History@Portsmouth

University of Portsmouth's History Blog

Author Archive | Fiona McCall

Women in Totnes church 620 x 320

New conference: Disruptions and Continuities in Gender Roles and Authority, 1450-1750

By on January 31, 2020 in Events, Research in Focus

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 English Revolution is essential reading for those wanting to understand issues of gender in the seventeenth century.  There is a call for papers for academics and postgraduates, across a range of disciplines, to send in abstracts for potential twenty-minute papers to present at the conference. If you want to know more, see the conference webpage […]

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How I learned to stop worrying and chose my dissertation topic

By on January 30, 2020 in Learning in Focus, Research in Focus

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 and forth between centuries and subjects, had only just, very recently at the time, settled on a topic. Now wait a minute. Dissertations? You’ve just come into second year.  You haven’t had a chance to process Star Wars, or Christmas, or the general election yet! How dare someone ask you to think about a dissertation! But here […]

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Historical Association, Portsmouth Branch – Upcoming Lectures

By on January 29, 2020 in Uncategorized

The Historical Association in Portsmouth every year hosts a series of lectures by leading historians.  All lectures begin at 7.00pm, finish by 8.30pm, and are held in Room 2/07, Park Building, University of Portsmouth, King Henry I Street, Portsmouth PO1 2DZ.  Lectures cost £5 for members, £1 for visitors, and are free for students. For further information please contact see: Historical Association, Portsmouth Tuesday 11 February 2020 ‘After Bletchley Park: GCHQ From 1945 to Now’ Speaker: Professor Richard J Aldrich (University of Warwick) Tuesday 10 March 2020 ‘Joan of Arc: Woman, Warrior, Witch’ Speaker: Professor Anne Curry (University of Southampton) Tuesday 12 May 2020 ‘“Those Fancy Liquors/And Sky-High Kickers”: Skirt Dancing, Cancan, […]

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New Seminar Series: A Global History of the Present Time

By on January 29, 2020 in Events

Have you ever reflected upon the possibility of a chronology of recent history which is decentred from that of Europe and North America? Excitingly, we are doing just that! Our new seminar series: A Global History of the Present Time is a joint seminar series organised by the University of Portsmouth Francophone Africa Research Group, Institut d’histoire du temps présent, Paris (IHTP-CNRS) and EUME Forum Transregionale Studien, Berlin. For our launch seminar  taking place on Wednesday 29 January, Portsmouth’s own Dr Olivia Rutazibwa will be joined by Dr Reem Abou El Fadl from SOAS to encourage us to think about whether the end of the 1970s should be considered the […]

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Emily Burgess working with the RMM medals collection

Volunteering with naval artefacts from World War I

By on January 24, 2020 in Public History, Research in Focus

Emily Burgess, a third year history student at Portsmouth, describes some of the things she has learned and some of the amazing artefacts she has got to work with on a daily basis in over a year spent working as a volunteer first for the National Museum of the Royal Navy and then for the Royal Marines Museum.  She is now devising her own projects and events for the museum and has found the experience invaluable to her studies for her degree. During my first year at Portsmouth University I attended a history volunteer fair held in The Mary Rose Museum. It was there that I met my future supervisor […]

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View of Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight, etching by Wenceslas Hollar, 1643, British Museum Print Q, C.100

Local History on Stage

By on December 21, 2018 in Events, Public History, Research in Focus

As part of his practice research PhD at Portsmouth, Vin Adams has written a play about the events here in 1642, just before Charles I raised his standard in Nottingham. The play will be performed in The Square Tower in Old Portsmouth, itself part of the action of the play, and brings to life many figures of the time including Queen Henrietta Maria, John Pym, Sir William Waller and, of course, George Goring. For anyone interested in local history, this should be an interesting exploration of Portsmouth’s part in one of the battles that prefaced the Civil War. Vin has been working on the project with Fiona McCall, senior lecturer […]

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