Frankie Raine’s dissertation looked at how perceptions of crime in the nineteenth-century were influenced by sensationalist literary and media representations, contrasting the depiction of men involved in the mid-Victorian garrotting panic, with those of female prostitutes accused of theft. She found that the impact of literary and journalistic depictions on public understanding was mixed, intersecting in a more complex way with on pre-existing gender and class expectations. Below, she describes her research process, and gives some tips for future dissertation students. Frankie’s supervisor was Professor Brad Beaven. The abundance of media sources detailing crimes and the criminals convicted of carrying them out has long been a cause of amusement and […]
Archive | Learning in Focus
Learning in Focus
What first-year history students think about Artificial Intelligence
In February our own Dr Jodi Burkett posted this article on the problems of relying on AI for the study of history. So we thought it would be interesting to follow up with some of our students’ views on the topic. For their Thinking Like an Historian Module, first-year history students were asked to read two essays, one written with and one without AI, and then give their personal thoughts about and experiences with this technology, and what they think is useful and permissible use of these types of tools at university. Their opinions provide useful food for thought for educators. Some students felt they could cope better without using […]
The impact of beauty on women’s lives from the sixteenth century to today: a prize-winning poster
Having successfully completed a first-class degree in history at Portsmouth, followed by a master’s degree, Jaina Hunt is now in the midst of studying for a PhD in history. Below she writes about her thesis on early modern beauty standards and about her poster presentation which won awards in 2024. In addition to working on her thesis, Jaina has worked as a teaching fellow at Portsmouth, as a project administrator for the British Council, a PhD tutor for the Brilliant Club, delivering university-style tutorials to high-potential students from underrepresented backgrounds, and a research-assistant on a UoP BA/ Leverhulme funded project on young women and body image. Jaina’s PhD supervisor is […]
“War. It has got to come”. How the radical imperialism of Alfred Milner and Joseph Chamberlain pushed Britain into war with South Africa
Elliott Thomas’s enthusiasm for and seriousness about history was apparent to from the time I first taught him in his first year of studies, and he has contributed several pieces for this blog. For his dissertation he looked at the role of charismatic figures Joseph Chamberlain, Alfred Milner, and the writer John Robert Seeley in pushing ideas of radical, racist imperialism which at the turn of the twentieth century led Britain into a devastating conflict in South Africa. Elliott’s supervisor was Professor Brad Beaven. Elliott’s work has got better and better over the three years he has studied with us and it is great to see Elliott give a shout […]
Projecting youth, purity and marriageability: students reconstruct sixteenth-century beauty recipes
For their first year module, Beliefs, Communities and Conflicts, 1400-1750, UoP history students are asked to do a practical activity and then write a report about it, reflecting reflecting critically about how it relates to the themes explored in the module. This, the first of two posts, looks at what students learned from trying to reconstruct early modern cosmetics. The tutors on this module were Dr Maria Cannon and Dr Fiona McCall. Rosie Wells chose to adapt the recipe for Rose Lip Balm from Italian doctor Giovanni Marinelli’s Gli ornamenti delle donne (The Ornament of Ladies) (1562) a manual on female beauty containing recipes at first purporting to be taken […]
Violence at home, violence abroad – creative and lived African-American reactions to the My Lai Massacre
This is the first of two blogs by UoP second-year history student Gabriel Lawless, reflecting on the 50th anniversary of the reunification of Vietnam. This blog, drawing on oral histories, poetry, and political writing, explores how African-American voices interpreted and responded to the My Lai Massacre and the Fall of Saigon not as isolated incidents, but as part of a wider, politically entrenched pattern of violence. The exposure of the My Lai Massacre in 1969 to the civilian masses marked a decisive turning point in public perception of the Vietnam War. Reports that American soldiers had supposedly killed hundreds of Vietnamese civilians came as a shock to those in the […]