History@Portsmouth

University of Portsmouth's History Blog

Tag Archives | students

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(Un)safe heritage?

By on August 31, 2018 in Learning in Focus, Public History

In this post, the third in our series of blogs looking at sites of historical interest in Portsmouth, Mike Esbester, Senior Lecturer in History at Portsmouth, explores what might be learnt from an apparently unexceptional piece of the city’s built environment. Mike’s research and teaching focus on the everyday, including ideas about mobility and accidents in modern Britain. Not far from my office, there’s yet another mundane object that for most of the time, most people don’t notice – for 140 years it was part of the background to life around Burnaby Road. For a week or so earlier this year, however, it became very noticeable – particularly its absence, […]

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Astoria1

Going to the cinema? The changing uses of Portsmouth’s cinema buildings

By on August 24, 2018 in Learning in Focus, Public History

In this blog, the second in a series of posts looking at sites of historical interest in Portsmouth, Dr Rob James, Senior Lecturer in History, discusses the changing uses of the city’s cinema buildings. 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 was an important leisure pastime […]

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Ravelin Park

Graduation 2018: Two days of celebrations!

By on July 18, 2018 in Events

Graduation is a special day for tutors and, of course, students and their families and friends. In this blog the History team at Portsmouth reflect on a day in which they celebrated the successes of their undergraduate and postgraduate students as they graduated after completing their degrees.  Graduation is always a day of mixed emotions. While it is exciting to see our students graduate, it is also sad to see another year group leave. We have worked closely with them over the course of their time here; guided them through the assignments they did; helped them become critical and reflective thinkers; and prepared them for whatever careers lay before them. While we are sorry to see them go, we are […]

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Image taken from https://ferrisjabr.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/jane_austen_coloured_version_small1.jpg

Using Personal Sources: Jane Austen’s Letters

By on March 16, 2018 in Learning in Focus

Eleanor Doyle, a second year History student at the University of Portsmouth, wrote the following blog entry on one of Jane Austen’s letters to her sister Cassandra for the Introduction to Historical Research Unit. Eleanor discusses how we can use personal sources such as this to understand more about an author’s personal relationships as well as wider contemporary experiences. The unit is co-ordinated by Dr Maria Cannon, Lecturer in Early Modern History at Portsmouth. Jane Austen’s reputation as a celebrated English novelist is well established. However, her letters to her sister, Cassandra Austen, provide a rewarding insight into her as an individual. This blog will focus on a letter Jane sent to her […]

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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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mature students

Learning is for life – a guide for the mature student

By on February 28, 2018 in Learning in Focus

Nicholas Hawkins, first year History and Politics student at the University of Portsmouth, has written the following blog on what it’s like to start university as a mature student. Reflecting on many of the things that concern mature students when contemplating a return to education – family commitments, finance, fitting in – Nick offers a candid account of his journey from prospective student to a first-year undergrad experiencing his first few months at university.  In my last year at school I was taught in the new ROSLA block which stood for “Raising of the School Leaving Age” as Ted Heath had done just that in 1972, from 15 to 16. […]

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