History
The History Subject Area at NTU engages in a wide range of research, temporally and geographically, situated within the School of Arts and Humanities.
Overview
Research Contact: Dr Natasha Hodgson
History is situated within the School of Arts and Humanities and engages in research across wide chronological and geographical spans, from the eleventh to twentieth centuries. Particular research strengths include:
- Medieval Studies (Crusades, Heresy, Gender, Social, Cultural and Military History)
- Reformation Studies
- Britain and Ireland (Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries)
- Early Modern Spain and the ‘New World’
- The Trans-Atlantic Slave trade
- The Civil Rights movement
- Twentieth Century History (with a specific focus on WW2, Holocaust and Genocide Studies)
- Memory Studies
- Public History and Heritage
- Digital Humanities
Across this breadth of research interest, our team focus on debates relating to Social and Cultural History; Memory; Identity; Race; Gender and Sexuality; and well as Political and Military History. Our staff employ a variety of analytical and linguistic skills to engage in archival research, textual and material analysis to produce a range of outputs from scholarly articles and monographs to public-facing publications (e.g. East Midlands History) and online articles (The Conversation, History Today,BBC History etc.). They are involved in a variety of partnerships and outreach activities and have a strong social media presence. Research synergies within the team are captured though the activities of two centres: The Centre for the Study of Religion and Conflict, and the Centre for Public History, Heritage and Memory, and across the wider university by links to research strands such as Global Heritage.
Centres
The Centre for Public History, Heritage and Memory provides a lively hub for researchers, teachers, practitioners and the public in the connected areas of identity; representation and memorialisation; internationally significant, community-driven and regional history; and museum and heritage management. It explores the cultural significance of the past, challenging current interpretations, exploring points of tension and engaging with the processes of representing History from a variety of perspectives to meet the needs of a range of communities.
The Centre for the Study of Religion and Conflict has been established in order to increase understanding of the origins, ideology, implementation, impact and historiography of religion and conflict in the medieval and early modern periods: not just in terms of military engagements but also the social, political, cultural and economic conflicts that were impacted, exacerbated by, or resolved through religious activities and ideologies.
The following Research Projects are linked to this Subject Area:
- Leading From the Front: Command and Leadership in the British and Irish Civil Wars
- Campaigning in the Crusader States
- Crusading Masculinities
- From Myth to Majesty: an historical exploration of fifteenth-century British royal genealogies
- Emotional Landscapes in the Early Modern period
- Origins of Identity and Myths of Empire: Spain and Mexico, from the late medieval to the early modern period
- Poverty, Charity and Welfare in Early Modern Scotland
- The Wailing Woman: La Lllorona and Day of the Dead
Case Studies
The following Impact Case Studies from REF 2014 are linked to this Subject Area:
Collaboration
The History team work in collaboration with a variety of institutions and organisations on a variety of research-based projects, some of which involve members of the postgraduate cohort: PhD students and MA students from History and Museum and Heritage Management. These include but are not limited to:
- The British Library
- The British Museum
- Bromley House
- Canalside Heritage Centre
- Digital Arts Lab, University of Canterbury, New Zealand
- The Old Rectory Museum, Loughborough
- The National Civil War Centre, Newark
- The National Holocaust Centre and Museum
- Nottingham Castle Trust
- The National Justice Museum
- The National Arboretum
- REACH project (EU funded ‘Re-designing Access to Cultural Heritage for a wider participation)
- Holocaust Centre Huddersfield
- Warlord Games
- Workhouse Museums Network