History@Portsmouth

University of Portsmouth's History Blog

Tag Archives | social history

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Telling tales about the Past

The celebrated historian Natalie Zemon Davis died recently.  In this post, our own Dr Katy Gibbons looks at how second-year students studying the ‘Debating the Past’ module, translated her most famous work into other media: emojis, memes and poetry! What role does story telling play in history writing? How far can historians use their own imagination when discovering and relaying the stories of people in the past? This is one of the many questions that we engage our students with as they look in depth at historiography, and think about how historians ‘do’ history.  In our second year core module, ‘Debating the Past’, one of the texts that might be […]

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Breakup of Britain

Differential fees for overseas students

In this new post, Senior Lecturer Jodi Burkett shares a podcast in which she discusses a chapter she has written for the edited collection The Break-up of Greater Britain (MUP, 2021). Jodi’s research focuses on the cultural and social impacts of the end of the British Empire, with a particular focus on national movements like the National Union of Students, and in this podcast she reveals how the different fees charged to overseas students caused significant anger among the student community in the late-1960s. Increasing tuition fees for University students has been a way for governments to save money since, at least, the late 1960s. While most students didn’t have […]

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Church and People in Interregnum Britain

In this post, UoP senior lecturer in history Dr Fiona McCall talks about her new book Church and People in Interregnum Britain, bringing together new research from scholars across Britain and further afield on the profound religious changes which took place after the British Civil Wars and how people responded to  them. From 1642-5, England, Ireland, Wales and Scotland, endured the first in a series of devastating civil wars, which split communities ideologically, politically and religiously.  These wars have been termed ‘the last of the wars of religion’ by leading Civil War historian John Morrill.[1]  In 1645, as the first Civil War approached its end, and the religious reformists gained […]

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UoP History research seminar: the attack on female deviance under Godly rule, 1645-1660

    On 10th March 2021 the paper in our UoP History Research seminar series was by UoP history lecturer Dr Fiona McCall, who gave a paper on female deviance during the English interregnum, including fighting in church, sexual harassment, drinking, swearing and cursing, adultery and witchcraft.  This paper has been recorded for those unable to attend on the day, see below. We hope to upload further recordings of History Research papers in the near future. Click here for a link to the recording of the seminar (you will need the password: %MT6U8&S)  

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