guest post by Ellen Muehlberger read Ellen’s article in the journal here My article on ‘Imagination, Space, and Filth in Late Ancient Historiography’, in the May 2015 issue of P&P, traces the development over time of the infamous story about the death the fourth-century Christian intellectual Arius and considers its political impact. As a piece of writing, the article did not start and end at my desk. Instead, it too developed over a period of time, prodded along by the opportunities I had to present my work and the conversations I had with audiences who heard me. In 2009, when I was starting a new job and thinking about how to revise my dissertation into a book, I did what many writers do: I workcrastinated, at times, by daydreaming about a future project. I wanted to investigate in more detail a change that other historians of ancient Christianity had noted: that after the fourth century, there was a dramatic increase in graphic, gruesome depictions of death in Christian writing. Many of the nasty deaths narrated in late ancient Christian literature came with a lesson. Often the enemies of Christians, or those who were declared heretics, were the ones who died in […]

In May 2013 Rana Mitter and I published the Past & Present Supplement, Transnationalism and Contemporary Global History. We were aware of a growing interest in the subject and wished to bring together some of the most exciting new research being undertaken around the world. Through a series of essays ranging from wartime China to decolonising Africa we wanted to explore the global spread of ideas, institutions and peoples, especially those that travelled along unexpected paths: hence articles on Indian influences on Kenya or on black Americans in China. Our period was confined to the middle decades of the twentieth century, though we were aware of much other work being conducted on modern history where scholars were exploring the notion of transnationalism. Certainly, if the download statistics are anything to go by, there is clearly a growing demand for these types of histories. To mark the two years since the supplement was published, we have decided to make the entire volume freely available for a further three months. In addition, we have also made available in this virtual issue a number of other pieces on modern history that have been published in Past & Present over the last few years […]