History@Portsmouth

University of Portsmouth's History Blog

Tag Archives | women’s history

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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 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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Women and dress

Exploring the transgressive use of clothing by female groups from the 1920s to the 1970s

Emily Jays graduated in Summer 2021 with a 2:1 in History and Sociology. Her dissertation was titled “Transgressing Gender Norms and National Identities Through Dress: Three 20th Century Case Studies”. This explored how clothing was used by flappers within 1920s America, butch lesbians and transgender women in post-1950 Britain and Muslim women and the veil in French Algeria and modern day France.  She is now studying a Master of Research in Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Portsmouth, with an intersectional approach on the relationship between working-class women, higher education and their habitus. She is about to start the process of applying for PhDs, in which she hopes […]

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“Let’s start at the very beginning”: an attempt to explain the dissertation and provide reassurance

By James Farrar, final-year history student at the University of Portsmouth.  James’s supervisor Dr Fiona McCall writes: James was an exemplary dissertation student, always ahead of schedule in planning and carrying out his dissertation work, making him ideally placed to advise others on how to go about it.    James’s dissertation, ‘“This creature not deserving mother’s name”: Female Transgression and Cheap Literature in Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century Britain’ investigated how the different degrees of female transgression, everyday and extraordinary, were perceived and written about in cheap literature of sixteenth and seventeenth century Britain.  He found that everyday female transgression, like scolding, was often treated with humour and even gave women […]

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The Forty Elephants – a forgotten female gang of South London

Last year Emily Burgess produced an outstanding dissertation on the all-female working-class gang from South London known as the Forty elephants.  Here she writes about how she came up with the idea and carried out the research, with Rob James as supervisor.  Emily concludes with some useful advice for all our students currently writing proposals for their third-year dissertation.  Emily has since set up her own consultancy for historical research and consultancy – see our previous post. From a young age I was fascinated by criminal history. My grandmother and family from the East End of London would often tell me tales about the Krays and other villainous figures from […]

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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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