Author: Retrospect Journal
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The Origins of Tattooing: A Brief Overview
Written by Etta Coleman. The art of tattooing has a long and nuanced history, intimately linked with the cultures who permanently inscribed ink into the flesh. Etta Coleman explores the origins of this art form and its global spread.
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The Portrayal of Female Desire and Lesbianism in Deepa Mehta’s Fire
Written by Kat Jivkova. Deepa Mehta’s deeply impactive 1996 film, ‘Fire’, is a portrayal of female desire as resistance to Hindu patriarchy. Kat Jivkova asks why, as something deeply embedded in Indian life and a not a mere Western import, this stirred much imagination, and ire, on its release.
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Was Anwar Sadat a Feminist?
Written by Amy Hendrie. The conflicting legacy and motivations of the Egyptian president Anwar Sadat is explored by Amy Hendrie. A complex figure, Sadat in several ways raised the position of women in his country, even if it was for his own ends.
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All’s Unfair in Marriage and Divorce
Written by Sophie Whitehead. How has gender inequality historically been expressed in marriage and divorce law? Sophie Whitehead examines how deep-seated, yet often subtle, discrepancies have evolved, and in some cases remain, in England and Wales.
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The Achaemenid Rulers: Dogmatic or Pragmatic?
Written by Kavisha Kamalanathan. The history of the Achaemenid rulers and their legacy of brutality has often been told through the lens of the Ancient Greek writers who immortalised them. However, an examination of contemporaneous Eastern sources reveals a markedly different picture of the Persian kings.
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Anna Komnene: The Struggles of a Female Historian in Medieval Times
Written by Dido Papikinou. Sources from the medieval period are almost entirely male-centred – written by men, written for men, and written about men. To examine, therefore, the account of a woman on the First Crusade, is an opportunity Dido Papikinou considers invaluable to understanding the female experience of this period.
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Review: Freedom Seekers: Escaping from Slavery in Restoration London, Simon Newman (2022)
Written by Boryana Ivanova. Simon Newman’s 2022 text examines racial slavery in Early Modern London by reconstructing the lives of individuals who fled from their enslavement and sheds light on the freedom-seeking Black community of England.
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‘Fighting Bob’: Attempting an American Labour Party
Written by Sam Marks. US Politics remains, on average, shifted to the right when compared to European states. But, the 1924 presidential election has one often overlooked candidate who was the champion of the progressive movement. Sam Marks explores the significance of Robert M. ‘Fighting Bob’ La Follette.
Retrospect Journal 