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Research in Focus

BOSTON, MA - APRIL 21: Chanting, "We're going to stop rape now," a coalition of women's groups gathered in Downtown Crossing in Boston on April 21, 1984, to protest the treatment of the victim in the highly publicized New Bedford barroom rape trial. The demonstration came one month after four men were convicted of raping a 21-year-old mother on a pool table in Big Dan's tavern in New Bedford. The case drew nationwide publicity when police reported that others in the bar cheered during the attack. The trial was broadcast daily on cable television. (Photo by Wendy Maeda/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)

A Heritage Lottery Fund Grant for the University of Portsmouth for an Oral History Project on Women’s Activism Since 1960

By on June 8, 2018 in Events, News, Research in Focus

Dr Sue Bruley, Reader in Modern History at Portsmouth, has won a large grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund to research women’s activism in Portsmouth since 1960. The project will investigate the many struggles women faced living and working in the naval city. Sue’s research focuses on gender and women’s history in the 20th century, and she teaches a special subject on ‘Gender, Sexuality and War 1922-80’ and an option ‘The First World War, A Social and Gender History’. The University of Portsmouth has been awarded a Heritage Lottery Fund grant of £73,300 to research women’s activism in Portsmouth. This project will led by Sue Bruley, Reader in Modern History, […]

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Odeon cinema, North End

‘Make your public curious’: The highs and lows of being a cinema manager

By on March 30, 2018 in Research in Focus

In this blog Dr Rob James, Senior Lecturer in History, discusses the challenges of being a cinema manager in Britain in the first half of the 20th century. Rob specialises in researching society’s leisure activities and teaches a number of units on film and the cinema, including, as part of the Problems and Perspectives unit, ‘History at the Movies’ in the first year, ‘The Way to the Stars: Film and cinema-going in Britain, c. 1900-c. 2000’ option in the second year, and a Special Subject on ‘Cinema-going in Wartime Britain, 1939-1945’ in the third year. Going to the cinema is the result of a series of choices. A number of […]

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Exterior of Whitechapel Workhouse. Image courtesy of Gale Primary Sources

James Greenwood – Social Reformer or Opportunist?

By on March 8, 2018 in Learning in Focus, Research in Focus

Rory Herbert, final year History student and President of the History Society at the University of Portsmouth, has written the following blog on the 19th century social investigator James Greenwood. Rory is Gale Ambassador at the university and contributes to The Gale Review Blog. The role of the Gale Ambassador is to increase awareness of the Gale primary source collections available to students at their university. The University of Portsmouth Library hosts a large collection of Gale primary sources which History students can use when undertaking archival research for their dissertations and other research projects. James Greenwood was an author of relative obscurity who came to fame abruptly following the publication […]

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By photographer not identified - This is photograph Q 114833 from the collections of the Imperial War Museums (collection no. 8502-08 [1]), Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2872345

Don’t believe everything you read…

By on February 5, 2018 in Public History, Research in Focus

Dr Rob James, Senior Lecturer in History, recently worked with a local community group, Portsdown U3A, on a Heritage Lottery Funded project that sought to find out the impact of the Battle of Jutland on the people of Portsmouth and the local area. With the help of research assistant and PhD student John Bolt, and a team of Online Course Developers at the University, Dr James created an online map using the data collected by members or Portsdown U3A. One of the most interesting findings made by the U3A when conducting their research was that one celebrated V.C. holder – Commander Loftus William Jones – was born in Portsmouth, not […]

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History is not always written by the winners

By on January 26, 2018 in Learning in Focus, New Publications, Research in Focus

Dr Katy Gibbons is Senior Lecturer in History, and specialises in the religious and cultural history of 16th century England and Europe. She teaches amongst other units, a Special Subject ‘Conflict, Conspiracy, Consensus? Religious Identities in the Reign of Elizabeth I’, which covers some of the themes addressed in the article below. The article for this blog accompanies a publication in the international journal Etudes Episteme. 2017 has seen a range of events to mark the 500th anniversary of the Lutheran Reformation (http://www.reformation500.uk/). Celebrations have been conducted in ways that deliberately avoid confessionalised interpretations of the past, including efforts at mutual dialogue between the Lutheran and Roman Catholic churches (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-37827736), […]

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‘Pleasure in reading is the true function of all books’: Cultural critics, public librarians, and working-class reading in early-twentieth century Britain

By on January 8, 2018 in New Publications, Research in Focus

In this blog Dr Rob James, Senior Lecturer in History, looks at the growth of reading as a leisure activity among the working classes in Britain during the early twentieth century and considers how broader society viewed this expansion. Rob specialises in researching people’s leisure practices, and teaches a number of units that focus on one of the most popular leisure pursuits of the first half of the twentieth century, going to the cinema. Do you ever think about how other people view the books you choose to read? Over the course of the last hundred or so years, people’s reading habits have been subject to intense scrutiny, particularly the […]

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