Empire and its Afterlives 3: Using primary sources to avoid simplistic narratives of history
This is the third post in the Empire and its afterlives series. The introduction can be found here and the second installment here. Several students mentioned current debates around #RhodesMustFall in South Africa and the UK and the idea of decolonising the curriculum, in order to reflect on what that might mean for the teaching […]
Exploring the transgressive use of clothing by female groups from the 1920s to the 1970s
Emily Jays graduated in Summer 2021 with a 2:1 in History and Sociology. Her dissertation was titled “Transgressing Gender Norms and National Identities Through Dress: Three 20th Century Case Studies”. This explored how clothing was used by flappers within 1920s America, butch lesbians and transgender women in post-1950 Britain and Muslim women and the veil […]
The UoP History Society welcomes new faces
Below, third year UoP history student Reiss Sims encourages new students to join our student history society. The beginning of a new academic year brings multiple opportunities: the chance to start new modules, to meet like-minded people, to take up a new sport or skill, or perhaps to join a society. Last year, during the […]
Church and People in Interregnum Britain
In this post, UoP senior lecturer in history Dr Fiona McCall talks about her new book Church and People in Interregnum Britain, bringing together new research from scholars across Britain and further afield on the profound religious changes which took place after the British Civil Wars and how people responded to them. From 1642-5, England, […]
King Charles I – a man of principle, not a “man of blood”?
Many people instinctively blame King Charles I for the British Civil Wars. So recent UoP history graduate Connor Scott-Butcher’s decision to use his dissertation to challenge the idea, perpetuated by the regicides, that Charles was a “man of blood”, and the weight of historical argument ranged against him, always seemed to me a risky and […]
Empire and its afterlives 2: How do you teach history with primary sources?
This is the second post in the Empire and its afterlives series. The introduction can be found here. Primary sources represent a wide range of materials which historians can draw on, and students made the most of this diversity. The podcast episodes included discussions of armed forces recruitment posters, political speeches and pamphlets, as well […]