History@Portsmouth

University of Portsmouth's History Blog

Tag Archives | memory

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Tombfinders: Working with the Napoleonic past

As part of the Working with the Past Module, four second year undergraduates from the University of Portsmouth’s BA History program (Izzy Turtle, Emily Harris, Damiana Kun and Rebekah Money) have been working with the Napoleonic & Revolutionary War Graves Charity (NRWGC) on a dedicated project to locate Napoleonic era veterans, locating and assessing their graves, and working to restore them. Founded in 2021, the NRWGC (UK Registered Charity No 1196849) was founded by Zach White to honour the memory of veterans of all nationalities who served between 1775 and 1815. The charity does this by locating veteran’s long forgotten graves, cleaning and restoring them where appropriate, and reburying disinterred […]

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Pompey: Champions of England: A research collaboration between the History team, students and Pompey History Society

In this blog, our Rob James, Senior Lecturer in History, discusses the local history project he worked on with one of our local community partners, Pompey History Society, that culminated in the publication of a book which includes a chapter written by Rob and four of our History students, Sam Ewart, Maria Kopanska, Dan Ward and Jack Woolley. Rob’s research explores society’s leisure activities and feeds into a number of optional and specialist modules that he teaches in the second and third year.   On 26 October 2022, I attended the launch of the book POMPEY Champions of England: The sporting and social history of Portsmouth FC’s league title wins […]

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Researching memories of D-Day: A student podcast

Recently, the internationally-renowned museum, The D-Day Story, published on their website a podcast recorded in 2021 by three second year History students, Joshua Bown, Angus Grieve and Shannen Smylie. The students worked with the museum’s archives as part of their assessment for the ‘Working with the Past’ module, coordinated by Mike Esbester. The second-year module encourages students to work with our local community partners where possible and produce work that has a benefit to them and the organisation they are working with. To hear the podcast, go to the D-Day Story website here.

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The Impact of Civil War on English Parishes

In November 2020 the University of Warwick Network for Parish Research organised an online symposium on ‘Remembering the Parish’. Fiona McCall, Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Portsmouth, presented a paper, ‘Remembering the ‘Wickedly Wicked’ Times’, looking at loyalist memories criticising the interregnum religious regime.  She was one of four speakers on the memories of the civil war in English parishes; there is a feature on these papers here on the My-Parish website.

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Photos of Wehrmacht soldiers

Germans coming to terms with the crimes of the past: the role of the Wehrmacht in World War II

In his dissertation third-year history student Tim Marsella studied the changing understandings and representations of the role of the Wehrmacht (German armed forces in World War II) within modern Germany.  He shows how a landmark exhibition in the 1990s challenged perceptions about the breadth of involvement in war crimes, but also how coming to terms with painful memories allowed German society to move on. Most students are aware when they start their degrees that they will be required to complete a dissertation in the final year of their course, and this prospect can seem quite daunting.What I would like to share is both my inspiration for this work and what […]

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Heritage and Memory: Warlingham War Memorial

Benjamin Locke, a second year History student at the University of Portsmouth, has written the following blog entry on Warlingham War Memorial for the Introduction to Historical Research module. Benjamin considers the messages provided by the memorial’s imagery and how they reflect the social expectations of the time of its unveiling. The module is co-ordinated by Dr Maria Cannon, Lecturer in Early Modern History at Portsmouth. ‘Heritage is the valorisation and preservation by individuals and groups of traces of the past that are thought to embody their cultural identity’. [1] The values and practices of heritage preservation are determined by major political and economic trade-offs, both of which determine what […]

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