JC Niala, University of Oxford Jc.niala@stcatz.ox.ac.uk @jcniala This blog describes a public engagement project that won the SHS’s 2022 Public History Prize. You can read the announcement here. I was already researching urban allotments in Oxford before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Oxford did not have a city-wide waiting list before the pandemic started. … Continued
Steph Bennett, University of Leeds @historiansteph Since the COVID-19 crisis began, clothing has become increasingly significant in our daily lives. From shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE) to wearing face masks, our clothing choices have been paramount to our health. Like today, people in the early modern period wore certain clothing and materials to try … Continued
Rachel Bynoth and Ellen Smith, Bath Spa University and University of Leicester distantcommunications2021@gmail.com @DistantCommuni1 In the middle of July 2020, just after the end of the first lockdown in the UK, we met by chance at a postgraduate online conference thinking about distance. We had so much in common: one examining expressions of anxiety in … Continued
Dr Alice Sage, Goldsmiths, University of London @aliceemmasage This blogpost explains Alice Sage’s winning Pamela Cox Public History Prize project. You can read the announcement and watch an interview between the SHS and Alice here. This exhibition and engagement project was inspired by the 100th anniversary of the publication of the Cottingley Fairy Photographs in … Continued
Dr Henry Irving, Leeds Beckett University @drhenryirving There is a large cardboard box in the corner of my study. It’s been there for the past nine weeks and now feels as permanent a fixture as my lamp or bookcase. During this time, the box has become gradually fuller, providing a home to a seemingly endless … Continued
Imogen Knox, University of Warwick @Imogen_Knox Society has long been troubled by the prevalence of suicide, with concerns around mental health rising through the COVID-19 pandemic. Late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century England similarly believed itself to be facing the ‘prodigious frequency’ of ‘diabolical transports of despair, and self-murther’. The devil reaped ‘a plentiful (but most … Continued
George Gosling, University of Wolverhampton @gcgosling What works at any given time is, of course, historically and contextually contingent. So it proved for teaching online during lockdown last time, and so it will prove again. When university teaching in the UK migrated online in March 2020, most of those teaching at universities were completely unprepared … Continued
JC Niala, University of Oxford Jc.niala@stcatz.ox.ac.uk @jcniala The significance of the allotment in urban English history is inconsistent. In general, the allotment space is treated as marginal, yet simultaneously they remain inextricably linked to popular imaginations of significant periods of history, such as the Second World War. This link resurfaced with COVID-19 and is reflected … Continued
Dr Xun Zhou, University of Essex xzhoug@essex.ac.uk Located at the foothills of the Great Wall in northern China, just south of Mongolia, is Shanxi province. Sun’s village is just outside of Datong city in northern Shanxi, an old coal mining town also famous for the ancient Yungang Buddhist Grottoes. Until the 1950s, there had been … Continued
Freya Taylor and Louise Bell, Glasgow Women’s Library @FreyaMay3 @LouBell This blog explores the ‘(Still) Seeing Things’ project run by the Glasgow Women’s Library (GWL). We’re lucky to have perspectives from two volunteers: one (Freya) who was involved in the project in its initial format and helped bring it online during lockdown; and another (Louise) … Continued
