June 2023

Please check this page, and our social media feeds, regularly for updates on future events, and to register to attend! On welcoming your student into the room, you can immediately tell from their body language that something is wrong…they appear distracted, arms tightly closed with their eyes fixed on the carpet. The student looks up […]

Dominic Cummings has been in the news lately, you may have noticed. He drove, whilst infected with COVID-19, from Islington to County Durham, with his family. He then took them on a tour of County Durham, whilst infected, and after having been discovered defended his actions, supported by the PM and the government he advises…. […]

This blog post is by our undergraduate student Joseph Price. Image from It’s A Sin The recent Channel 4 drama series ‘It’s a Sin’ directed by Russel T Davies offers a terrifying and heartbreaking insight into the experiences of gay men in the 1980s. The series follows the lives of a group of friends where… […]

This blog is based on the presentation given on 8 November 2018, as part of the History at Northampton Research Seminars series at the University of Northampton. It explores the origins of perinatal (premature baby) care in the UK from 1947 to 1965, using recently available archival material for Northampton, made possible through the generosity of… […]

In my last post I promised to give you some examples of interesting medieval women, whose experiences pushed beyond the misogynistic limitations they were theoretically subject to in a patriarchal society. As I’m a specialist in the fifteenth century, and I teach a third year undergraduate module on the Wars of the Roses, I thought… […]

On 22 April 2022 the Searchlight Archive Research Group hosted a free online conference for Early Career Researchers (ECR) and Postgraduate Researchers (PGR). Entitled ‘Post-war Anti-Fascism, the Radical Right and the Far Right: Emotion, Culture and Identity’ it brought together MA students, PhD students and ECRs from the UK and Europe to share their research… […]

After a successful year running my first year module The Medieval World 1200-1500, I’m delighted that this autumn I’m able to launch a year two module: Medieval Chivalry and its Afterlives. Chivalry is a popular topic with students interested in medieval society. Who hasn’t been caught up in the romance of knights jousting for the… […]

Preparing teaching materials for a new term can lead to some surprising discoveries. My highlight this year, while getting things together for my history of Communism module, was coming across the Revolting Russians episode of Horrible Histories on Box of Broadcasts, the video streaming service for schools and universities. The show takes a typically light-hearted,… […]

CPD Training Event at the University of Northampton in partnership with UKAT UK Academic Advising and Tutoring! The History team at Northampton and the East Midlands Centre for History Teaching and Learning in HE is pleased to announce that booking is open for our upcoming inspiring workshop, ‘Managing Students in Distress’. Working with trainers from… […]

On 13 November, David Renton gave a History Research seminar based on his work on the history of fascism and National Front. In this blog he reflects further on issues of free speech raised in his presentation: For years, I’ve written about the battle between left and right. My interest hasn’t been so much in […]

It’s Euro 2021 so we are organising a sweepstake on our twitter account, @HistoriansUON. It’s just for fun. Free to enter and no prizes, except glory among the historical community! We might even do some football blogs and historically themed facts along the way. To enter, just follow us on twitter and reply to our […]

The Cratchits sit down to Christmas dinner  If, like me, you tuned in to watch the BBC’s latest adaptation of Charles Dickens’ novella A Christmas Carol, I’m sure it will have left a lasting impression.  Over three nights a star-studded cast presented a much darker version of the tale of Scrooge than we are used… […]

As we approach the end of another year I thought I’d reflect on what, if anything we might learn from the events of 2017. This has been (another) tumultuous annum with terrorism, the threat of nuclear war, and political turmoil at home and abroad. What I’d like to discuss though, is the value of History […]

By Dr Daniel Jones, Searchlight Archivist The front cover of Lewisham: What Are You Taking Pictures For?, which explores the photo journalism around Lewisham and the editorial choices of major newspapers to focus on police injuries rather than the context of the National Front march. A recent donation to the Searchlight Archive was a fascinating… […]