Category: Reviews
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Review: The Penelopiad, Margaret Atwood (2005)
Written by Fiona Macrae. Published as part of the Canongate Myth Series, Margaret Atwood’s 2005 novella, ‘The Penelopiad’, recounts the events of the ‘Odyssey’ from the perspective of Penelope. Fiona Macrae discusses how Atwood’s play on the conventions of Greek epic poetry creates a more nuanced female protagonist.
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Review: What is History, Now? How the past and present speak to each other (2021)
Written by Georgia Smith. What is history? The question retains its validity, evidenced by the recent release of a spiritual successor to E.H. Carr’s 1961 modern classic. As Georgia Smith’s review argues, the question is more what histories should be, rather than how they are constructed.
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Review: Green Book (2018)
Written by Sophia Aiello. Directed by Peter Farrelly, ‘Green Book’ (2018) was both a success at the box office and the Academy Awards. However, it received a great deal of backlash for its whitewashed portrayal of racism in 1960s America.
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Review: The Beauty and the Terror: An Alternative History of the Italian Renaissance
Written by Melissa Kane. Examining the recent work by acclaimed Renaissance scholar Catherine Fletcher, ‘The Beauty and the Terror: An Alternative History of the Italian Renaissance’, Melissa Kane questions. the extent to which it rightly can be called an alternative history.
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Judas and the Black Messiah (2021): Mississippi Burning and the Role of American Government in Films of the Civil Rights Era
Written by Suzanne Elliott. Representations of Civil Rights Era law enforcement in cinema since the 1980s have been generous, emphasising a fight for justice and tolerance. In this review, Suzanne Elliott examines how Judas and the Black Messiah (2021) breaks this trend, and why such a disruption is welcome.
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Review: Sistersong, Lucy Holland (2021)
Written by Melissa Kane. Lucy Holland’s Sistersong is an enchanting piece of historical fantasy that digs into early Anglo-Saxon Britain.
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Review: Our Time is Now: Race and Modernity in Postcolonial Guatemala, Julie Gibbings (2020)
Written by Jamie Gemmell. Dr Julie Gibbings’ 2020 work on postcolonial Guatemala offers an ambitiously broad examination of race and modernity, creating a multi-vocal historical narrative which is simultaneously complex and readable.
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Review: Hamnet, Maggie O’Farrell (2020)
Written by Melissa Kane. Maggie O’Farrell’s is a magisterial text. The writing is sublime, bringing to life Elizabethan Stratford-upon-Avon. However, it is a difficult text and requires a degree of familiarity with its inspiration, Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
Retrospect Journal 