Mapping the State: English Boundaries and the 1832 Reform Act
The 1832 Reform Act was a landmark moment in the development of modern British politics. In his new book — ‘Mapping the State: English Boundaries and the 1832 Reform Act’ — Martin Spychal rethinks the Act. ‘Mapping the State’ provides a major reassessment of why and how the 1832 Reform Act passed, its impact on reformed politics both at Westminster and in the constituencies, and its significance to the expansion of the modern British state. Martin’s book, published in September 2024, is the 19th title in the Royal Historical Society’s ‘New Historical Perspectives’ series for early career historians, published by University of London Press. As with all books in the series, ‘Mapping the State’ is available in print and as a free open access download.
Present and Precedent in the Church Councils of Late Antique Iberia
In this post, Graham Barrett and Jamie Wood outline their recent workshop on the compact between Church and Crown in late-antique Iberia. This event, funded by the Society’s Workshop Grant programme, enabled participants to collaborate in an investigation of the agreements surrounding the Visigothic kingdom, know as the ‘Hispana’. Written in dense and difficult Latin, the Hispana has never been translated into English, nor the modern critical edition into any language. With the workshop, the project seeks to form a research network to make the Hispana accessible through English translation, annotation, and contextual studies. RHS Workshop Grants are awarded annually to enable historians to meet together to develop research ideas or projects; the next call for applications will be in late 2024.
The Royal Historical Society’s new Members’ Directory: a guide to use
In September 2024 the Royal Historical Society (RHS) launched its Members’ Directory. This is a new online resource for current Fellows and Members of the Society, enabling them to search for other historians who belong to the RHS by a range of attributes, including research interests and areas of study. We hope creation of the Directory provides RHS Fellows, Associate Fellows, Members and Postgraduate Members with opportunities to make connections in order to pursue historical projects and research. This post offers a brief guide to using the Directory with suggested searches that members of the Society may undertake.
Literary Cricket, Intellectual Culture and Edwardian In-Groups
How can studies of group activities inform our understanding of historical figures? In this post, Ollie Randall introduces his new article,’Cricket, Literary Culture and In-Groups in Early Twentieth-Century Britain’, published this month in Transactions of the Royal Historical Society. The social and literary role of the ‘Authors Eleven’, a cricket side of London-based writers active between 1899 and 1912, is explored through case studies of the writers George Ives, E. W. Hornung and P. G. Wodehouse. Each saw their involvement in cricket, and particularly the Authors Eleven in-group, as an essential component of their social status. Shared physical activity and embodied sociability, encapsulated in sports teams, offer ways to understand the development and cultural significance of individual lives.
History and Sustainability: Learning together with ICT students
In this post, Laura Harrison describes her recent project at the University of the West of England to introduce History content to undergraduate courses in Information, Communications and Technology (ICT). As Laura notes, historians think long and hard about the benefits of teaching their subject to History undergraduates. But what about the educational experiences of the wider student population; what value might History hold for them? Laura, and her project partners, were holders of an RHS Jinty Nelson Teaching Fellowship for the academic year 2023-24. These fellowships support the development of new teaching practices in History in Higher Education. Recipients of Fellowships for 2024-25 will be announced this autumn.
STUDENT NUMBERS FOR HISTORY A-LEVELS, GCSEs, AND SCOTTISH ADVANCED HIGHER, HIGHER AND NATIONAL 5 EXAMS, 2024
August is exam results season in the UK. In 2024, A-Level results, for students in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, were released on 15 August. They followed the 2024 results for Scottish Advanced Higher, Higher and National 5 exams published on 6 August. GCSE results for History were released on 22 August 2024. This post provides a summary of key data for 2024 in terms of History student enrolments. Each data set provides current trends on the uptake and relative popularity of History in 2023-24. For further guides to History in UK Higher Education, please see the Royal Historical Society’s ‘Toolkit for Historians’ and our listing on ‘Data on the UK Historical Discipline and Profession’.
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society: from the editor
Jan Machielsen, editor of ‘Transactions of the Royal Historical Society’, reflects on his first six months in the role and looks ahead to new content coming soon. Transactions publishes a wide range of research articles and commentaries on historical approaches, practice and debate. In addition to research articles, Transactions welcomes shorter, innovative commentary articles for its new ‘Common Room’ section. We invite submissions from all historians, at all career stages, on content covering a wide range of subjects, chronologies and geographies worldwide. From August 2024 all articles published in Transactions will be available Open Access, with no charge to any author, ensuring their widest possible circulation and readership.
New directions for History teaching: insights from the RHS Teaching fellowships 2023-24
Launched in 2023, the Royal Historical Society’s Jinty Nelson Teaching Fellowships support historians in UK Higher Education who wish to trial and introduce new approaches to their teaching. Fellowships may also support those seeking to undertake a short study on an aspect of History teaching. As the first cohort of Fellows completes its projects, this post highlights selected initiatives and findings from which we hope others will be able to draw in developing their own teaching. The call is now open for the Society’s Teaching Fellowships for 2024-25, with further details in this post if you would wish to apply before the closing date of 2 September 2024.
Towards a creative antifascist pedagogy: zine-making in the classroom
In this post, Amy King discusses her innovative teaching methods on far-right political groups, past and present. Amy’s undergraduate modules explore the themes of this topic, the ways in which far-right ideologies are distributed, and limitations in use of social media and the internet. In response, her students are introduced to the medium of zines as a form of political expression. Amy is a recipient of an RHS Jinty Nelson Teaching Fellowship for 2023-24 which supported the development of new teaching practices. Calls for Fellowships for 2024-25 are now open until 2 September 2024.
History Students’ Use of Gen-AI
What do History students think of Gen AI? Over the past academic year, Neville Morley has been working with History and Ancient History students at the University of Exeter to better understand their experience of, and attitude to, GenAI for their studies. In this post, Neville reports on the findings of surveys conducted in 2023 and 2024, charting how students have understood the opportunities, and limitations, of artificial intelligence, and how these may be applied to their reading, writing and research. Based on these surveys, it appears few History students are using GenAI for their coursework, though there is a widespread perception of its usefulness in generating summaries of individual publications and overviews of topics.
‘AI, History and Historians’: watch or listen to our panel discussion, held in July 2024
Video and audio recordings of the Royal Historical Society’s latest event — ‘AI, History and Historians’ — are now available. This discussion (held on 17 July 2024) brought together a panel of experts to consider the opportunities and challenges of new AI technology in the field of History. Topics included the use of AI in university assessments, detecting and mitigating dataset biases, environmental impacts of generative AI, and challenges for historians around using AI as the latest new technology to bring change to research and teaching practices.
Letters Home: the Correspondence of Allen Leeper, 1908-1912
In this post David Hayton introduces his new volume in the Royal Historical Society’s Camden Series, ‘Allen Leeper’s Letters Home, 1908–1912. An Irish-Australian at Edwardian Oxford’. Allen Leeper, Oxford undergraduate and future Foreign Office mandarin, wrote regularly to his family in Australia from 1908 until he left university in 1912. His letters record his experiences at Balliol College, Oxford, among a ‘golden generation’ decimated by the First World War, and on his extensive travels in Europe. They provide a vivid picture of a continent on the eve of profound change, written by someone whose background afforded a degree of objectivity.