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ISSUE 6
Department News From Professor David T urner H istor y Depar tment Resear ch News, 2017-18 Research in History at Swansea continues to thrive. I n September we welcomed a new colleague, Dr Nick Barnett, whose work explores the cultural history of Cold War Britain. Nick is about to publish a new book based on his research, Britain?s Cold War: Culture, Modernity and the Soviet Threat. Dr Gemma Outen also joined the Department in January to provide teaching cover. Gemma is a media historian whose PhD focussed on the temperance movement and Victorian periodicals. T he research culture in the Department is sustained by events where lecturers and postgraduate students present their own papers, and hear about the work of others. T he research seminar this year has included papers from our postgraduate students presenting their new perspectives on disability history, a celebration of the 500th anniversary of Martin L uther?s nailing his 95 theses to the door of the Schlosskirche in Wittenburg, seen by many as triggering the Protestant Reformation, and a discussion of T he History Manifesto (https:/ / www.cambridge.org/ core/ what-we-publish/ open-access/ the-history-manifesto) with one of its authors, Professor Jo Guldi. We have also been treated to a fascinating insight into the scientific world of the thirteenth-century polymath Robert Grosseteste by researchers on the Ordered Universe project at Durham University. T he academic year ended with the annual History Department lecture, given by Professor David Edgerton from King?s College L ondon, in which he discussed his new book that provides a bold new interpretation of modern British history, The Rise and Fall of the British Nation: A Twentieth Century History.
Portrait of Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of L incoln, Wikimedia Commons
T he Department has also run workshops and conferences. PhD students Gemma Almond and Jessica Rosenthal-McGrath organised The All Seeing Eye? in April, at which speakers presented new perspectives on eyesight and vision across time and cultures. Each year, members of the Medieval and Early Modern research group organise the Symposium By the Sea. T his year?s event, which took place on 28-29 June, took Britain and its Neighbours as its theme a timely topic in the age of Brexit!
