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Reclaiming Spaces: CUSU and GU Welfare and Women’s Officer’s campaigns

By Claire Sosienski Smith & Christine Pungong, (welfare@cusu.cam.ac.uk & womens@cusu.cam.ac.uk) My experience as a student at Cambridge centred around the feminist activism I chose to get involved in, as part of the Women’s Campaign. I learned that feminist work is legacy work in the physical spaces I shared and created with women and non-binary people.…
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Who do I think I am? – My experience with AncestryDNA

By Stephanie Brown (@StephEmmaBrown) Thanks to programmes like Who Do You Think You Are? there has never been more interest in family history. Since the turn of the century, family historians have started to look beyond traditional records such as the census, and birth, death, and marriage indices to new scientific methods. DNA tests are now…
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History on Film: genre, fact, and resonance in Mary Queen of Scots and The Favourite

By Laura Flannigan (@LFlannigan17) Within the first month of 2019, historians were treated to not one but two blockbuster movies: The Favourite (dir. Yorgos Lanthimos) and Mary Queen of Scots (dir. Josie Rourke). Both grossed millions of dollars in the short time since their worldwide release, reminding us that film is by far the most accessible form of…
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The Congo’s and Belgium’s shared past, present and future

By Eva Schalbroeck As a historian, I strongly believe in studying history for its own sake, rather than from today’s perspective. As someone who devours news from every type of media outlet, I cannot help but see the connections between the news on the Democratic Republic of Congo and my research on Belgian colonialism. Barely…
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Constitutional history’s new public moment?

By Helen Sunderland (@hl_sunderland) Over recent months I’ve watched more parliamentary debates than ever before. I imagine I’m not alone. This is perhaps a bold confession for a historian of political culture – admittedly, I’m more familiar with nineteenth-century Hansard than BBC Parliament. Numerous historical parallels have been drawn over Brexit, some more accurate than…
