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‘Where are the Dinosaurs?’: Reflections on Public History at the Museum of Jurassic Technology
by Tom Smith – @TomEtesonSmith What connects the obscure lives of neurophysiologist Geoffrey Sonnabend and opera singer Madelena Delani? Are these people even real? Is there really an elaborate miniature engraving of the Crucifixion on that seemingly ordinary fruit stone? Are we supposed to take these heroic portraits of the dogs of the Soviet space programme…
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Marian Mason: England’s Trailblazing Woman of Fitness
By Conor Heffernan Although sporting historians have long noted the importance of English women in the development of sport in general, few studies have devoted themselves to the study of gymnastic exercise systems such as callisthenics. This has done a great injustice to Marian Mason, England’s first female physical fitness instructor who, beginning in the…
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Crying Wolf in the early middle ages?
By Robert Evans @R_AH_Evans The chronicles and histories of the early middle ages have a reputation for describing somewhat unusual events. In his history of contemporary events, for example, Prudentius, bishop of Troyes (d.861) describes how, in 846 ‘Wolves attacked and devoured with complete audacity the inhabitants of the western part of Gaul. Indeed, in some…
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In praise of history teachers
By Carys Brown @HistoryCarys I learned more about the nature of the discipline of history during my PGCE and year as a Newly Qualified Teacher than I have in all of the rest of my academic study combined. It might be that I’m a poor academic historian, but rather I think it says something about the immense…
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Staging history: “Kepler’s Trial” by Tim Watts
Harriet Lyon (@HarrietLyon) reviews the recent world premiere of Kepler’s Trial: An Opera by Tim Watts based on Ulinka Rublack’s book The Astronomer & the Witch. In December 1615, the renowned astronomer Johannes Kepler first received news that his elderly mother, Katharina, had been accused by a neighbour of witchcraft. A victim of the witch craze that swept through…
