of Portsmouth
Dr Eilís Phillips followed three years of undergraduate study at the University of Portsmouth with a three-year PhD on Victorian monsters, supervised by Dr Karl Bell, Reader in History at the University. Her work is an inspiration to many, not least to my own students studying ideas of the monstrous in the 17th century Civil […]
Introducing the Disrupted Authority Project
By Jessica Dyson & Katy Gibbons Members of the History and English Literature teams at the University of Portsmouth are excited to be launching “Disrupted Authority” – a research project that focuses on the early modern period (1450-1700) and brings together the work of English Literature’s Dr Jessica Dyson and Dr Bronwen Price, and History’s […]
Self-identity under slavery: Frederick Douglass narrates his story
Joshua Bown, a first year History student at the University of Portsmouth, has written the following blog entry on the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave, for the Fragments module, which looks at the possibilities and challenges of using primary sources for historical study. The module is co-ordinated by Dr Katy […]
Life after Graduation
One of our recent graduates tells us how the skills he gained studying at Portsmouth, and the volunteer experience he gained while studying, helped him secure an exciting job in the heritage sector. For security reasons, he has not been named. Having graduated in the summer of 2019 and with a firm understanding that it […]
The Invention of the Weekend
Articles by our own Professor Brad Beaven on how the current 48-hour weekend became the norm, were recently published in the Conversation and in The Independent: Link: https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/weekend-lesson-four-day-working-week-a9274096.html Link: https://theconversation.com/history-of-the-two-day-weekend-offers-lessons-for-todays-calls-for-a-four-day-week-127382 Brad has published widely on urban popular culture, leisure and empire in Britain in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
New conference: Disruptions and Continuities in Gender Roles and Authority, 1450-1750
The new Disrupted Authority research group at the University of Portsmouth – SASHPL are organising an interdisciplinary conference linking issues of gender and authority in the early modern period, to be held at Portsmouth on the 29-30 June 2020. One keynote speaker will be Professor Ann Hughes, from Keele University, whose book Gender and the […]