History News
Liberation of Bergen-Belsen: how a lack of protective clothing cost lives
Congratulations to Professor Susan Carruthers, Professor of US/International History, who has had an article linked to the 80th anniversary of Belsen published in The Conversation.
Clothing can kill. So, too, can the absence of personal protective equipment. For decades, the medical establishment has understood the role of fabric in both spreading contagion and guarding against its transmission — but never with greater urgency than 80 years ago.
On April 15 1945, British troops liberated Bergen-Belsen concentration camp near Celle in northern Germany. Shocking scenes awaited behind the barbed wire.....
Professor Fred Reid
It is with great sadness that the Department of History announce the death of Professor Fred Reid.
AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Partnership (CDP) studentship - Lithographs of the First World War: printmaking, propaganda and mobilisation
Imperial War Museums (IWM), and the University of Warwick are pleased to announce the availability of a fully funded Collaborative doctoral studentship from October 2025 under the AHRC’s Collaborative Doctoral Partnerships (CDP) scheme.
Start date: 1 October 2025
Application Deadline: 3 June 2025
Interviews: 30 June 2025 (online)
Find full details of the studentship and how to apply at https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/history/news/phd_studentship/
Dr Angela McShane new book launch
'Our Subversive Voice: The History and Politics of English Protest Songs, 1600-2020', a new multi-disciplinary book is launched on the four hundred year history and politics of protest songs. Dr Angela McShane, Department of History Honorary Reader, is part of the 'Our Subversive Voice' research project team looking at the use of song to register protest through the ages.
The book is published by McGill Queens University Press in Canada: https://www.mqup.ca/our-subversive-voice-products-9780228023722.phpLink opens in a new window
The protest song is - and has always been - a form of political oratory as vital to political representation as it is to performance. Investigating five centuries of English history, Our Subversive Voice establishes that the protest song is not merely the preserve of singer-songwriters; it is a mode of political communication that has been used to confront many systems of oppression across its many genres, from street ballads to art song, grime to hymns, and music hall to punk.
For more information about the research project visit website: https://oursubversivevoice.com/Link opens in a new window
Hope, the life-sized Lego Suffragette Statue
A life-sized Lego Suffragette statue named ‘Hope’ will be on display in the Agora, Faculty of Arts Building until the 28th of February 2025. Originally exhibited in the UK Parliament House of Commons, Hope’s visit coincides with the University of Warwick’s 60th birthday and commemorates 75 years since the election of the first female MP for Coventry, Elaine Burton, in 1950.
The History Department is hosting a series of activities during Hope’s stay, raising awareness of local Votes for Women campaign stories and sparking diverse conversations about women’s voting and equal rights in Britain and across the globe today.
More Information on events, news, research and collaborative work related to Hope’s visit can be found here.
Research Fellow Vacancy
The Department of History is looking to appoint a Research Fellow for a fixed-term period of 24 months from 1 September 2025 to work with Dr Anna Toropova on the Wellcome Trust funded Career Development Award: ‘Traumatised Minds, Neurosis and Hysteria in Soviet Medicine and Culture, 1917-1953’.
This project examines scientific, medical and cultural approaches to psychological trauma in the Soviet Union between 1917 and 1953.
The full advert and job description can be found on the University of Warwick website. For informal queries, please contact Dr Anna Toropova at anna.toropova.1@warwick.ac.uk.
The deadline for applications is Sunday 16 March 2025 at 11.55pm.
Anniversary fever? History and the culture of NHS celebration
Congratulations to Professor Roberta Bivins and Professor Mathew Thomson who have had their article about NHS anniversaries published in Modern British History.
This was drawn from reflections from The Cultural History of the NHS research project.
Abstract
Delivered a day after Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) reached its 75th year since its opening on the Appointed Day of 5 July 1948, the Pimlott Lecture for 2023 explored the culture of NHS anniversary-making. What can the marking of these anniversaries tell us about changing attitudes towards the service, and indeed, the British state? Here, examining evidence from the media, government archives, and Mass Observation, we argue that NHS anniversaries have long functioned as points of reflection but that their role as moments of national celebration and even communion has come to the fore only recently and culminated in the apparent ‘anniversary fever’ of 2018. We will explore the reasons behind the growing public fervour, what it can tell us, and the lessons offered by our work on this (still) best-loved of British institutions for historians working on highly politicized objects in ‘fevered’ times.
Historical Journal Early Career Prize news
Congratulations to Dr Jack Bowman, Teaching Fellow in Modern History, who has been given an Honourable Mention in the inaugural Historical Journal Early Career Prize! Jack gives an insight into their article 'The Early Political Thought and Publishing Career of V. K. Krishna Menon, 1928–1938', which was published last year.