Tag: History
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Review: Freedom Seekers: Escaping from Slavery in Restoration London, Simon Newman (2022)
Written by Boryana Ivanova. Simon Newman’s 2022 text examines racial slavery in Early Modern London by reconstructing the lives of individuals who fled from their enslavement and sheds light on the freedom-seeking Black community of England.
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The Mercy of Forests
Written by Megan Crutchley. What has the role of forest been in folklore? Megan Crutchley examines it as a place of mercy and magic in relation to Greek and German myths and folktales.
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Intellectual History and Post-Modernism: The Philosophy of History, The Cult of Rationalism and Approaches to Contemporary Political Thought
Written by Georgia Smith. The intriguing relationship between the philosophy and practice of history is in need of much deciphering. In this case, Georgia Smith discerns the effects of the traditional methodology of intellectual history on political thought.
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Sacagawea: The Key to Success
Written by Amy Hendrie. How do you tell the story of someone entirely from external sources? Amy Hendrie engages with this troubling historiographical problem in relation to the Indigenous American figure of Sacagawea, an extraordinary woman who played the biggest part in the exploration of the territories of the Louisiana Purchase.
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The Voice of Stephen Hawking: Dennis Klatt’s Developments in Speech Synthesis
Written by Kat Jivkova. While a fundamental part of the legacy of the late physicist Stephen Hawking was the speech synthesis that allowed him to partly triumph over his disability, the creator and background the Computer Speech Synthesis has been neglected. Kat Jivkova aims to rectify this by shedding much delayed light on the work…
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How press censorship fostered the neglect of the Nigerian Asaba massacre
Written by Claudia Efemini. What role did British and federal Nigerian press play during the Nigerian Civil War? Claudia Efemini discusses the troubling role much of the press, influenced by neo-colonial considerations, played in enabling massacres like at Asaba and in increasing the severity of the conflict.
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Elena Ferrante and the History of the Italian Language
Written by Ruth Cullen. What is the significance of using either the local dialect or the school-taught standard? Using the account of Neopolitan bilingualism from Elena Ferrante’s acclaimed novel ‘My Brilliant Friend’ as a starting point, Ruth Cullen discusses the history of the formation of modern standard Italian and its complex social relationship with the…
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‘Black Terror’: Black Masculinity and Identity Formation in Eighteenth-Century England
Written by Boryana Ivanova. Through employing a ‘history from below’ approach, Boryana Ivanova examines the notions of Black British identity and masculinity in Early Modern History, highlighting the historiographical shortcomings that have plagued the discipline.
Retrospect Journal 