What should we do about statues? A reflective blog post on writing, recording and publishing a podcast

by

The following is the second in our series of guest blog posts from History students exploring their experiences of creative assessment as part of their degrees. Hywel Squires is a Swansea University history graduate with an interest in heritage and museology Anyone who has spent more than five minutes in my company will be aware … Read more

Romanticising Rebecca: Reinterpreting the Mid-Nineteenth Century Revolts of Mid and South-West Wales

by

The nineteenth century was a time of significant change across rural Wales. Plagued with socio-political unrest, a series of factors laid the foundations for a series of uprisings known as the Rebecca Riots. The upper classes controlled all government and local parliaments, allowing for oppressive laws to be introduced and passed without resistance. The Turnpike … Read more

The Swansea-Mannheim city partnership and German impressions of Swansea University over the years

by

In an earlier blogpost I sketched the history of the city partnership between Swansea and Mannheim (Baden-Württemberg, Germany), from its establishment in the 1950s. That blog focused in particular on the creation of a monument to the partnership, a miniature replica of the German city’s main landmark, which was erected in Swansea in 1985. Since … Read more

The Curious Case of Ted Dexter and Cardiff South East

by

Sam Blaxland The former England cricket captain, Ted Dexter, died on 26th August 2021, aged 86. This article, about a peculiar event in his career, originally featured in the 2016 edition of the Conservative History Journal. In 1964 the electorate of Cardiff South East faced the unusual situation of having the England cricket captain as … Read more

Historians and Pandemic Policies: What role should historians play?

by

Earlier this summer, Dr Michael Bresalier organised and chaired a virtual roundtable with the Society for the Social History of Medicine on the role of historians and history in pandemic policies and policy-making.  The roundtable was organised to address a paradoxical issue: while academic historians have been called upon to provide all manner of perspectives … Read more

Learning to Live with Covid-19: Perspectives from Past Pandemics

by

Recently, Dr. Michael Bresalier gave two public lectures from a project he’s developing on “Learning to Live with Covid-19: Historical perspectives on how humanity adapts to epidemics”.   The first lecture, “Learning to Live with Covid-19: What can the history of influenza teach us?”, was part of the Hay Festival’s lunchtime talk series. It addressed a … Read more

How Beano and Dandy artist Dudley D. Watkins made generations of comic fans roar with laughter

by

David Anderson, Swansea University You may not be familiar with the name Dudley Dexter Watkins, but chances are you will recognise his art. Half a century after his death, the work of the talented British comic strip artist and illustrator is as well known, and as much loved, as it has ever been. Characters such … Read more

The perpetual evolution of a research project: Challenging Occupational Generalisations of the ‘Other’ in a Nineteenth-Century Welsh Industrial Community

by

Dissertations are the culmination of an exhilarating journey which invariably demands days lost to fascinating yet redundant research, but which is also rich with discovery and presents fresh perspectives of the world we thought we knew. This construction of history as we know it became central to my research. How have we interpreted our past, … Read more

An Introduction to the French and Indian War (1754-60)

by

The French and Indian War (1754-1760) was the last of the intermittent colonial conflicts that had erupted between Britain, France, their respective North American colonies and Native American allies during the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Unlike the conflicts that had preceded it, the French and Indian War proved decisive, resulting in the conquest of … Read more