Dr Henry Irving, Leeds Beckett University @drhenryirving One of the most important things I learned during my undergraduate degree was that academics read differently. Critical analysis, the lecturers’ said, was as important as comprehension. I still remember feeling shocked when one explained that they would begin marking an essay by looking at the bibliography. “But, … Continued
Dr Duncan Stone, University of Huddersfield @StoneDunk Writing of the thirteen elite public schools of England in 1891, the educationalist M. J. Rendell unashamedly pointed out that ‘of the “thicks”; “intermediates” and “clever” boys, it is the intermediates: a group of “honest workers with sound headpieces and average wits, who will soon be playing a … Continued
Katrina-Louise Moseley, University of Cambridge @trina_moseley As an avid viewer of cookery television programmes (I grew up watching Ready Steady Cook with my Grandad in the late 1990s, and continued to watch intently as the genre swallowed Ainsley Harriot’s gags to make way for the more haughty Masterchef Goes Large in the 2000s), I’ve long … Continued
Dr Daphna Oren-Magidor @DaphnaOrenM “Don’t you ask a lot of questions?” says Matthew Clairmont irritably to historian Diana Bishop in the recent TV adaptation of Deborah Harkness’ A Discovery of Witches. “Hmm…” answers Bishop, with a barely-apologetic shrug. “It’s the historian in me.” For historians – as for most scholars – questions are a fundamental … Continued
James Stark and Catherine Stones, University of Leeds J.F.Stark@leeds.ac.uk C.M.Stones@leeds.ac.uk Germs have always been hidden. Impossible to see with the naked eye, microorganisms inhabit a world of their own. Invisible miniature organisms had long been theorised but were first revealed by the microscopy of Anton van Leeuwenhoek in the seventeenth century. With the increasing popularity … Continued
Dr Allan Kennedy is Lecturer in History at the University of Dundee. He is the author of Governing Gaeldom: The Scottish Highlands and the Restoration State, 1660-1688 (Leiden, 2014) and numerous articles on the treatment of Scottish outsiders or ‘others’ in the early modern world.
In his contribution to the Research Exchange, he reflects on the challenges of researching Scottish migration and identity in early modern England, which he wrote about with Professor Keith Brown in their recent article ‘Becoming English: The Monro Family and Scottish Assimilation in Early-Modern England’ published online with Cultural & Social History on 27 March 2019.
Dr Laura Mair is REF Impact Officer for the School of Divinity at the University of Edinburgh. Alongside completing her doctoral research on the ragged school movement, in 2015-16 she acted as research consultant to the Victoria and Albert Museum’s Museum of Childhood for their ‘On Their Own’ exhibition on British child migrants.
In her contribution to the Research, she reflects on her experience of researching the intimate history of children’s and adult’s lives in the Victorian ragged schools, which is the subject of her new book ‘Religion and Relationships in Ragged Schools: An Intimate History of Educating the Poor, 1844-1870’, which is published by Routledge.
Dr Janet Weston is a social historian based at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, with particular interests in health and law. Her first book, Medicine, the Penal System and Sexual Crimes in England, 1919-1960s, was published by Bloomsbury in 2018, and she has also written about HIV/AIDS policy, public engagement, and dementia.
In her contribution to the Research Exchange, she reflects on the limits of thinking about HIV/AIDs as a matter of human rights in the 1990s, something she wrote about in her recent article for Cultural & Social History, ‘Sites of Sickness, sites of rights? HIV/AIDS and the limits of human rights in British prisons’ was published online on 11 March 2019.
Dr Eve Worth, University of Oxford eve.worth@st-hildas.ox.ac.uk 2019 is a particularly important moment to reflect on the history of adult education in Britain. This year marks the centenary of the landmark 1919 report on Adult Education produced by the Ministry of Reconstruction. The authors of the report argued that adult education had a significant … Continued
Sophie Greenway is a PhD student at the Centre for the History of Medicine, University of Warwick. Her PhD is entitled ‘Growing well: Dirt, health and the home gardener 1930-1970’. She is currently on secondment with Warwickshire Wildlife Trust working on the project ‘Hygiene and our relationship to nature- achieving a better balance?’
In her contribution to the Research Exchange, she reflects on the process of pitching her work for the postgraduate paper prize which she won at the 2017 Social History Society conference and developing it for publication as ‘Producer or consumer? The House, the Garden and the Sourcing of Vegetables in Britain 1930-1970’ in Cultural & Social History, published online on 18 April 2019.
