India’s partition mapped out by blunders and blood
Research fellow Syed Badrul Ahsan explores the tragic and painful fault lines underpinning modern India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
All posts filed under: Features
The Year of the Nurse and what an eyewitness account reveals about ‘the lady with the lamp’
As we celebrate the Year of the Nurse and the 150th anniversary of the British Red Cross, Institute of English Studies research fellow Dr Karen Attar, takes a look at an eye-witness account of a nurse who accompanied Florence Nightingale, ‘the lady with the lamp’, to Scutari in 1854.
Reflections on the Covid-19 crisis from the perspective of Latin American history
Earlier in her career, Professor Linda Newson, director of the Institute of Latin American Studies, wrote extensively on the devastating demographic impact of ‘Old World’ diseases in colonial Latin America following the arrival of Europeans. In the current Covid-19 pandemic she is constantly reminded of how many of the issues we face today have parallels […]
In the shadow of genocide: German colonial amnesia
Professor Henning Melber explores the German version of colonial amnesia, which he says is not about a lack of historical research, but a failure to acknowledge – emotionally and politically – what is known.
Reading across continents: playing with prose with others on your own
Ahead of July’s Playing with Prose workshop, actor Jack Tarlton discusses his first experience of running a virtual theatre workshop as the world went into lockdown – and reflects on the ways on which it connected students around the world.
‘Following the science’: the role of experts in historical perspective
Historian Christopher Phillips compares specialist involvement in the Covid-19 crisis with civilian expertise in government during the First World War. Though very different situations, both point to the importance of experts in planning for and responding to an evolving challenge. Both equally demonstrate the constraints placed on outsiders when expertise comes in to close contact […]
Messages from the margins: Augustus De Morgan’s annotations online
Dr Karen Attar, Senate House Library’s curator of rare books and university art, scrolls through the digital library of Augustus De Morgan to see what books the mathematician and mathematical historian annotated, when and how.
Museums may not thank you for your unloved statues
Dr Laura Cleaver, senior lecturer in manuscript studies and principal investigator of the European Research Council-funded CULTIVATE MSS project at the Institute of English Studies, on why sending unwanted statues to museums isn’t necessarily a solution. The toppling of the statue of Edward Colston and its subsequent deposit in Bristol harbour as part of the Black Lives […]
Britain’s unfinished LGBT+ business with the Commonwealth
Diversity expert, Dr Felicity Daly, is wary of Boris Johnson’s ‘Global Britain’ vision in light of the merger of the world’s leading aid agency into the Foreign Office and hopes this new ‘super department’ does not forget Britain’s legacy and unfinished business.
Pascal’s jottings in defence of Christianity turns 350
Mathematician, physicist, inventor, religious controversialist, literary author: in a brief life terminated by a lingering, debilitating illness, Blaise Pascal (1623–62) was nothing if not multi-talented. As the curator of rare books at Senate House Library, I think of Pascal primarily in terms of mathematics, says Dr Karen Attar.