Category: Academic
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‘Deutschland’ by Rammstein: A Look at Cultural Memory in Germany
Written by: Lewis Twiby. In March 2019, German heavy metal band Rammstein released their new, and controversial, song ‘Deutschland’. The lyrics and music video to this song gives us an insight into memories of German history, the politics of national identity, and the controversies which accompany it.
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Earthrise: ‘Discovery’ of a commodified home
Written by: Stefan Bernhardt-Radu, 4th year History Student, Coventry University While the Earthrise photo captured by Apollo 8 in December 1968 is usually hailed as a moment when the Earth as home was ‘discovered’, thus mobilising the environmental movement, the argument here is that it ultimately represents the containment of the movement’s radicalism. Whilst Richard…
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Roman Slavery: The Unique Features and Longevity of a Slavery System in Antiquity
Written by: Lisa Doyle One of the outstanding features of societies in antiquity, a feature that tends to be forgotten as we relish in the literature and traditions left behind them, is the slavery system. Both Greece and Rome were slave-owning societies, but Roman slavery especially seemed to experience greater longevity and was executed to…
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The Influence of the Roman Empire on the Catholic Church
Written by: Toby Gay After possibly the most damaging year for the Roman Catholic Church in recent times with the global sex abuse crisis spiralling out of the control in the Vatican, and with Pope Francis bemoaning the current ‘weary’ condition of the Church, 2019 may be the year when the very structure and purpose…
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The Nazi Party: A Seeming Modernisation
Guest article written by: Stefan Bernhardt-Radu. 4th-year history student at Coventry University. Whilst it is usually believed that the Nazi Party was antithetical to modernity, or in a philosophical line assonant with it, it is strongly argued that the NSDAP seemed a force for modernisation to the people at the time due to specific conjectural settings.…
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An invisible historical landscape: Barcelona’s Civil War tours
Written by Josh Newmark Image: Albggt, Placa de Catalunya, https://www.pinterest.com/pin/574068283732608796/, 04/11/2018 In a country which is often described as suffering from ‘historical amnesia’ towards its Civil War and subsequent dictatorship, Civil War tours of Barcelona bring history to life where it is otherwise inapparent. For those intrigued by the Spanish Civil War, the lack of much museum space…
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Monsters, Masks & Military Mutilation: The Influence of the First World War on Early Horror Cinema
Written by Scarlett Butler Image: Unknown. Anna Coleman Ladd fitting soldier with restorative face mask. 1918. Photograph. Rare Historical Photos. Accessed October 30, 2018. https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/anna-coleman-ladd-masks-1918/. Suzannah Biernhoff has argued that the facial mutilation caused during the Great War was widely written about but “almost never represented visually” with the exception of medical documentation. Here I will contend…
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“How to tell the story of the slave trade without depicting bleeding dying Africans?”: A Question Posed by Lubaina Himid
Written by Scarlett Butler Image: Lubaina Himid, Naming the Money (2004), https://www.historytoday.com/ella-s-mills/lubaina-himid-naming-un-named, accessed 21 October 2018. As Black History Month draws to a close, I am sure that many people are considering that phrase, ‘Black History Month’. Torn between the necessity of raising awareness of histories of the African-diaspora, and the discomfort that all we…
Retrospect Journal 