John Clare was born on 13 July 1793 in Helpson, which was then part of Northamptonshire. He came from a labouring background but - unusually for a man of his class - would become a famous poet. If anything, he is more famous today than he was at the time. Clare's work enjoyed a revival... Continue Reading →
We are delighted to share the news that the Northampton Branch of the Historical Association has relaunched, with support from History at the University of Northampton. Its programme of events is now on the HA website. We are starting with two online lectures this summer: 9 June at 7pm: Dr Daniel Jones (UON), 'The real... Continue Reading →
What can we learn about yourselves, and our relationship with History, by studying throw-away souvenir tourist items? East Coast Industries (poster) by Frank Henry Mason is licensed under CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 How do we approach the question of historical leisure experiences and domestic consumer items which we now find at best insignificant, or at worst deeply... Continue Reading →
We’re delighted to announce that the History team at Northampton has just been awarded the 2022-24 stewardship of the East Midland’s Centre for History Teaching and Learning! Our first event in September 2022 will be an online conference and workshop on two of the most pressing issues of our time: sustainability and inclusivity. And we... Continue Reading →
As I finished this blog, I was struck by a video on Twitter showing the building of the Faculty of Sociology of Karazin National University in Kharkiv on fire, symbolically and literally documenting the burning of learning and knowledge. Such scenes from this new war in Europe raise many questions, not least about how the fascist... Continue Reading →
Last week I went to see a performance of the ballet Cinderella. I mostly went along as I love the music, by Sergei Prokofiev, who is one of the very greatest ballet composers. His music has both spikiness and soaring romanticism, which lend themselves very well to the dance. Unexpectedly, it got me thinking about... Continue Reading →
Is Vladimir Putin an Imperlialist? On Wednesday 24 February 2022 Vladimir Putin order the 200,000 troops surrounding the Ukraine and in the two Russian backed separatist areas of Donestsk and Luhansk in the east, to invade Ukraine. There is no doubt that this a date that marks a turning point in European and probably global... Continue Reading →
The Prime Minister Boris Johnson is currently under fire for allegedly attending multiple parties at Number 10 Downing Street during the height of lockdown restrictions, in breach of his own government's rules. He has mostly been evasive about this, in an attempt to ride out the wave of public outrage, and also because he doesn't... Continue Reading →
Regular readers of the blog will know that I am currently travelling around the country visiting museums as part of my project 'Shoes and the Georgian Man', funded by the Society for Antiquaries. I am studying surviving examples of shoes from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in order to explore the social significance of footwear... Continue Reading →
We are launching a new module in the History degree programme at Northampton this year: HIS1028 'United States: War and Society, 1610-2020'. It is taught by four lecturers who each take a chronological chunk and, as an eighteenth-century historian, I am teaching the second section on the American Revolution. Race is a key theme in... Continue Reading →
HISTORY AT NORTHAMPTON 