Category archives: Modern

In a time when being in nature in more important than ever, let’s celebrate the work of the Kinder Scout Trespassers

By Kerry Lindeque Feeling a bit battered by wind and rain, me and my housemate Caitlin ascended the peak of Kinder Scout, the highest point in the Peak District. We looked out across craggy rocks for the famed view of the national park’s hills and plateaus, but instead saw nothing but pure white mist. Straining […]

Re-Teaching History: Teaching Colonisation and Celebrating Cultures

By Lois Joynt Modern day Britain is a beautiful hodgepodge of cultures and characters; but modern day Britain lies on the dirty bed of its past. The sheets are neglected, the pillows muddied and sullen, in a desperate pit of forgotten-truths. And yet, so much of our present is reliant on our past, so much […]

The Collapse of the Iron Curtain in Photographs: Celebrating the Fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of communism.

By Bea O’Keefe The fall of the Berlin Wall, which divided East from West, on the 9th of November 1989 is one of the most impactful and moving events of the last 35 years in European history; five million people gathered in Berlin to celebrate this moment. The border was accidentally opened due to a […]

Celebrating Sobriety: The Victorian Temperance Party Scene

By Cath H Kennedy The English have been famous through the ages for their binge drinking, but when the government tried deregulating the beer supply to working-class areas, as a means to stem demand for gin in 1830, they badly miscalculated. Accounts of the resulting disorder suggest that the worst Saturday night brawl today would […]

“We sure did have good times, too.”: The act of celebration in African-American slave communities

By Josh Evans In the famous account Twelve Years a Slave, Solomon Northup says “if ye wish to look upon the celerity, if not the poetry of motion upon genuine happiness, rampant and unrestrained – go down to Louisiana and see the slaves dancing in the starlight of a Christmas night.” Now, celebration is certainly […]

Christmas Through The Ages: Celebrations from Saturnalia to the Second World War

By Hannah McCann Every year on 21st December the tallest stone at Stonehenge lines up with the rising sun. The midwinter solstice would have been a very important day for Neolithic people. Archaeological evidence from around Stonehenge shows us that they had immense feasts – from pork and beef to mead made from honey. They […]

Frederick Douglass and the Emancipation Memorial: Reexamining American History

By Miles Kaye The murder of George Floyd sparked protests not only in America but around the world. Protestors took to the streets demanding justice. Many protestors toppled statues and chose to protest in front of statues. The focus on statues is an important gateway to discussing racism and contemporary issues in a historical context. […]

The British Empire and the Criminalisation of Homosexuality

By Hannah Ahmed The British empire is credited with bringing civilisation and democracy to its colonies, however, it’s important to unpack and understand what this really entailed. One of the consequences of the implementation of British laws was the criminalisation of homosexuality, enforcement of heteronormativity and binary understandings of gender, which were not previously present […]