Category: Features
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Here Comes the Sun: Pop Culture in the 1960s
Written by Fay Marsden We have all heard of parents gazing in horror while their children stared in awe at Elvis gyrating his pelvis on television in the Fifties; most of us have probably found this strange, considering how hyper-sexual music videos are normalised today. Likewise, during a time when black people were still fighting…
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‘Frankenstein’: A Celebration of 200 Years of Thrilling Horror
Written by Daniel Sharp On 1 January 1818, the first edition of Mary Shelley’s horror novel Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus was published. The two hundredth anniversary of its publication is coming up very soon, and in celebration of this, the Keats-Shelley Association of America has launched the ‘Frankenreads’ project. This project encourages people to…
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Trump, Brexit and the return of the ‘Country Party’
Written by Travis Aaroe What forces drove Britain to vote to leave the European Union, and for American voters to elect the political outsider Donald Trump? The rhetoric used by both campaigns strongly echoes that of an earlier political tradition, known as the ‘Country Party’ or the ‘Country Persuasion’. The Country Party began in…
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Napoleonic Prisoners and Edinburgh Castle: A Brief Examination
Written by Daniel Sharp Edinburgh Castle stands on high, overlooking Scotland’s capital. It is an impressive sight – it may be small, yet it is also beautiful, especially when lit up at night, and provides a scene that many photographers love to snap. It is a famous tourist spot, its deep history drawing in visitors…
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Second Hand Time
Written by Eleanor Hemming Often when we recount the eras of Russian history, we think first of the Tsarist era, followed by the Soviet Union, and then the arrival of Putin’s Russia. Little thought is given to what happened in between the collapse of the USSR and the year 2000: the all-important tumult of the…
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A Roman Russia
Written by Travis Aaroe The fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans in 1453 finally brought an end to Byzantium, the Christian successor state to the Ancient Roman Empire. After the holy city’s capture, Orthodox Christendom was thrown into a state of panic and confusion, and seemed to be teetering on the edge of oblivion. The…
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The Long March Home
Written by Daniel Sharp I am writing this on some ripped scraps; sitting on a rock at night; several feet away there is the light from the camp fire, my only illumination. Other men are packed around the fire. There is no space. So I sit here, on my rock. The fire may as well…
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Boris Johnson and Rudyard Kipling’s ‘Mandalay’: How should we remember prejudiced authors and their literature?
Written by Carissa Chew In recent news, footage has been released showing UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson reciting part of Rudyard Kipling’s poem ‘Mandalay’ (1892) whilst he was touring the Shwedagon Pagoda during an official visit to Myanmar in January 2017. Andrew Patrick, the British Ambassador to Burma, hastily informs Johnson that this reference…
Retrospect Journal 