Amidst the clouds of legal racial segregation and inhumane apartheid laws in 20th century South Africa, music was a silver lining for the masses. Songs werepowerful political tools that subliminally shaped the opinions of the people and encouraged protest against the regime. Freedom songs sang praises of the anti-apartheid heroes and lifted the spirits of […]
These will be the words proclaimed to Baby George in three generations time. The birth of the Queen’s third great grandchild is the most significant royal birth in decades. An estimated £250 million has been generated so far from the purchase of memorabilia related to his birth. Royal babies have always been greatly celebrated in […]
Cartography in the iconography of British imperialism portrayed the visual culture of the British Empire. The Empire came to cover huge swathes of territory and from the nineteenth century onwards, Commonwealth countries were coloured pink on maps. Pink was a printer’s compromise for letters overprinted to be clearly read, as the colour that was traditionally […]
In October 2023, when the cast of the iconic play Les Misérables performed at the Sondheim Theatre in London, they launched into their famous protest song, ‘Do You Hear the People Sing?’ as a part of their act. But what happened after that was entirely unscripted. The stage was abruptly taken over by activists from […]
In April 2014, the kidnapping of 276 schoolgirls at Chibok brought global notoriety to the Nigerian Islamist organisation Boko Haram. The group has been active since at least 2002 and in many respects represents a continuation of Nigerian history. The usual translation of Boko Haram to “Western Education is Sin” obscures the fact that they […]
Ireland has often been described as England’s blueprint for colonialism. Since the 12th century, the kings of England have claimed dominion over Ireland and the Irish have been resisting British dominion ever since. If Ireland was England’s blueprint for colonialism, then Ireland has also served as a blueprint for anti-colonial resistance. After Henry II declared […]
On 18th September 2014 the Scottish National Party finally gets its referendum on independence. Arguments for and against this notion have been going on for months now, and it is difficult to tell whether or not it will be successful. However since the Act of Union in 1707, the notion of an independent Scotland is […]
Welcome to our first issue of the 2013. I know that the start of the year feels a long time ago now. I hope you feel that you have achieved a lot since then: exams sat, new courses started, results back. We are well into the hard slog part of the year, what with the […]
Why did you choose to go into Academics? I think really just the enjoyment and the interest that I have for my subject. Just before we began recording we were talking a little bit about taking some time out between undergraduate study and graduate study. I went and worked to save money for a while, […]
Recently, it has been hard to avoid the prevalence of NIMBYism in the press. Be it fracking, wind farms or HS2, there are continual protestations about some form of development somewhere in Britain, perhaps leaving some to wonder why we can’t just BANANA (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anyone). But whilst the action of voicing […]
Over the Gulf of Thailand Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 disappeared from radar screens and sparked what has become one of the most baffling episodes in aviation history. For nearly fifty days an international search team led by Australia has followed lead after lead and are yet to find any evidence of the crash site currently […]
The summer of 2021 will live long in the memory of English football fans as manager Gareth Southgate took England to the very edge of glory, aiming to end 55 years of footballing hurt and rekindle the spirit of previous glory. Whilst ultimately ending in heartbreak for Southgate’s young squad, the feeling generated by his […]
160 years ago, President Abraham Lincoln sent a letter to the ‘working men of Manchester’, acknowledging their ‘sublime Christian heroism, which has not been surpassed in any age or in any country’. These words are now memorialised at the foot of the Lincoln statue, sculpted by George Grey Bernard, which stands in recently-remodelled Lincoln Square […]
“The Falklands thing was a fight between two bald men over a comb”. These were the famous words Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges used to describe the 1982 Anglo-Argentine Falklands/Malvinas Conflict over the sovereignty of islands in the South Atlantic, known to Britons as ‘the Falklands’ and to Argentines as ‘las Malvinas’. The seventy-four day […]