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Research in Focus

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 […]

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IMG_4500 Amelia presentation cropped

From Margins to Centre? An undergraduate conference on marginalised histories

By on May 5, 2020 in Learning in Focus, Research in Focus

At Portsmouth we were delighted to have not one, but two students presenting their work at the recent ‘From Margins to Centre’ conference at the University of York – a testament to the innovative and exciting research our students are devising and doing. In this blog post our second contributor, third year student Amelia Boddice, discusses the conference and where her paper fitted into the themes of the day. As well as building her employability skills, the conference prompted some thought-provoking reflections on the nature of historical enquiry: Amelia clearly got lots out of the day – just as it should be! The whole history team here at Portsmouth pitched […]

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munch plus cities

Building Supernatural Cities

By on April 23, 2020 in New Publications, Research in Focus

In this post, Karl Bell, reader in cultural and social history, talks about his new book Supernatural Cities: Enchantment, Anxiety and Spectrality, bringing together scholars from across the globe working on the relationship between supernatural beliefs and urban cultures.  He describes what the book is about, and what he learned from the process of international academic collaboration. In my most recent book I brought together and led an international group of scholars in an exploration of magic, monsters, ghosts and storytelling in urban cultures around the world.  Examining these ideas from the late eighteenth to the early twenty-first century, Supernatural Cities: Enchantment, Anxiety and Spectrality (Boydell and Brewer, 2019) challenges […]

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Sophie AIDS research poster cropped

Marginalised Histories – presenting undergraduate research on AIDs at a conference

By on March 10, 2020 in Learning in Focus, Research in Focus

In this blog post, third year student Sophie McKee reflects on her poster presentation at the recent ‘Marginalised Histories’ conference at the University of York. We were excited when the conference came up and encouraged our students to apply, working with them on their proposals and securing funding to support attendance. This was a great chance to disseminate their research, experience another aspect of the world of the academic historian, and gain value experience to enhance their employability. We were therefore delighted that Sophie was accepted to present a poster, based on her dissertation research. Fiona McCall has asked me to write a blog post about attending conferences. Now, I […]

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Black Cultural Archives V3

Students visit the Black Cultural Archives in Brixton

By on March 5, 2020 in Learning in Focus, Research in Focus

Third year student Amelia Boddice describes her first experience of visiting and using an archive, with other students of the Racism and Anti-Racism in Post-War Britain special subject, taught by Dr Jodi Burkett. As part of my special subject, ‘Racism and Anti-Racism in Post-War Britain’ run by Dr Jodi Burkett, we had to come up with our own essay questions.  At first this seemed quite a daunting prospect.  As I looked through the topics and read more widely I decided to write about something I was truly interested in: the British government’s attempts at improving the everyday experiences of ethnic minorities in the 1970/80s.  I wanted to touch on the […]

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773px-Poster_for_the_1960_film_The_Time_Machine

Goblin scullery maids, ghostly miners and cannibal sailors: my experience of studying for a PhD at the University of Portsmouth

By on February 24, 2020 in Learning in Focus, Research in Focus

Dr Eilís Phillips followed three years of undergraduate study at the University of Portsmouth with a three-year PhD on Victorian monsters, supervised by Dr Karl Bell, Reader in History at the University.  Her work is an inspiration to many, not least to my own students studying ideas of the monstrous in the 17th century Civil War context.  Impressively, while studying with and teaching at the University, Eilís has combined her academic studies with regular performances as a musician at many locations in Portsmouth and the surrounding areas – ed.   My PhD was a three-year, CEISR-funded interdisciplinary project which used an approach based in History – grounded in historiography – […]

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