History@Portsmouth

University of Portsmouth's History Blog

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Wartime representations of the Royal Navy submarine service in the British press

Dr Rob James, Senior Lecturer and Course Lead for the MA Naval, Maritime and Coastal History, has recently published an article, co-written with one of the MA’s alumni students, Martin Backhouse, in the journal War in History. The article, ‘Un-silencing “The Most Silent Section of ‘The Silent Service’’’: The Portrayal of Royal Navy Submarines and Submariners in the Illustrated London News, 1939-1945’, examines the portrayal of Royal Navy submarines and their crews in the world’s first weekly illustrated newspaper, the Illustrated London News, during the Second World War. It argues that the newspaper depicted Britain as having a technologically advanced and potent submarine service, whose personnel were part of an […]

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Ashleigh in Brussels

Realising and communicating a love for history, at Portsmouth and beyond

Ashleigh Hufton is remembered with great affection by the history team as a student who contributed keenly to history seminars from the outset and worked hard to develop her skills further during her studies in history at the University of Portsmouth from 2018 – 2021.  Ashleigh has since been enjoying great success teaching history at secondary level.  Below she writes about her studies at Portsmouth, and what she has gained from them since graduating.   What I enjoyed most about my history studies at Portsmouth It is difficult to pinpoint the most enjoyable part of my degree because I genuinely loved every moment of being a student at the University […]

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Statue of Cecil Rhodes, Oriel College, Oxford

Reimagining and decolonising higher education

Below Dr Jodi Burkett, UoP senior lecturer in late twentieth-century history, imperial history and race, writes about a conference she attendance sharing ideas for decolonising the university curriculum. Last week I had the opportunity to attend the Reimagining Higher Education: Journeys of decolonising conference held at the Institute of Education in London (thanks to SASSHPL for funds to support this!). I was attending with my colleague Bhavin Dedhia (Dentistry) to present some work that we have been doing with Lena Grinsted (Biology) to decolonise science teaching and promote inclusive teaching and learning spaces here at Portsmouth. This work is based on research that Lena undertook a few years ago which […]

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Homosexual relationships in the time of King James I

A blog on homosexual relationships in the time of King James I was published today by our own Dr Fiona McCall in the Conversation. https://theconversation.com/mary-and-george-homosexual-relationships-in-the-time-of-king-james-i-were-forbidden-but-not-uncommon-223522 Fiona teaches the second year UoP option Underworlds: Crime, Deviance and Punishment in Britain, 1500-1900 which looks at sexual offences and attitudes in the early modern period.  Her research looks at the relationship between sex and religion during the interregnum (amongst other things).

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One of the questions we’re most frequently asked by students who will be joining us as first years in the autumn term is “What reading do we need to do to prepare for the course?” When you join us and register in September, you will gain access to all of our library resources, including e-books and journals – there is no need for you to spend money in advance!  But, it can be really helpful to keep thinking about History-related things over the summer. Members of the History team have put together this list of suggestions of things to read or listen to. For students joining us for the first […]

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