History@Portsmouth

University of Portsmouth's History Blog

Archive | Research in Focus

Research in Focus

John Lacy as Mr Scruple in the Cheats by John Michael Wright cropped

How people despised and feared the puritans

By on December 3, 2020 in Research in Focus

An article on animosity to puritans was published by history lecturer Dr Fiona McCall recently in The Conversation as part of the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the Mayflower in the United States. She shows how puritans were often depicted as fools until they had a shot at government, and then the humour got darker. https://theconversation.com/mayflower-400-how-society-feared-and-ridiculed-puritans-144232   Fiona specialises in the religious and social history of seventeenth-century Britain, and is currently writing a book, Ungodly Religion in the English Parish, 1645-1660, looking at how and why English people rejected puritan religious extremism in the 1640s and 1650s.    

Continue Reading 0
Mike word cloud

Historians across boundaries: changing how we research the past

By on November 20, 2020 in Research in Focus

In this blog post, Senior Lecturer in History Mike Esbester introduces an important new seminar series he’s involved in leading: ‘Historians across boundaries.’ It’s based at the Institute of Historical Research, the London-based body that has promoted and championed historical research for nearly 100 years. This important new seminar series will help bring people together in their research into the past. ‘Changing the way we do research’ is certainly a bold claim – but it’s one we hope we can live up to! Earlier this year the Institute of Historical Research (IHR) called for applications to run seminar series in the new ‘Partnership Seminar’ programme. I knew just the crowd […]

Continue Reading 1
MoorishAmbassador_to_Elizabeth_I cropped

Elizabeth I seeks friends amongst the Eastern Islamic powers

By on July 23, 2020 in Learning in Focus, Research in Focus

After a talk with his eventual dissertation supervisor Dr Katy Gibbons, third-year UoP student Richard Grainger was inspired to enrich his knowledge of twentieth-century orientalism in a dissertation which applied his theoretical understanding to the study of a period when Islamic nations were the more dominant powers. The university’s history department prides itself on delivering a socially and culturally favoured degree curriculum. The emphasis on ‘history from below’ has been particularly enjoyable from my view. One particular historical approach of interest is postcolonial studies, which focus on the cultural impact of empire on the colonised. Edward Said has been influential, and often controversial within this area of study. In Said’s […]

Continue Reading 0
The Battle of Culloden

The domestic colonisation of eighteenth-century Scotland

By on June 25, 2020 in Learning in Focus, Research in Focus

Third year student Kathryn Watts chose an original focus for her dissertation in investigating the eighteenth century attack on Scottish culture. As she argues below, colonialism is often looked at in the global context, but the domestic colonialism of Scotland (and Ireland) predated it, and provided a prototype for many of the colonialist ideas of racial hierarchy and methods of cultural indoctrination which followed.  It has been fascinating supervising Kathryn’s dissertation journey – ed. On April 16, 1746, the bloody battle of Culloden ended with Jacobite defeat; the rebellion of Bonnie Prince Charlie, crushed. This date became synonymous with the decimation of Highland culture, as pro-Government forces sought to destroy […]

Continue Reading 2
Photos of Wehrmacht soldiers

Germans coming to terms with the crimes of the past: the role of the Wehrmacht in World War II

By on June 19, 2020 in Learning in Focus, Research in Focus

In his dissertation third-year history student Tim Marsella studied the changing understandings and representations of the role of the Wehrmacht (German armed forces in World War II) within modern Germany.  He shows how a landmark exhibition in the 1990s challenged perceptions about the breadth of involvement in war crimes, but also how coming to terms with painful memories allowed German society to move on. Most students are aware when they start their degrees that they will be required to complete a dissertation in the final year of their course, and this prospect can seem quite daunting.What I would like to share is both my inspiration for this work and what […]

Continue Reading 0
Hans Holbein ship with sailors

Cut-throat communities, angry noblemen, and a noseless pirate! My journey through the joys and horrors of writing a dissertation

By on June 16, 2020 in Learning in Focus, Research in Focus

Below, the first of a series on this year’s bumper crop of student dissertations, from my own supervisee Tom Underwood.  Tom was one of the most prepared and organised students I’ve ever supervised, but as he mentions below, also still honing his dissertation down to the wire, and we were blown away with the results.  Tom is planning to continue onto an MRes, where his impressive skills at reading early modern handwriting, and patience with sifting his way through basement archives should come to further good use. – ed Whether its Errol Flynn’s smooth-talking Captain Blood, or Johnny Depp’s rum-soaked Jack Sparrow, the pirate occupies a special place within popular […]

Continue Reading 0