Category: Academic
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The Walled-Off Garden: A Brief History of the Market

Written by Inge Erdal. The idea of a market, not only as a physical experience but as an economic theory, is at the centre of capital itself. But where did this idea come from? And how can the history of the market shed light on our understanding of global economies?
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Victorian Medievalism and the Palace of Westminster

Written by Alice Goodwin. The Palace of Westminster stands as the home of Parliament, containing thousands of years of history. But the majority of this great Palace was designed and built in the nineteenth century, encapsulating a cultural trend now referred to as medievalism.
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All that Glitters is Gold: Museology and the Mask of Agamemnon

Written by Tristan Craig. The excavations of Mycenae from 1876 have been the subject of controversy for over a hundred years. A so-called ‘Mask of Agamemnon’ was discovered, but it’s origins are still questioned, and the methods of excavation remain under scrutiny.
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Editing the Jamaica Reader: A Conversation with Professor Diana Paton and Professor Matthew Smith

Professor Diana Paton and Professor Matthew Smith sit down with Retrospect’s EIC, Jamie Gemmell, to discuss their new volume: The Jamaica Reader: History, Culture, Politics.
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Masseur, Minister, Showgirl, Spy – Christine Keeler and the Affair That Has It All

Written by Sophie Whitehead. The Profumo scandal has been written about and re-interpreted in dozens of ways throughout the last seventy years, but what do we know about it now? And how can it offer insight into British society in the 1960s?
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Emmy Noether’s Breakthrough: Mathematical Symmetries Are Equivalent to Physical Conservation Laws

Written by Kat Jivkova. Emmy Noether’s contributions to mathematics and Einstein’s theory of relativity have been undervalued. What did her work involve? And why has it taken so long to be properly recognised?
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The Epistemic Mystery of the Cathars

Written by Inge Erdal. A Christian sect deemed heretical by the Catholic Church and routinely persecuted, the history of the Cathars is a complicated one. With regional variations and conflicting historiography, approaching this particular moment in religious history requires an understanding of the mutability of the human experience.
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In Greek they say ‘daimon’: Dionysus in Anne Carson’s translation of the Bakkhai

Written by Justin Biggi. Euripides’ ‘Bakkhai’ is widely hailed as his most eminent work, with its central protagonist, Dionysus, receiving a great deal of attention in modern academia. Anne Carson’s treatment of the god in her recent translation draws attention to the ‘othering’ that has pervaded centuries of scholarship.
