Written by: Kvitka Perehinets. Written by a second-generation Palestinian refugee, The Pianist from Syria offers a detailed account of the life of a musician growing up in an unofficial refugee camp in Yarmouk before and after the outbreak of the Syrian war. Continue reading The Pianist from Syria by Aeham Ahmad
Written by: Jack Bennett. Providing a window through which the harsh reality of illness and incurability on the wards of The Knick is revealed, mirroring the trichotomous nature of corruption, consumption and capitalism in the tension ridden socio-political environment of New York City and the United States at the turn of the twentieth century. Continue reading ‘Out of the Barbershop and into the Future’: Modern Medicine of New York City in 1900
Written by: Lewis Twiby. One of the many communities to call New York home is the Dominican community which Jesse Hoffnung-Garskof looks at in his 2008 book A Tale of Two Cities: Santo Domingo and New York after 1950. Hoffnung-Garskof offers an interesting insight into how diasporas and culture are formed. He is also keen to stress that diasporas do not exist in a vacuum – they interact with both the ‘homeland’ and other diasporas. Continue reading Review: A Tale of Two Cities by Jesse Hoffnung-Garskof
Written by: Kvitka Perehinets. This is a review of the TV show ‘Chernobyl’ – contains spoilers! Continue reading ‘Chernobyl’ on HBO
Written by: Josh Newmark With mass demonstrations, a dramatic challenge to the Presidency, and the possibility of foreign intervention in the air, recent events in Venezuela have focused attention around the embattled strongman regime of Nicolas Maduro. This reinforces the tendency towards a ‘Great Man’ conception of Venezuela which has framed most common understandings of recent history around Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chávez, and the regime he … Continue reading George Ciccariello-Maher on Revolutionary Venezuela
Written by Luke Neill Rohinton Mistry’s 1995 novel A Fine Balance is set in 1970s India and follows four characters who come to interact with each other over a period of around 15 years. There is Dina, the struggling landlady whose husband was run over and killed whilst cycling to buy ice cream for a family gathering; Ishvar and Omprakash, tailors whose families had been … Continue reading Review: A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
Written by: Carissa Chew On Wednesday 30 January, the Global and Transnational History Research Group welcomed Professor Rebecca Earle from the University of Warwick to present her research on ‘Potatoes and the Pursuit of Happiness’. In this seminar, Earle explored the potato as a foodstuff that came to be imbued with a distinct political significance in eighteenth-century Enlightenment Europe, challenging the typical historiographical assumption that imbuing … Continue reading Research Seminar Review: “Potatoes and the Pursuit of Happiness”
Written by Toby Gay On Friday 30 November, Dr. Jerome Lewis from University College London delivered a talk entitled ‘Music first: hunter-gatherer ethnography and the evolution of language’ in front of a packed lecture theatre in the Psychology building. Before commencing, Dr. Lewis warned that although the lecture would be listed as a ‘Cognitive Science’ talk, he would be drawing heavily from other disciplines, namely … Continue reading Cognitive Science Talk Review: Dr Jerome Lewis’ ‘Music First: hunter-gatherer ethnography and the evolution of language’
Written by Carissa Chew Although the 1970s have been somewhat overlooked in the historiography of Tanzania, the second decade of independence in fact constituted an important era of nation-building and identity formation. For post-independence Tanzania, the 1970s was a turbulent decade defined by mass rural-urban migration; the height of ujamaa; forced villagisation; the 1973 oil crisis; the relocation of the capital from Dar es Salaam … Continue reading Research Seminar Review: Emily Brownell’s ‘Concrete and Bricks: Materialising the Future in 1970s Tanzania’
Written by Lisa Doyle This lecture by Professor Gunnar Seelentag took place on 17 October 2018. In what was quite an information-heavy presentation, Professor Seelentag informed us of his objective to understand the emergence and development of political institutions in seventh and sixth centuries BC, and the role the dynamics of competitive behaviour played in the process. His approach to this topic was to employ … Continue reading Research Seminar Review of ‘The Cartel: A model for socio-political organization in Archaic Greece’
Written by Toby Gay Rather like the 1957 guidebook with which the work shares its name, James W. MacNutt’s On Five Dollars A Day can be appreciated for being an exceptionally precise and intimate tool with which to explore over 20 European cities, albeit instead of the work of fiction it presents itself to be. Macnutt’s descriptions of towns like Istanbul bring to life the … Continue reading Review of ‘On Five Dollars a Day’ by James W. MacNutt
Written by Martha Stutchbury BBC’S Elizabeth I’s Secret Agents aired this month for the first time since its 2017 debut and provides fascinating insight into the meaning behind Isaac Oliver’s famous portrait of the Virgin Queen, which shows her majesty’s garments adorned with eyes and ears, in a veiled reference to what the documentary refers to as a ‘the world’s first secret service’ – headed by … Continue reading Review: ‘Elizabeth I’s Secret Agents’ Series 1, Episode 1
