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Research in Focus

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Bridging the gap between the academic and non-academic worlds: Engaging the public in academic research

By on July 12, 2022 in Learning in Focus, Public History, Research in Focus

In this blog Reiss Sims, who has just gained a first-class degree in History at Portsmouth (well done, Reiss!), discusses a project he worked on last year with some of his fellow History students for the module ‘Working with the Past’, coordinated by Dr Mike Esbester. As part of their project, the students looked into how academic historians take their work ‘out of the academy’ and into the public realm. Reiss and his fellow students interviewed our Dr Karl Bell, who researches all things supernatural, to find out how he has tried to engage the wider public in the history he studies. Last year, as part of our assessment for […]

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Breakup of Britain

Differential fees for overseas students

By on June 13, 2022 in Learning in Focus, New Publications, Research in Focus

In this new post, Senior Lecturer Jodi Burkett shares a podcast in which she discusses a chapter she has written for the edited collection The Break-up of Greater Britain (MUP, 2021). Jodi’s research focuses on the cultural and social impacts of the end of the British Empire, with a particular focus on national movements like the National Union of Students, and in this podcast she reveals how the different fees charged to overseas students caused significant anger among the student community in the late-1960s. Increasing tuition fees for University students has been a way for governments to save money since, at least, the late 1960s. While most students didn’t have […]

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What’s in a name?: Etymology of Istanbul through the Ages

By on March 31, 2022 in Research in Focus

On Wednesday 9 February Dr Gemma Masson (University of Birmingham) presented a paper in our History Research seminar series on the history of the development and changes to the name of the city of Istanbul.  As well as explaining the constructions of these names, the paper placed developments in the city’s name within the context of their times. If you missed the paper, a recording can be viewed here.  You will need to input the password 2yqXH4S+.

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‘An hour or two of welcome relaxation’: The cinema business in wartime Britain

By on March 29, 2022 in Research in Focus

On 12 January 2022 our own Dr Rob James, Senior Lecturer in Cultural and Social History, presented at the first History research seminar of the new year (Happy New Year everyone!) with a thought-provoking paper on the effect of world war on the cinema trade in Britain. If you missed the paper, the recording is available here (you will need to the password Q64&W$?2). In the seminar, Rob discussed how, during both the First and Second World War, the film industry was faced with a wide range of challenges that, in the worst-case scenario, threatened its continued existence. Rob explained that cinema trade personnel responded to the challenging wartime circumstances by […]

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Don’t lose your head – surviving a dissertation on King Charles I’s killers

By on March 17, 2022 in Learning in Focus, Research in Focus, Uncategorized

Below, one of last year’s third-year students, Alex Symonds, gives some timely advice on how to survive writing your dissertation.  Alex’s dissertation was entitled “‘Cruel Necessity’: Understanding the Influences on the Commissioners in the Trial of Charles I”.  As Alex’s supervisor, I knew she had it in her to do very well, but my mouth dropped to floor once I began reading her work.  The dissertation was very bold in its arguments with an original central focus on humanising the regicides, as well as those chosen commissioners who chose not to sign the death warrant, who have been far less studied. Alex developed some sophisticated arguments around the role of […]

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Peter Misch (1909-1987): a holocaust survivor in wartime China

By on December 16, 2021 in Research in Focus

  On 8 December 2021 our own Dr Rudolph Ng, Lecturer in Global History, presented a fascinating paper tracing the extraordinary journey of a young geologist who fled Nazi Germany in 1936 and then taught for a decade in wartime China, before making a successful postwar academic career in the United States. If you missed the paper, we have a recording available, so do get in touch with one of us (rudolph.ng@port.ac.uk, robert.james@port.ac.uk, fiona.mccall@port.ac.u) Misch’s narrow escapes from the Holocaust and the Japanese invasion of China (1937), his capture by the Chinese Nationalists (1942), and the impending Communist takeover in China (1946) highlight the tumultuous reality of academic pursuits in […]

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