Category: Essays
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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? Jessica A. Fernandez de Lara Harada: Histories of race cannot be understood without reference to issues of…
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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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Co-Rulership and Power in Medieval Europe
Fig. 1 Henry II and his children, Royal 14 B VI, Membrane 6, British By Gabby Storey For most scholars of royal studies, the concepts of corporate or composite monarchies, now fusing with ideas of co-rulership, are important – though not always essential – approaches to apply to the study of monarchy. However, for monarchical studies,…
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Japan’s Empire and the Crushed Hopes of the “Colored Races” of the World
Figure 1: 1938 pamphlet issued by the Negro Commission of the National Committee of the Communist Party, USA By Dr Sherzod Muminov For a few early decades of the twentieth century, Japan came to be seen as a champion of the colonized peoples around the world. Behind this image stood Japan’s meteoric rise as the…
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Black History is not just for Black History Month!
Fig. 1 Black History Month display at UEA Library How libraries – and librarians – are grappling with decolonisation and why this matters By Jenny Whitaker and Grant Young This is probably self-evident – especially to historians – but libraries are not neutral entities. They are highly constructed. They have legacies and biases and have…
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Surprising lessons from the 1980s: inspiration from anti-deportation campaign activism
Figure 1: Poster of the Campaign Against Racist Laws By Amy Grant Beginning my research into anti-deportation campaigns in Britain during the long 1980s was a depressing experience. I became enveloped by account after account of families and individuals being torn apart by ever-tightening and often arbitrarily administered immigration laws.[1] It became clear that the…
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Reflections on Black History in Black History Month
Figure 1: Sketch of the life of Frederick Douglass in Special Memorial Murder (1895) By Becky Taylor Black History Month is often a time when I reflect not only on how Black British histories inform my own research on histories of marginalised and racialised groups – Gypsies and Travellers, refugees, the vilified poor and migrant…
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Egyptian? Or Nubian? Asking questions of objects.
By Aaron de Souza For the last ten years or so I’ve been deeply interested in ancient Nubian cultures of the Second Millennium BCE – in particular the so-called ‘Pan-Grave’, ‘C-Group’ and ‘Kerma’ cultures.[1] I can’t tell you exactly what about them it is that intrigues me so much, but a big part is the…