History@Portsmouth

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Learning in Focus

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“How can you be an artist and not reflect the times?” – studying Nina Simone and her times

Below Pauline Standley describes the experience of studying for a master’s degree in history (MRes) at Portsmouth.  She looked at the role of Nina Simone as a civil rights activist, a feminist, and someone who reflected the broader socio-political shifts of her time.  Pauline’s supervisor was Dr Lee Sartain. Nina Simone. For many, her name immediately brings to mind her iconic, richly textured voice, often accompanied by signature sounds of the trumpets and piano in timeless classics like “I Put a Spell on You” or “Feeling Good”. While these songs undoubtedly capture her unshakeable legacy, Nina Simone is also a reservoir of intersectional experiences that reveal much about the socio-political […]

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The different experiences of black and white women within the US feminist movement

Recent UoP history graduate Rebekah Sistig’s dissertation looked at how inherited racism divided members of the second-wave feminist movement in the USA.  She discusses her research below, with some good tips on breaking down the process. Rebekah’s supervisor was Dr Lee Sartain. Angela Davis, Betty Friedan, bell hooks and Gloria Steinem – all icons of the second wave feminist movement in the US, all women who dedicated their lives to fight against sexism. But were they truly united in their fight against the patriarchy? Was the supposed ‘sisterhood’ all it was chalked up to be? Judging by their contrasting books, organisations, ideologies, and social groups, I think it may not […]

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Researching the role of the Western powers in concealing Japanese War Crimes

Recent UoP history graduate Benjamin Taylor wrote his third-year dissertation on Japanese war crimes, discovering that the US and other Western states played a far larger role in the cover-up than has been previously acknowledged.  Below he writes about the trial and error process of writing his dissertation, and how the guidance of his supervisor, Dr Rudolph Ng, has been vital. My chosen topic for my dissertation was an investigation of the cover-up that has surrounded Japanese war crimes. Specifically, my dissertation sought to answer two questions: has there been a cover-up surrounding Japanese war crimes? And two, if so, which country was most instrumental in creating and perpetuating this […]

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Graduation Day 2024

It is always a proud day for us as tutors to see students we have nurtured since they were freshers step up onto the podium to receive their degrees.  We love chatting to students after the ceremony to talk about their experience of the course, moved by the stories of students who have got there despite having to navigate difficult obstacles, catching up with students we taught several years ago, and hearing about what students are planning to do next.  It is also great to tell students how much we appreciated some of their wonderful final year work, which hardly seemed possible when they were the ‘noisy’ group of post-covid […]

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An African slave trading commodity washed up off the Isle of Wight

Many of our UoP history students take the opportunity to do voluntary work in one of the many museums in Portsmouth or nearby.  Second-year UoP History Isobel Turtle started volunteering even earlier.  Having decided to defer her university entry,  she started working at the Isle of Wight shipwreck centre in 2021.  It’s given her lots of unique opportunities to learn how a museum works: highlights have included seeing how a museum becomes accredited by the Arts Council, how grants and funding are secured and used, how exhibitions are created from scratch, working on databasing the collection, helping with visiting school groups and managing volunteers. She has worked her way up […]

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The long-term impact of Japanese Imperialism in China, 1931-1945

Third-year UoP student Brandon Lawson used his dissertation study to discover more about Asian history in the twentieth century, a topic he felt deserved more attention in historical studies.  His dissertation was entitled Shadows of war: “Justice” and geopolitical tension caused by Japanese Imperialism on China, 1931-1945.  Brandon’s supervisor was Dr Rudolph Ng. The conquest of Chinese territory by the Imperial Japanese Army in the 1930s led to a horrific and deadly campaign across the land, decimating the lives of their victims and cities in their path across vast swathes of Asia.  However the impact that the territorial expansion had on China society spanned many decades up to the modern […]

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