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

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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

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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?

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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

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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

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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

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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)

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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

Contested Histories: Creating and Critiquing public monuments and memorials in a new age of iconoclasm

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Conflict, Reconstruction and Memory (CRAM) research group. 28-29 June 2021 This workshop will explore debates surrounding the cultural and political uses of monuments, reflecting upon their role in the memorialisation and imagining of the past. It considers artefacts such as war memorials, cenotaphs and public statuary as well as urban sites damaged through war, or … Read more

Riots and toxic heritage

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On 20 May 2021, a vigil for a young man who had recently died turned into an hours-long riot in Mayhill, Swansea. The widespread shock and dismay that followed showed both a determination to do something about their causes and to punish the offenders. There were arguments over the perpetrators deserved help or condemnation. Whether … Read more