Category: Contemporary
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Crowns and controversies: the politics of King Charles III’s coronation
Fig. 1 State opening of Parliament By Dr Jérémy Filet and Calum Cunningham With the release of Season 5 of The Crown on Netflix in November 2022, a worldwide audience gained access to a somewhat romanticised version of the adult life of the new monarch of the United Kingdom. The series depicts a reformer Prince…
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Interview with Jessica A. Fernandez de Lara Harada on Othered Histories of Race
“Mexican and Japanese relations demonstrate the existence of an open, decentred world characterised by multiple overlapping structures.” By Jessica A. Fernandez de Lara Harada Iker Itoiz Ciaurriz: Firstly, for those who might be unfamiliar with the topic, can you give us a brief overview of the history of race and power in Mexican-Japanese Relations? …
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The Francoist appropriation of the popular festival
Fig 1: Franco and members of the Seville government in a Holy Week procession in 1940 By Claudio Hernández Burgos and César Rina When it comes to understanding contemporary cultural processes and political dynamics, the study of festivals and popular rituals has traditionally occupied a secondary and anecdotal position in historiography. It has been interpreted as…
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‘All Women United Fraternally against War and Fascism’: The Comité Mondial des Femmes contre la Guerre et le Fascisme
Fig 1: Demonstration of The Comité Mondial Des Femmes Contre la Guerre et le Fascisme demanding female vote By Dr Jasmine Calver Political discourse over the last few years has been dominated by discussions and warnings about extremism, particularly the rise of the new extreme right across the globe. How and why modern extremism attracts…
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Collecting Contexts – Why Do We Collect?
WILL BURGESS During the summer of 2019, I volunteered at the V&A’s Lansbury Micro Museum in Poplar, East London, to help run an exhibition called For the Love of Things. The exhibition put the personal collections of the museum’s visitors on display, its shelves changing throughout the summer as people contributed different groups of objects: antique…
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Everyday Decolonisation: the local museum in 2020
PIPPA LE GRAND A few Monday mornings ago, I stood outside Weston Park Museum, Sheffield, enjoying my job and welcoming visitors. There were few enough around that I was able to gaze at the frieze over the door and even discuss it at length with a colleague. The frieze, according to Sheffield Hallam’s Public Art Research…
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Feeling Sickness: Emotional responses to pandemic diseases
DR MONICA O’BRIEN It’s a wintery afternoon and, once again, I’m scrolling through news articles about Covid-19. Since countries entered their first lockdowns, much has been written on the pandemic’s emotional and psychological impacts. Loss, loneliness, fear, stress, anger; these emotions figure prominently in many narratives of the pandemic. It seems that emotional consequences will…
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Heritage or Highway: York’s city walls as tourist and civil infrastructure
Louisa Hood This blog explores two very particular histories of York’s city walls. Although known generally as Roman or medieval defences, the social, material, economic, and other histories of the walls are layered, obscured, or unknown. York’s extant walls are a key aspect of its historic environment and identity as a tourist destination, but they…
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Britain First: The official history of the United Kingdom according to the Home Office – a critical review
Frank Trentmann BRITAIN FIRST: The official history of the United Kingdom according to the Home Office – a critical review Following this summer’s open letter to the Home Office, this article by Frank Trentmann offers an analysis of the official history chapter in the ‘Life in the UK’ handbook that is required reading for migrants…
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Historians Call for a Review of Home Office Citizenship and Settlement Test
21 July 2020 Historians Call for a Review of Home Office Citizenship and Settlement Test We are historians of Britain and the British Empire and writing in protest at the on-going misrepresentation of slavery and Empire in the “Life in the UK Test”, which is a requirement for applicants for citizenship or settlement (“indefinite leave…
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