Grace Whorrall-Campbell, University of Cambridge gew33@cam.ac.uk We are delighted to share this blog, which is winner of the 2021 SHS Postgraduate Prize. You can read the announcement here. Mary Redman broke down at her desk. The strain visibly overcame her, and she crumpled, like the piece of paper clenched in her fist. Leaning over her … 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
Edda Nicolson, University of Wolverhampton @Edda_Nicolson This blog by Edda Nicolson was commended in the 2020 SHS Postgraduate Prize. ‘May I ask the delegate, if he has any charge to make against the Gasworkers’ Union, to make it definitely? At the present moment I am the Chairman of the whole of the organisations in this … Continued
Professor David Vincent, Open University David.Vincent@open.ac.uk Prior to the outbreak of coronavirus there was widespread discussion by campaigners and social commentators of an ‘epidemic’ of loneliness. On the basis of an extensive literature review, Keith Snell concluded that ‘Loneliness is now widely diagnosed as a modern “epidemic” or “plague”.’ Even before the current crisis, this … Continued
Dr James Jones, University of Sussex @JamesTJones We all have experiences of visiting the cinema: memories of going as a child; a first independent visit with friends; visiting today to catch the latest superhero blockbuster or to make a pilgrimage to an independent screening. That cinema-going is still a popular past-time in an age … Continued
Dr Sally Holloway is Vice Chancellor’s Research Fellow in History & History of Art at Oxford Brookes University. With Stephanie Downes and Sarah Randles, she is the co-editor of ‘Feeling Things: Objects and Emotions through History’ (Oxford University Press, 2018).
In her contribution to the Research Exchange, she uses the eighteenth-century courtship of Elizabeth Jeffreys and Charles Pratt to illustrate the key themes of her new book, ‘The Game of Love in Georgian England: Courtship, Emotions, and Material Culture’ (Oxford University Press, 2019).
Dr Laura Kounine is Lecturer in Early Modern History at the University of Sussex. She is the co-editor of ‘Cultures of Conflict and Resolution in Early Modern Europe’ (Ashgate, 2015), ‘Emotions in the History of Witchcraft’ (Palgrave, 2017) and the online platform ‘History of Emotions – Insights into Research’.
In her contribution to the Research Exchange, she explains why she wanted her new book – ‘Imagining the Witch: Emotions, Gender and Selfhood in Early Modern Germany’ (Oxford University Press, 2018) – to be less a history of accusations and executions, and more a history of resistance.
