History@Portsmouth

University of Portsmouth's History Blog

Author Archive | Robert James

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‘Step outside of your comfort zone’: How to get the best out of your second year at university

By on September 15, 2018 in Learning in Focus

Are you just about to start your second year studying History? This blog, written by Eleanor Doyle, President of the University of Portsmouth Students’ Union History Society, offers great advice on how to get the most out of your second year of studies. Eleanor is just about to start her final year. My best piece of advice for second year is to be brave and have the confidence to step outside of your comfort zone. My second year at Portsmouth University flew by and although it might feel as though your summer was gone in a blink, second year goes by even faster. One of the most exciting parts of second year is that you have […]

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‘You will get out of the course what you put in’: Being a first year History student

By on September 15, 2018 in Learning in Focus

Are you just about to start your first year as a History student and wonder what it will be like? Then read this blog written by one of last year’s ‘freshers’, Amelia Boddice. In the blog Amelia reflects on her experience when starting this whole new chapter in her life, from how to prepare for class to enjoying life both inside and outside the lecture room. Amelia is just about to start her second year of studies. What to expect? In terms of the gap between A-level and doing an undergraduate degree you can expect a big difference in the workload. There is an increase in the amount of preparation you must […]

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Going to the cinema? The changing uses of Portsmouth’s cinema buildings

By on August 24, 2018 in Learning in Focus, Public History

In this blog, the second in a series of posts looking at sites of historical interest in Portsmouth, Dr Rob James, Senior Lecturer in History, discusses the changing uses of the city’s cinema buildings. Rob specialises in researching society’s leisure activities and teaches a number of units on film and the cinema, including, as part of the Problems and Perspectives unit, ‘History at the Movies’ in the first year, ‘The Way to the Stars: Film and cinema-going in Britain, c. 1900-c. 2000’ option in the second year, and a Special Subject on ‘Cinema-going in Wartime Britain, 1939-1945’ in the third year. Going to the cinema was an important leisure pastime […]

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“It’s all been a lot of fun really”: Concerns over modern television and the future of comedy programmes

By on August 10, 2018 in Research in Focus

Daniel Reast is an MRes History and BA (Hons) History and Politics graduate from the University of Portsmouth. He has written for the IAFOR Online journal and Portsmouth Postgraduate Review on the subject of comedy history, as well as his own blogs and website discussing politics and society. In this blog Daniel reflects on the development of television comedy in the modern era and asks whether it can be as ground-breaking as comedies from the so-called ‘Golden Age’of the 1970s and 1980s. In May of this year, Channel 4 was proud to present Carry on Brussels: Inside the EU, a short documentary series following the European Parliament in its daily […]

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Graduation 2018: Two days of celebrations!

By on July 18, 2018 in Events

Graduation is a special day for tutors and, of course, students and their families and friends. In this blog the History team at Portsmouth reflect on a day in which they celebrated the successes of their undergraduate and postgraduate students as they graduated after completing their degrees.  Graduation is always a day of mixed emotions. While it is exciting to see our students graduate, it is also sad to see another year group leave. We have worked closely with them over the course of their time here; guided them through the assignments they did; helped them become critical and reflective thinkers; and prepared them for whatever careers lay before them. While we are sorry to see them go, we are […]

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“There comes a time when you’ve just gotta’ be a man”: An analysis of shifting on-screen representations of British masculinity in the post-Thatcher period

By on July 10, 2018 in Research in Focus

“Sam’s dissertation was an outstandingly researched piece of work. It synthesised contextual and historiographical issues regarding masculinity and film in the post-Thatcher era in a conceptually interesting way, and made great use of visual sources as a cultural lens from which to understand anxieties surrounding changing concepts of masculinity in the late-twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Sam demonstrated an excellent understanding of film culture, not just in the period studied, but across the twentieth century, and the way in which he revealed how certain masculine filmic archetypes were shaped and modified in response to the shifting contemporary climate was nothing less than compelling.” – Dr Rob James, Sam’s dissertation supervisor. […]

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