History@Portsmouth
University of Portsmouth's History Blog
Brad Beaven has a new blog published on the Social History Society’s blog, looking at the history of ‘sailortowns’, seaport’s urban quarters where sailors would stay, eat, drink and be entertained. These were transient and liminal spaces and a unique site of cultural contact and exchange. Despite the rich array of research areas in class, […]
Is it appropriate for governments to restrict personal liberty in an effort to control disease? This issue has come very much to the fore in the wake of the current worldwide Coronavirus epidemic. In this post, Darcy Mckinlay, a second year history student, writes about nineteenth-century arguments against forcible methods of controlling venereal diseases. During […]
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 […]
Joshua Bown, a first year History student at the University of Portsmouth, has written the following blog entry on the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave, for the Fragments module, which looks at the possibilities and challenges of using primary sources for historical study. The module is co-ordinated by Dr Katy […]
Articles by our own Professor Brad Beaven on how the current 48-hour weekend became the norm, were recently published in the Conversation and in The Independent: Link: https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/weekend-lesson-four-day-working-week-a9274096.html Link: https://theconversation.com/history-of-the-two-day-weekend-offers-lessons-for-todays-calls-for-a-four-day-week-127382 Brad has published widely on urban popular culture, leisure and empire in Britain in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Rachel Savage, a second year History student at the University of Portsmouth, has written the following blog entry on letters sent between author Charlotte Brontë and her friend Ellen Nussey, for the Introduction to Historical Research module. Rachel reveals how personal sources like this can be used to gain insight into the emotions of women […]