Below Pauline Standley describes the experience of studying for a master’s degree in history (MRes) at Portsmouth. She looked at the role of Nina Simone as a civil rights activist, a feminist, and someone who reflected the broader socio-political shifts of her time. Pauline’s supervisor was Dr Lee Sartain.
Nina Simone. For many, her name immediately brings to mind her iconic, richly textured voice, often accompanied by signature sounds of the trumpets and piano in timeless classics like “I Put a Spell on You” or “Feeling Good”. While these songs undoubtedly capture her unshakeable legacy, Nina Simone is also a reservoir of intersectional experiences that reveal much about the socio-political dynamics of 20th-century America. In examining the personal evolution of Nina Simone and the broader societal changes, my research brings together cultural, political and intellectual histories, which illustrates how figures like Nina were pivotal in shaping resistance movements for African Americans. Using her a case study in my research project has been incredibly fruitful, allowing me to engage with the themes I’m deeply passionate about – gender and race within the American context – and understanding their impacts on an incredibly personal level. It also highlighted just how overlooked Nina Simone is; though celebrated as a musical icon, her contribution to the civil rights and feminist movements remain significantly understudied. Certainly, this makes for exciting research: digging through archives, furiously highlighting her autobiography, dissecting her thoughts and reflections, and then juxtaposing these findings with the ideas of key intellectuals and leaders of her time to discover how they connected – or contrasted! This is often followed by overly excited, far-too-long email to my supervisor (apologies, Lee) where I gush about my latest discoveries and how incredible she is. The brilliant part of having a supervisor, though, is they usually match your enthusiasm, and suddenly a “look what I found!” turns into a whole chapter of analysis.
Musical Division, “Singing in a small group with Lorraine Hansberry and Nina Simone” The New York Public Library Collections, 1963. https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/5d9a7e60-2cf4-0135-0613-0fc77b59adf9
Though the scope initially felt overwhelming, it proved to be a perfect size – big enough to cover the nuances of the topic, yet focused enough to stop the research from running away with itself. For an entire year, I was immersed in discovering and researching Nina Simone and 20th-century America. Skeletal ideas that I had been tossing around gradually blossomed into well-structured project. There is an unmatched sense of satisfaction in witnessing an academic piece you’ve designed and nurtured evolve into a comprehensive body of work. The MRes course is perfectly tailored for those who like to have creative control and the space to freedom to focus on their own specialist content, which is an added bonus if you are looking to further your academic studies but there are no available MAs which aligns to your topic area. Whilst the main body of the MRes is occupied in undertaking the dissertation, there are other assignments due such as a Literature Review, Research Proposal and Poster Presentation. Each of these assignments are extremely helpful in laying out the bare bones of your project, your key arguments and the existent body of research you will refer to. It will not only help you feel more confident in your project, as it will force you to critically examine your own work, but it will help you develop key skills such as critical thinking, research methodology and effective articulation of complex ideas – all highly attractive skills for employability.
So, readers of the History Blog Site! Heed my call – don’t overlook the Masters of Research (MRes) Course. If you enjoyed, are currently enjoying or enjoy the idea of undertaking your dissertation, designing and leading a project tailored to themes that fascinate you, and you’re curious about deepening your academic studies, I urge you to consider the MRes. For me, it built on the skills I developed during my undergraduate years and become of the most transformative and rewarding period of my academic journey. And if you’re thinking of pursuing a PhD in the future, the MRes is the perfect stepping stone, helping you develop fundamental individual research skills that will prepare you to undertake rigours of doctoral research, including independent study, critical analysis and project management.
Recent UoP history graduate Rebekah Sistig’s dissertation looked at how inherited racism divided members of the second-wave feminist movement in the USA. She discusses her research below, with some good tips on breaking down the process. Rebekah’s supervisor was Dr Lee Sartain.
Angela Davis, Betty Friedan, bell hooks and Gloria Steinem – all icons of the second wave feminist movement in the US, all women who dedicated their lives to fight against sexism. But were they truly united in their fight against the patriarchy? Was the supposed ‘sisterhood’ all it was chalked up to be? Judging by their contrasting books, organisations, ideologies, and social groups, I think it may not be.
The 1960s and 1970s in the US was a time of immense social change and political movements, all of which interacted and influenced each other. Many of the women who were at the forefront of the feminist movement were also heavily involved in the Civil Rights movement, the New Left movement and many others. The impact of these movements all occurring in the same time period lead to great divides in ideological thought even within the movements themselves. In the feminist movement there was much divide over which tactics were most effective in achieving equality amongst men and women and how best to use the movement’s resources.
U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM) 101454320; IHM: C00945
Through my dissertation, I sought to investigate why and how black and white feminists were divided in their cultures and experiences throughout the second wave movement. I investigated key literature, spanning from Friedan’s mighty The Feminine Mystique to grassroots magazines like Azalea: A Magazine by and for Third World Lesbians, and organisations as large as NOW: the National Organization for Women, founded in 1966, to as small as Bread and Roses, a socialist women’s collective founded in 1969. What I concluded was that the divide between white and black feminists was fuelled by decades of racial discrimination and exacerbated by white feminists’ lack of accountability and acknowledgement of their inherited racism in ideological theory and practice. This led to a necessity for black feminists’ to create their own feminist spaces, cultures, and ideology in order for them to tackle the duel oppression they faced in the US.
Members of NOW including Betty Friedan (left)
My decision to research the experiences and cultures of women during the second wave movement came from a specific lecture I had during my second year of learning. In the lecture the different forms of feminist ideology were being described, beginning with liberal feminism and trickling down to black feminism and intersectionality. I found myself asking how this separation in ideology had occurred and how this separation may have represented itself in the lives of black and white feminists of the 1970s. Did it change the clothes they wore? The music they listened to? The books they read? This is where I began my research. I began researching feminist music and fashion of the 1970s which I soon found a challenging endeavour, both because of the growing complexity of some of the reading I was finding and due to the seemingly limited amount of historical analysis of feminist culture – particularly relating to black women. So my comparison began to look rather one sided, with many sources either referring to ‘feminists’ as one unified group or focusing blatantly on white feminist groups. So, I expanded my topic outward.
I went back to my second year lecture reading list, as well as one which my supervisor, Dr Lee Sartain, had provided me with after my dissertation proposal, and spent the start of my third year familiarising myself with the wider movement and the most prominent pieces of analysis on the topic – scholars like bell hooks, Wini Breines and Margaret A. Simons to name a few. While doing this foundational research was where my supervisor was most helpful. When I was unsure or unaware of a particular book, organisation, or individual, my supervisor was extremely helpful in recommending reading and documentaries to familiarise myself with certain aspects of the second wave feminist movement.
Writing your dissertation can be an extremely daunting task. From the word count, the structural formalities, referencing, researching and even your acknowledgements, it can be extremely stressful and overwhelming. A helpful tactic for writing your dissertation is to follow your initiative when it comes to your research and to choose a topic which interests you, or at least one you think you would be able to write 10,000 words about. Either way by the end of your writing you might find yourself completely sick of your topic, I know I certainly did at times.
What I found most helpful in regulating my own stress and keeping my research and writing somewhat manageable was to break it all down as much as possible. I viewed the dissertation as three 2,500 word essays (each one a chapter) put together, one on the historiography surrounding my topic, and two based off of the most comparable aspects of black and white feminist cultures – literature and organisations. Then I broke each chapter down even further. The historiography chapter I divided into different debates/issues which existed in existing research on the second wave movement. Due to my dissertation being a comparison, I was able to divide my second and third chapters into two sections, one focusing on black feminists and the other on white feminists. Once I had broken down my workload into what seemed more manageable, I did my research in sections as well, focusing on one second of my dissertation at a time, allowing me to relax a little bit more.
I’m sure many of my fellow graduates will agree that your final year of study goes much quicker than you would expect! Between your dissertation, assessments, final year dinners, parties, and nights out, to your graduation, your final year is one to remember. Try to stop and smell the roses, look after yourself and your peers, and be proud of all that you have and will accomplish!
Recent UoP history graduate Benjamin Taylor wrote his third-year dissertation on Japanese war crimes, discovering that the US and other Western states played a far larger role in the cover-up than has been previously acknowledged. Below he writes about the trial and error process of writing his dissertation, and how the guidance of his supervisor, Dr Rudolph Ng, has been vital.
General Tojo was among 7 defendants sentenced to death by hanging at the Tokyo War Crimes trials from 1946-48.
My chosen topic for my dissertation was an investigation of the cover-up that has surrounded Japanese war crimes. Specifically, my dissertation sought to answer two questions: has there been a cover-up surrounding Japanese war crimes? And two, if so, which country was most instrumental in creating and perpetuating this cover-up? Throughout my dissertation, I argued that the U.S. played a far larger role in creating and perpetuating the cover-up than most traditional scholars attribute to them. The topic of covering up Japanese war crimes may seem like a strange project to research given the wealth of other options. However, the topic fascinated me. As a historian, I believe one of the most important aspects of history is remembrance and acceptance of our past, whether it is pretty and paints us well or not. When I learned of how much effort had been put into making sure this part of history was forgotten, I viewed it as a personal mission to expose the efforts that have gone into concealing these crimes on the part of not just Japan but the whole world.
I began my research initially by diving into the resources that surrounded the two most notorious of Japan’s war crimes, the Nanjing massacre and the atrocities of Unit 731. These resources helped me write my dissertation’s first draft, which I sent to my supervisor to get his initial opinions. The email I received back was not exactly thrilling, with my supervisor telling me he was glad that I had sent this to him early as, in its current form, the dissertation would have failed spectacularly. I hope it eases your nerves a little to know when writing your own dissertation that my dissertation, which eventually received a first, was a complete failure on its first draft. However, I decided that I would not let this end here. I rewrote the first part of the dissertation and again sent it to my supervisor. It got much the same result, though he did admit it had improved a little. At this point, I knew something needed to change and met with my supervisor to discuss a better approach to my dissertation. After a quick meeting where I refined the questions my dissertation would ask, I got to work on draft number three.
In 1949, 12 members of the Japanese Kwantung Army were tried as war criminals in the Russian city of Khabarovsk for manufacturing and using biological weapons and carrying out medical experiments during WWII. They were sentenced to terms in labour camps and released in 1956.
After refining my questions, I then looked further into the topic by researching and gathering sources related to the Tokyo war crimes trials, the Soviet Khabarovsk trials, the Chinese Shenyang trials, and gathering sources on the cover-up efforts of the wider world, including those committed by the Dutch, French, and British. During the writing of draft number three, I found an invaluable set of primary sources in the archives of the Pacific Atrocities Education Charity, which had received their documents from the national archives of the United States. These archives contained many documents relating directly to how and why Japanese war crimes were covered up, and these documents proved invaluable to my research. A few weeks later, I sent the newly written, complete draft to my supervisor, and using his helpful feedback comments, I refined the dissertation even further. I ended up writing two more drafts before sending in my work for its final evaluation.
Prosecutors of Japanese war criminals at the Special Military Tribunal held in Shenyang, China, in 1956.
My takeaways from this experience are as follows: Number one, and I cannot stress this enough, is to give yourself time. By starting my dissertation relatively early, I had time to fail and refine it without the stress of knowing that my deadline was next week. Number two: don’t expect it to be great on your first try. My first try, as mentioned before, failed spectacularly. It took me five drafts to get my dissertation right, and many people take even more drafts than that. Don’t be afraid to go back to scratch; it is better than trying to make something you know is wrong work. Number three: take some time off. A dissertation can feel overwhelming. I certainly felt that I should be working on it all day every day, but it will not help. Taking some time to yourself does an immense amount of good, and often you’ll find your work is better once you have taken a break. Number four is probably the most important takeaway of all: have fun. Do not research a topic you hate because you think it will get you a good grade. I personally loved researching my dissertation, and while there were parts I did not enjoy, overall, researching and writing about a topic that I was genuinely interested in helped the whole process go a lot smoother. Remember, this is your project at the end of the day. And number 5, if I can do it, so can you? My grades coming into this year were not exactly stellar, and I genuinely thought I did not have any chance of getting a first grade the hard work will pay off.
It is always a proud day for us as tutors to see students we have nurtured since they were freshers step up onto the podium to receive their degrees. We love chatting to students after the ceremony to talk about their experience of the course, moved by the stories of students who have got there despite having to navigate difficult obstacles, catching up with students we taught several years ago, and hearing about what students are planning to do next. It is also great to tell students how much we appreciated some of their wonderful final year work, which hardly seemed possible when they were the ‘noisy’ group of post-covid freshers, over-excited by the new possibility of having actual human beings to learn history with.
Well done to everyone!
From left: Lee Sartain; Fiona McCall; Matt Heaslip; Tom Rodgers; Katy Gibbons; Brad Beaven; Mathias Seiter; Karl Bell; Jodi Burkett; Rob James; Mike Esbester
Here is a photo of the History team in their gowns waiting to process onto the stage. Having been to different universities, we all have different gowns, hats, sashes and hoods.
Many of our UoP history students take the opportunity to do voluntary work in one of the many museums in Portsmouth or nearby. Second-year UoP History Isobel Turtle started volunteering even earlier. Having decided to defer her university entry, she started working at the Isle of Wight shipwreck centre in 2021. It’s given her lots of unique opportunities to learn how a museum works: highlights have included seeing how a museum becomes accredited by the Arts Council, how grants and funding are secured and used, how exhibitions are created from scratch, working on databasing the collection, helping with visiting school groups and managing volunteers. She has worked her way up to being the Museum Supervisor, ready for when the museum moves to larger premises over the next year or two!
For the second year module, The Hidden Lives of Things, taught by Dr Katy Gibbons and Dr Mary Cannon, for their assessment, students have to produce an ‘object biography’ for a historical artefact. Isobel was really glad to be able to use the museum and her access to it to write an object biography of one of the most poignant artefacts in the collection: manillas, a form of commodity money in the form of bracelet used across West Africa and associated with the slave trade, which washed up in a shipwreck off the Island.
Peter DeWint (1784 – 1849), Shipwreck off the Needles, Isle of Wight, watercolour, Yale Centre for British Art
‘Manillas’ were a form of commodity money used across West Africa and are today most known for their associations with the transatlantic slave trade, however before becoming synonymous with it as well as after, manillas took on many different roles in a variety of contexts. The etymology of the word manilla suggests the term was picked up via interactions with the Portuguese and refers to their distinctive bracelet-like horseshoe shape.[1] Manillas are found in multiple variations of materials such as brass, bronze, copper as well as in different sizes, weights, and levels of embellishment based on their region of origin as well as their intended value and usage.[2] Accounts note the functionality of the shape of manillas, describing how indigenous West Africans would wear and carry them on their arms on their way to make smaller, everyday purchases but would otherwise be put into parcels if the size, weight or quantity of manillas called for it.[3] These 3 manillas appear to be of the ‘popo’ subtype due to their small size, smoothed, tapered ends and lack of decorative elements. This type was in use from the 17th to the early 20th century and was most commonly connected to French, English and Dutch traders.[4] Found in Chale Bay off the Southwest coast of the Isle of Wight, these manillas are held in Island’s Shipwreck Centre & Maritime Museum. The exact circumstances of how these particular manillas came to be in Chale Bay awaits further examination, but the 3-mile-long stretch of coastline itself is known for its vast array of shipwrecks. Initial but as yet unconfirmed opinions on the age of the wreck, clues such as the discovery of ivory tusks nearby as well as comparable ‘popo’ style manillas found on a confirmed 17th century Royal African Company shipwreck also in the English Channel suggest that the wreckage in which these manillas were found had links to West Africa during the era of the Transatlantic slave trade. [5]
Manillas Manillas found off the Isle of Wight Coast, Martin Woodward Collection, Shipwreck Centre & Maritime Museum, photograph taken by Isobel.
In their extended history, the term ‘manilla’ encompassed a broad range of bracelet-shaped metal rings which were used across West Africa for adornment in addition to functioning as money for a multitude of trade purposes. Despite this, historian Eugenia W. Herbert argues that African metal rings often do not conform to the ‘Western definition of fine art’, leading to a near total disregard for this use from Europeans. [6] Although their ubiquitousness in West Africa suggests manillas had probably been used for a very long time there, the European use of manillas as a commodity existed predominantly in relation to slave trading by the 18th century, making it all the more likely that these specific manillas ended up in shipwreck in Europe as a result of it. [7]
Illustration from Burgkmair, Natives of Guinea and Algoa, 1508 showing Africans wearing manillas.
From the 16th century onwards manillas became the principal currency of the slave trade with the prices of slaves expressed in terms of different types of manillas. By its peak, factories in Birmingham and Bristol were mass producing manillas for use exclusively in the slave trade, resulting in an erasure and overshadowing of the long and complex history in African custom. [8] This mass production further shows how interlinked wealth-building and the development of industrialisation in England was with the slave trade, and by extension its dependency on the economic crippling and cultural pilfering of West Africa. [9] While the use of manillas outlived the transatlantic slave trade, they continued to be used by Europeans mainly in colonial contexts throughout the 19th century, most notably in relation to the palm oil trade.[10] While their circulation was prohibited in the early 20th century, the use of manillas among indigenous populations, particularly in Nigeria or the so called ‘manilla belt’ where the palm oil trade was focused, continued in line with tradition and existed concurrently with the currencies of colonial powers.[11] This practice largely came to an abrupt and forced end 1949 when the Manilla Prohibition Ordnance was launched under British rule in the ‘manilla belt’, taking them out of circulation and making possession of a certain amount of manillas a punishable offence.[12] Over 32 million individual manillas weighing 2,464 tons were recalled and sold for scrap, with historian Eugenia W. Herbert noting the difficulty in knowing ‘what became of it all.’ [13] This process is argued to have been the final step toward full colonial control over the economy in this part of West Africa.[14]
A 16th century Benin Bronze depicting a Portuguese soldier with manillas in the background.
Manillas have long posed a methodological challenge to historians due to their visual and material variability as well as the difficulty in properly defining what fits into the category.[15] Due to this, careful consideration must be given to their individual materiality as well as the spatial context in which they are found in order to uncover their origins and stories. Additional help to pinpoint this is supplied through interdisciplinary research combining historical research with techniques like geochemical analysis, a practice which has resulted in definitive proof that the Benin bronzes are made of metals yielded from the melting down of manillas.[16] Considering the history of manillas, the historiography surrounding the subject of one of, if not the most, contentious issues concerning the present-day legacy of colonial violence and cultural theft is therefore made even more poignant.[17]
Furthermore, this analysis provides evidence of the melting down and reuse of manillas even prior to the majority of existing examples being sold for scrap, showing how the material through which people were bought and sold, and therefore one of the most harrowing legacies of human cruelty in history, lives on in culturally significant artworks as well as in an untold number of seemingly innocuous and everyday objects. These manillas however, continue to exist in their namesake form and are both an example of the violent legacy of the colonial process and a preservation of a West African tradition which was stamped out through it.
[1] Paul Einzig, Primitive Money: In Its Ethnological, Historical and Economic Aspects (Elsevier, 2014).
[2] Eugenia W. Herbert, Red Gold of Africa: Copper in Precolonial History and Culture (University of Wisconsin Press, 1984), 202.
[4] Tobias B. Skowronek et al., “German Brass for Benin Bronzes: Geochemical Analysis Insights into the Early Atlantic Trade,” Plos One, 18, no. 4 (April 5, 2023).
[11] Rolf Denk, The West African Manilla Currency: Research and Securing of Evidence from 1439-2019 (Tredition, 2021). Ben Naanen, “Economy within an Economy: The Manilla Currency, Exchange Rate Instability and Social Conditions in South-Eastern Nigeria, 1900-48,” The Journal of African History 34, no. 3 (1993): 446.
Third-year UoP student Brandon Lawson used his dissertation study to discover more about Asian history in the twentieth century, a topic he felt deserved more attention in historical studies. His dissertation was entitled Shadows of war: “Justice” and geopolitical tension caused by Japanese Imperialism on China, 1931-1945. Brandon’s supervisor was Dr Rudolph Ng.
The conquest of Chinese territory by the Imperial Japanese Army in the 1930s led to a horrific and deadly campaign across the land, decimating the lives of their victims and cities in their path across vast swathes of Asia. However the impact that the territorial expansion had on China society spanned many decades up to the modern era.
Bloody Saturday, Shanghai, 1937. This baby was one of the only human beings left alive in Shanghai’s South Station after its bombing by the Japanese. Photograph by Chinese photojournalist H. S. Wong.
The premise of the atrocities severely impacting Japan and China after the war was the fundamental basis of the dissertation. Political figures within China, such as Mao Zedong and Xi Jinping have been recorded as highly critical of the actions undertaken by the Japanese and follow the established stance amongst the majority of historians that the invasion was unjust and the Empire committed a myriad of atrocities and human rights violations. This is in contrast to a growing revisionist approach amongst many notable people in Japan who have attempted to change the accepted stance on the war to a larger reverence of the ancestors who were involved in it and a denial of the war crimes that were committed. This is in clear contrast to the Kono statement, which solidified the perspective of Japan at the time, as one of acknowledgement and opposition to the actions of the Imperial Japanese Army.[1]
A Chinese girl from one of the Japanese army’s ‘comfort battalions’, photo taken 8 August 1945, No. 9 British Army Film & Photographic Unit
Nevertheless, both stances show a clear bias in favour of their country historically. The truth seems to align more closely with that position taken by the government of the People’s Republic of China who subscribe to the orthodox notion of the Japanese actions as a war of aggression and heinous acts committed by their soldiers against Chinese civilians.
Unit 731, Human experimentation facility in Harbin, China, https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/unit-731-museum
From the very moment I began my dissertation in December, I noticed that information surrounding the atrocities was scarce: at Unit 731, a covert biological and chemical warfare research and development unit of the Imperial Japanese army that engaged in lethal human experimentation, many of the documents that would have detailed the events were destroyed. This made analysing the impact more difficult. Due to the fact, that understanding what occurred became increasingly challenging. However, this minor inconvenience was easy to overcome with the implementation of primary source material documenting the ordeal that the victims would have gone through, as well as the Khabarovsk trials, where twelve researchers from the facility were tried and found guilty. Although their sentences were light it was confirmation of the events that occurred.
During my research into the topic, it became clear that the stance taken by politicians and historians from Japan and China on the topic were heavily influenced by the views that dominated each society. Using the arguments put forth by historians from each country also creates the problem that there is the potential for their work to be hindered by their unconscious bias. This is important when analysing their perspectives, as it allows for deeper analysis of the validity of different arguments. Throughout the analysis of my dissertation, my supervisor, Rudolph Ng was fundamental in aiding my analysis of the atrocities, especially in establishing the effects that the atrocities had after the war.
I decided upon this particular dissertation topic due to my undergraduate studies being heavily focused on the twentieth century, with Asian history in the twentieth century missing from the topics learnt. It is important when deciding on a dissertation topic to implement previous topics in order to understand the context of your dissertation. However, the most important part of choosing a dissertation topic is to choose one that you have a deep interest in and can study for a prolonged period of time.
When approaching a dissertation, the most important factor to understand is, the usually underestimated, amount of time and effort that is needed to write a 10,000-word dissertation. Not only is the word limit high and takes a lot of time to write and edit, but the time needed to analyse and included primary and secondary sources is by far the most time-consuming and detail-heavy part of the project. Therefore, when approaching the project, it is important to leave plenty of time to address all aspects of the dissertation in full. Furthermore, when writing the dissertation, it is important to re-write the entire dissertation at least twice in order to corroborate and solidify arguments while also putting time and detail into the implementation and accuracy of references.
Writing the dissertation is the most enjoyable part of undergraduate study, as you will have complete control over the topic that you write about and the independence in research allows you to explore the topic in any way that you want. However, with a high amount of independence comes an understanding that needs to be developed at the very start of what your strongest way to work is and an awareness of trying to hone your topic down to create one point that encompasses your entire argument. At some points, it may feel overwhelming with no end in sight, but the more engrossed you get into the development of your argument the easier it becomes. Furthermore, the skills that you develop through completing the dissertation are invaluable and you will look back on it fondly. Overall, all you can do is try your hardest and as long as you do that then the grade that you will get will reflect your ability and allow you to look back on your study with no regret.
Good luck!
[1] The Kono Statement refers to a statement released by the Japanese Government on 4 August 1993 confirming the conclusion of a government study that found that the Japanese Imperial Army had forced women, known as comfort women, to work in military-run brothels during World War II.
