by Barbara Taylor (Queen Mary, University of London) What is solitude? The question tends to stop people in their tracks. The commonsense definition – an absence of other people – clearly won’t do, first because one can be wrong about this, that is be in the presence of others when one thinks one isn’t, but also because being with others is for many people the most solitary condition of all. Isolation, seclusion, privacy: none of these are solitude, although some may be preconditions for it. Sometimes aloneness is lonely – for some people unbearably lonely: ‘Solitude,’ the poet John Donne wrote after a period of confinement with illness, ‘is a torment which is not threatened in hell it selfe’. For other people – especially but not exclusively religious solitaries – solitude is a privileged site of intimate connection, an always-accompanied condition. ‘Never less alone than when alone’; ‘[nothing] so companionable as solitude’; ‘Alone in a crowd’; ‘solitude is best society’…The famous epigrams say it all; the language of solitude is crammed with such paradoxes. Solitude is a human eternal that is nonetheless historical, its meanings and valuations varying over time. Its history is one of controversy: from antiquity on people […]

by the Past & Present editorial team Saturday 3rd February 2024 was the 100th anniversary of the birth of Edward Palmer Thompson (best known by his publication initials E.P.). E.P. Thompson was a key member of the Communist Party Historians Group out of which Past & Present emerged. However, he is widely remembered today for his pioneering approach and significant contribution to the study of social history, exemplified by the work The Making of the English Working Class, as well as his trenchant interventions in the fields of historiography and politics. Between the 1960s and the 1990s Thompson published three articles in Past & Present. The first of which “Time, Work Discipline and Industrial Capitalism” (No. 38, 1967) is according to Altmetrics the “most citied” in the history of the journal. In honour of Thompson’s centenary our publisher Oxford University press has made his three articles for the journal free to read for the next fortnight: *“Time, Work Discipline, and Industrial Capitalism”, Past & Present, Volume 38, Issue 1, December 1967, Pages 56–97 *“The Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the Eighteenth Century”, Past & Present, Volume 50, Issue 1, February 1971, Pages 76–136 *”Hunting the Jacobin Fox”, Past […]

by Will Pooley (University of Bristol) Where did “Doubt and the dislocation of magic: France, 1790–1940” my piece in Past & Present No. 262 come from? All origin stories are, of course, excuses. Historians are no more immune than anyone else from inventing their own pasts to suit the present. After all, historical fictions are fun. So let me tell it like this: I wanted the piece to do what the Wild on Collective have called ‘historically grounded theory’. I wanted to take seriously the possibility of ‘alternative epistemological inquiries, orientations, or starting points’. Historians are not passive consumers of ‘theory’: we have a record of proposing theoretical categories that are applied in other fields, too: ‘emotives’, ‘moral economy’, ‘critical fabulation’. I did not want to take a set of existing theories and applying them to an example, but wanted to ask how historical evidence challenges historians to – perhaps – rethink categories that appear commonsensical. What does it mean to say that people in the past ‘believed’ something? Is ‘belief’ really what the sources convey? And how do historians think about what the sources habitually omit, mischaracterise, or misunderstand? So, the truth is that I started with the category […]

by Suzie Cloves (Manchester Metropolitan University) As part of Disability History Month 2023, Past and Present funded an event designed to answer “How can we best use sound to support access to heritage?”. This was hosted by Manchester Centre for Public Histories + Heritage (MCPHH) and its aim was to generate practical ideas that would encourage thoughtful use of sound to support access to heritage. The discussion was recorded so it could be shared as a freely available podcast and transcript, which you can find on the MCPHH blog. “I believe that our futures are defined by the elements of our past that we choose to preserve, display, destroy or keep hidden. So I view heritage as a sort of public vocabulary for defining our identities and perpetuating our values. All the different elements of heritage – be that a shoebox of letters, or a meeting place, or a memory, or a tune – are potential parts of an ongoing conversation about what matters and where we’re going next. If any one of us is excluded from that conversation, we are excluded from exploring our identity, finding our connection to community, and from defining how we’re treated in the future. This […]

Received from Edmund van der Molen (University of Nottingham) Event Title: Gender and Sainthood c. 1100 – 1500 Conference Date: 5th – 6th April 2024 Location: History Faculty, University of Oxford Organisers: Antonia Anstatt (Merton College, University of Oxford) and Edmund van der Molen (University of Nottingham) Full Programme Registration Link This conference is supported by the Society for the Study of Medieval Languages and Literature, the Hagiography Society, the Past & Present Society, and the History Faculty, University of Oxford. Past & Present is pleased to support this event and supports other events like it. Applications for event funding are welcomed from scholars working in the field of historical studies at all stages in their careers.

Received from Susannah Bain, James Cogbill, Annabel Hancock, and Bee Jones (University of Oxford) Two day workshop taking place at Worcester College, University of Oxford 12th – 13th January 2024. Programme available here. Past & Present is pleased to support this event and supports other events like it. Applications for event funding are welcomed from scholars working in the field of historical studies at all stages in their careers.

Received from Rachel Collett (University of Liverpool) and Alfie Steer (Hertford College, Oxford) Date: Friday 28 June 2024 Location: People’s History Museum, Manchester M3 3ER Keynote speakers: Sheila Rowbotham, Lynne Segal, and Hilary Wainwright 2024 marks the 45th anniversary of the publication of the seminal socialist-feminist text, Beyond the Fragments: Feminism and the Making of Socialism. Within its pages, activists Sheila Rowbotham, Lynne Segal and Hilary Wainwright wove sharp political analysis and personal reflections in their respective essays. The text sought to unify the various radical social and political movements of the 1960s and 1970s, to forge a new socialist politics for the 1980s. In doing so, the publication inspired wide-ranging discussion across the left, sparking a series of highly-attended conferences, and the formation of long-lasting activist networks. Coinciding with Margaret Thatcher’s 1979 election victory, the text is now a richly insightful historical document, highlighting the often-forgotten radicalism that survived (and in some cases flourished) in the inhospitable climate of Thatcher’s Britain. For historians, Beyond the Fragments challenges pessimistic narratives of socialist decline and Neoliberal triumph, and provides a framework for some of the extraordinary solidarity movements (around the miners strike, Greenham Common, and latterly the anti-globalisation movement) that followed. […]

Received from Suzanne Cloves (Manchester Metropolitan University) How can we best use sound to support access to heritage? A public discussion with panellists, presented by Manchester Centre for Public History and Heritage, in collaboration with Leverhulme Unit for the Design of Cities of the Future. Join our speakers to help generate ideas that will encourage thoughtful use of sound to support access to heritage: Luke Beesley (Researcher at University of Liverpool, Archive Lead at Greater Manchester Coalition of Disabled People) David Govier (Sound Archivist at Manchester Archives+) Steve Graby (Access and Inclusion Worker at Disabled People’s Archive, Greater Manchester Coalition of Disabled People) Olivia Hewkin (Museum, Galleries and Heritage Programme Manager at VocalEyes) Mariana López (Professor in Sound Production and Post Production, University of York) Then sit back and soak up a DJ set by Artilect, who will showcase sampling as a form of music heritage. We’ll finish with refreshments and time to chat. The event will be at 3-6pm on Wednesday 6th December 2023 in the Manchester Poetry Library, which is in the Grosvenor East Building, Manchester Metropolitan University, M15 6BG. Entry is free but please book (here) to avoid disappointment. You’re welcome to turn up without booking, but […]

by Prof. Catherine Fletcher (Manchester Metropolitan University) Asked to draw up a list of important early modern technologies, few historians would ignore guns and gunpowder. Yet the detail of firearms’ impact on sixteenth-century Europe is less well-known than it might be. This is all the more surprising given the parallels between the debates of the sixteenth century about how to handle this problematic new technology, and those of today. Writers of the period knew that while handguns might be in demand for self-defence, in reality they were a poor defensive weapon. Local authorities realised that concealed carry was a challenge to social order. Political thinkers argued that gun proliferation required an international solution. Aspects of which I explore in my article “Firearms and the State in Sixteenth-Century Italy: Gun Proliferation and Gun Control” in Past & Present No. 260 (August 2023). From the earliest days of gunpowder technology there was deep ambivalence in Europe about its use. Firearms were the devil’s work (one manuscript illumination of the Resurrection shows demons firing at the risen Christ); they were unmanly and ungallant, and in more lethal ways than previous technologies. On the other hand, they were becoming a vital military technology, and […]

from the Royal Historical Society The Royal Historical Society is delighted to award Masters’ Scholarships to the following six students. Each student is now beginning a Masters’ degree in History for the academic year 2023-24: Roqibat Adebimpe, to study at the University of Sheffield Matthew Dickinson, to study at the University of Manchester Baryana Ivanova, to study of the University of Cambridge Nawajesh Khan, to study at Cardiff University Marielle Masolo, to study at the University of Oxford Charlotte Willis, to study at Cardiff University The Masters’ Scholarship programme provides financial support to students from groups currently underrepresented in academic History. Each Scholarship is worth £5000. The scheme, established in 2022, seeks to actively address underrepresentation and encourage Black and Asian students to consider academic research in History. By supporting Masters’ students the programme focuses on a key early stage in the academic training of future researchers. With these Scholarships, the Society seeks to support students who are without the financial means to study for a Masters’ in History. By doing so, we hope to improve the educational experience of early career historians engaged in a further degree. The Society is very grateful to the Thriplow Charitable Trust and the Past & Present Society who each […]