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The Manchester Historian

The University of Manchester's history departmental newspaper. Produced by students, for students. The Manchester Historian is a newspaper written, produced, edited and distributed by students in the University of Manchester's History department.

Here's another article from our next edition, Language and Culture, in which Hannah Teegar discusses what the developmen...

03/05/2021

From Colonial Subject to Criminals: Exploring why forensic fingerprinting developed in Colonial India, and its subsequent transfer to Victorian Britain, By Hannah Teeger

Here's another article from our next edition, Language and Culture, in which Hannah Teegar discusses what the development of fingerprinting in India might tell us about the treatment of colonial subjects 👇

Modern detective novels and television dramas have captured public imagination for over a century. Forensic fingerprinting features in nearly every single one. Whilst the practise is one many are f…

"In striving for modernity, such themes were often deemed “unspeakable” and did not coincide with the clean and respecta...

23/03/2021

How and why did tolerance towards male homosexuality disappear in Meiji Japan? By Isabel Fountain

"In striving for modernity, such themes were often deemed “unspeakable” and did not coincide with the clean and respectable image that officials were aiming to create." - Isabel Fountain for Issue 38 ✍️

The Meiji Restoration was a movement spearheaded by government officials, which prioritized the “modernisation” of Japan by abolishing the previous feudal Tokugawa shogunate and changing existing s…

"Al-Farabi ambitiously combined Greek philosophy with Islamic thought to set out a political vision. In his view, the id...

22/03/2021

Al-Farabi: The second teacher, forgotten in modern histories of Philosophy? By Zeeshan Mahmood

"Al-Farabi ambitiously combined Greek philosophy with Islamic thought to set out a political vision. In his view, the ideal society was one that led to happiness." Zeeshan Mahmood for Issue 38 ✍️

Imagine how our culture would appear had the likes of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle not existed? Quite impoverished, it can readily be assumed. But then again, where would European Culture be toda…

"Amidst empty streets in a fearful nation, Chilean women met at churches and in neighbours’ houses to stitch compassiona...

21/03/2021

Arpilleras against Augusto: Community and Memory in Pinochet’s Chile, by Sarah Cundy

"Amidst empty streets in a fearful nation, Chilean women met at churches and in neighbours’ houses to stitch compassionately into fabric their accounts of an uncompassionate truth"- Sarah Cundy for Issue 38 ✍️

Amidst empty streets in a fearful nation, Chilean women met at churches and in neighbours’ houses to stitch compassionately into fabric their stories of an uncompassionate truth. These pieces docum…

"The Bible has shaped literature, history, entertainment, and culture more than any book ever written, and it will be sh...

20/03/2021

Ever since Eve: How the Bible has been used to oppress women since the Garden of Eden, by Sam Pilling

"The Bible has shaped literature, history, entertainment, and culture more than any book ever written, and it will be shown that through various interpretations and contexts it has been used to oppress women and support patriarchal regime

This article will feature in Issue 38: Language and Culture The Bible, the true representation of God’s word and will, a book with unparalleled influence on world history that shows no sign of abat…

"For indigenous people, this date does not mark the beginning of their nation, but the beginning of over 200 years of vi...

20/03/2021

Reclaiming Australia Day: The terrible history of the 26th of January and those seeking to abolish it, by Jenna Helms

"For indigenous people, this date does not mark the beginning of their nation, but the beginning of over 200 years of violence, discrimination and systemic abuse" - Jenna Helms on the history of Australia Day for our next edition, Language and Culture ✍️

Australia Day has been celebrated as an official holiday in Australia since 1818, with its proponents proclaiming it to be a day of national unity and remembrance. Each year on January 26th, the ho…

The Manchester historian is looking for writers for this upcoming issue. Write for us!----------------------------------...

05/03/2021

Issue 38: Culture and Language

The Manchester historian is looking for writers for this upcoming issue. Write for us!

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Issue 38: Language and Culture
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Below are a broad selection of article suggestions, meant as a starting point from which you can develop your article.
Most are broad so take a moment to think about what you might like to focus on? What will your argument be? What are the key historical debates surrounding the topic?
In this edition we are naturally endeavouring to include more cultural and linguistic histories, and prompts range in topic from Ancient Nubia to punk, and from cockney rhyming slang to discourse theory.
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Articles are only 450 or 900 words - references/sources are not required! Please don't be scared or think it's a lot of extra work :)

If you’d like to write an article, email a brief plan to [email protected]. You are welcome to write an article from the list below, but we also encourage pitches of your own article ideas, and book reviews relevant to the theme. We’d also like to encourage students who’ve taken part in the Level 1 Manchester History Workshop and want to summarise their research here to write in. To reserve space in the magazine, you must email us with your article plan before the 12th of March. This does not need to be in-depth, just a general idea of what you intend to write about. The final deadline for article submission is the 19th of March.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tTcWEgoa_lpnV3WNWDliV_WOkcvAmLHQ3skLULttSGw/edit?usp=sharing

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Language and Culture Specials:

How does/has language work/ed as a colonial tool? (Frantz Fanon)
Power and Language: An introduction to Foucault and/or Discourse Theory
What is ‘Otherness’ as described by Edward Said in Orientalism and how can we attempt to redress it in Western Scholarship?
What was the Linguistic turn in Historiography? (450 words)
What was the Cultural turn? (450 words)

African, Islamic and Arabic History:

Missionaries: colonialism's "agent, scribe and moral alibi"? [Reserved]
How does/has language work/ed as a colonial tool? (Frantz Fanon)
‘Persophilia’: Why has Persian culture found itself uniquely revered for centuries from Alexander the Great to Tennyson? (could reference language, poetry, literature or art)
To what extent did the Islamic Golden Age redress the 'loss of knowledge' of the Dark Ages?
Al-Farabi: The second teacher, forgotten in modern histories of Philosophy?
Why were/are cultural sites seen as a particular threat to (or targetted by) jihadist groups?
What was the global cultural impact of the anti-apartheid movement?
‘There is no true social revolution, without the liberation of women’ Thomas Sankara. To what extent was Pan-Africanism a feminism movement?
To what extent was the Ottoman Empire a tolerant place for Minorities? (you could do this question regarding Women instead)
Something on pre-colonial African art would be ace (of a particular region e.g the importance of art in the Luba Kingdom, Kuba Kingdom or for the Yoruba people)

Non-Western American History:

Arpilleras against Augusto: a woven history of life under dictatorship [Reserved]
Indigenismo: How have Left political movements in Bolivia provided a space to rebuild and celebrate Indigenous culture?
Recovering Indigenous Viewpoints; to what extent can we recover indigenous reactions to European colonisation in the Americas? (or a different place of your choosing).
Viracocha or ‘The White God’: how did Spain's attempt to colonise Incan deities?
How influential was Pablo Neruda in shaping the literary and cultural landscape of Spanish-Speaking South and Latin America? (or another question on Pablo Neruda)
The same question as above but relating to the writer (and president of Argentina from 1868-1874) Domingo Faustino Sarmiento.
The Mexican revolution through pictures? (Mexican Revolution Photograph Collection (UTEP)
(What can these tell us about whether it was bourgeois or popular/inclusive or exclusive, or generally about the nature of the struggle)

Asian and Oceanic History:

Traditionally Hinduism has been viewed as a monopolistic creation of the A***n Tradition. Does this view ignore other cultural influences?
The Polynesian narrative: Oral to written history.
Assessing the Mughul Empire's contributions to south Asia and the Indian subcontinent.
From K**a Sutra to now: How has colonial rule impact south Asian q***r identity and literature?
How was national identity constructed in colonial India? (was it inclusive of class, caste and gender?)
How has public memory influenced Chinese culture? (about the Second Sino-Japanese War or on another historic event)
The act of Killing: How have the Indonesian mass killings of 1965-1966 become an accepted part of Indonesian culture?
How did the ‘queue’, or braid, become a symbol of gender identity rather than a symbol of Manchi oppression under the Qing dynasty in China?
The ‘Three ways of thought’ in Ancient China
How and why did tolerance towards male homosexuality disappear in Meiji Japan?

Modern Western History:

Graffiti: has the art of resistance now been gentrified? [Reserved]
Reclaiming ‘Australia Day’: The terrible history of the 26th of January and those seeking to abolish it [Reserved]
Punk: A music revolution! [Provisionally Reserved]
Guerilla Girls: the anonymous feminist art movement.
Cowboys and Indians: How has the Mythology of the Wild West become significant to US culture and identity?
Power and Language: An introduction to Foucault.
What led to the Gaelic Revival in the 19th Century?
Language oppression amongst the European Union's only indigenous group: The Sámi people.
How have the works of James Baldwin impacted American Cultural Identity?
What role did mid-Victorian feminists play in campaigns to repeal the Contagious Diseases Acts?
Live and Let Live? Did the Wolfenden report signal a liberalisation in cultural attitudes towards homosexuality in the UK?
To what extent did consumer culture help women break from the private sphere? Was it open to all women?
What was the relationship between Black popular music and the Black Power Movement?
Has American folk music been retroactively stripped of its radical origins?
Was the Armenian genocide ‘forgotten’ or silenced?
To what extent did the Arts and Crafts Movement build on popular discontent with the nature of industrial development?
Did Fascist Italy and N**i Germany rely more on coercion or consent?
Elizabeth Gaskell:
Could look into how she presents women and the influence this may have had on early feminist movements in Britain.
Or her work as a novelist on the ‘social problem’, or of class representations
Or generally, look at the emergence (?) and reception of women writers in C19th Britain
‘Bluebottles’: how Cockney Rhyming Slang acted as a cryptolect to evade the police and maintain a sense of community in east London
William Dorsey Swann: From Slavery to ‘The Queen of Drag’

Prehistory and Ancient History:

Ever since Eve: How the Bible has been used to oppress women since the garden of Eden [Reserved]
Herodotus vs Thucydides: Who is the true 'father of history'?
Alexander the Great: LGBT Icon?
To what extent was the vibrancy of Roman Culture indebted to its incorporation of other cultures?
Stereotypes and Slavery: how were slaves represented in Ancient Greek literature and theatre?
Hunting Magic or Shaman's visions: the mysteries behind prehistoric cave paintings
Decoding Hieroglyphics: How did the Rosetta stone revolutionise the historiography of Egypt?
The Queen of Sheba: A legendary figure of Islamic, Christian and Jewish design?
Ancient Nubia and the Kingdom of Kush - more pyramids than Egypt but not nearly as well studied?

Early Modern and Medieval History:

Shakespeare’s lexical morphology; something assessing Shakespeare's vocabulary.
Could go into how he developed new vocabulary from existing words, or whether this is even true or only seems so because of the lack of dictionaries that mapped existing words?
Glastonbury or Avalon? Celtic Folklore and the Isle of Enchantment
The Pazzi Plot: Dark conspiracies behind the Italian Renaissance
Were pirates' codes an example of early democracy?
What was the importance of relics in the Middle ages? (or a particular relic/saint/shrine)
Peter the Great and the Russian Cultural Revolution
Yggdrasil and the nine worlds of Norse mythology
How did Saints’ cults shape Italian Communes?
The Book of Kells
Contesting la Convivencia: harmony or hatred in medieval Spain?

Film and Book Reviews:

Metropolis (1927) and the Tower of Babel in popular culture
B**g Joon Ho, Parasite (2019)
Akira Kurosawa, Rashomon (1950)
Could discuss Shakespeare's influence on many popular films, eg: 10 things I hate about you (1999), My own private Idaho (1991), and The Lion King (1994)
Raymond Williams, Culture and Society (1958)
Frederic Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (1991)
W. E. B. Dubois, The World and Africa (1946)

Issue 38: Language and Culture This edition focuses on Language and Culture. Admittedly, in recent history, the Historian has focussed quite heavily on Social and Political History. In this edition, we’re endeavouring to include more cultural and linguistic histories and prompts range in topic f.....

NEW ISSUE!We are super excited to announce that the 37th issue 'Oppression and Resistance' is now online! Be sure to che...

06/02/2021

Issue 37 Oppression and Resistance

NEW ISSUE!

We are super excited to announce that the 37th issue 'Oppression and Resistance' is now online! Be sure to check it out through the link below. A huge thank you to everyone who has worked on this issue! Make sure to keep an eye on this page for more updates and writing opportunities!

https://issuu.com/manchesterhistorian/docs/issue37online_copy

Issue 37 of the Manchester Historian, released February 2021, on the theme of Oppression and Resistance.

Check out Jack Collicutt’s article on Liberation Theology, the Catholic movement that utilised Marxism and Christ to fig...

16/12/2020

Liberation Theology: A Marxist Christianity? How Latin American priests utilised Marxism to fight against dictators, by Jack Collicutt

Check out Jack Collicutt’s article on Liberation Theology, the Catholic movement that utilised Marxism and Christ to fight against dictators

http://manchesterhistorian.com/2020/liberation-theology-a-marxist-christianity-how-latin-american-priests-utilised-marxism-to-fight-against-dictators-by-jack-collicutt/

“Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the o***m of the people.” This often-misquoted reflection from Karl…

The Manchester historian is looking for writers for this upcoming issue. Could you write for us? -----------------------...

21/10/2020

Prompts - issue 37

The Manchester historian is looking for writers for this upcoming issue. Could you write for us?

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Issue 37: Oppression and Resistance

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Within the current climate of protest, our next edition appropriately focuses on Oppression and Resistance. Below are a broad selection of article suggestions, meant as a starting point from which you can develop your article.

Most are broad so take a moment to think about what you might like to focus on? What will your argument be? What are the key historical debates surrounding the topic?

Within these prompts, we have endeavoured to include campaigns, events and people whose histories are under-represented in Modern Historiography. This edition will explore oppressors and oppression throughout history, their motives and means; vice versa all aspects of resistance, from music and culture to thunderous revolution. This edition will hopefully include a larger proportion of articles on Black history than any edition previous and, as ever, we would like to encourage contributions from students from minority backgrounds.

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Articles are only 450 or 900 words - references/sources are not required! Please don't be scared or think it's a lot of extra work 🙂

If you’d like to write an article, email a brief plan to [email protected]. You are welcome to write an article from the list below, but we also encourage pitches of your own article ideas, and book reviews relevant to the theme. To reserve space in the magazine, you must email us with your article plan before the 30th of October. This does not need to be in-depth, just a general idea of what you intend to write about. The final deadline for article submission is the 8th of November.

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/// African, Islamic and Arabic History ///

- The Mau-Mau uprising and subaltern resistance to British rule in Kenya

Can include the brutal British response including concentration camps

- Willie Bester – Apartheid Artist

- The Bahá’í faith - Iran's eternal scapegoat

- Simon Nkoli - South African Anti-Apartheid and gay activist (founded GLOW, worked to destigmatize HIV/AIDS)

- "Artistic Revolution”, the role of art during the Arab Spring [Reserved]

- Missionaries - colonialism's "agent, scribe and moral alibi"?

- Al-Zubayr Rahma Mansur Pasha: A Slaver King

- 'The revolution and women's liberation go together. We do not talk of women's emancipation as an act of charity or out of a surge of human compassion. It is a basic necessity for the revolution to triumph'. Thomas Sankara, Burkina Faso’s revolutionary 20th-Century leader. Assessing women’s liberation in revolutionary Burkina Faso [Reserved]

- Frantz Fanon: The Martiniquan author and psychiatrist who ‘inspired the struggle for Algerian independence and thereafter all anti-colonial liberation movements’ [Reserved]

- Was the war of independence a liberating experience for Algerian women?

- Black Panthers and the PLO in Boumédienne Algeria: How a newly independent Algeria welcomed resistance groups from across the globe in an act of international solidarity

- Film Review; The battle of Algiers., dir. Gillo Pontecorvo (1965) [Reserved]

/// Non-Western American History ///

- Arpilleras against Augusto: a woven history of life under dictatorship [Reserved]

- Liberation Theology: A Marxist Christianity? How Latin American priests utilised Marxism to fight against dictators [Reserved]

- US Blockades (Cuba, Venezuela etc.); economic warfare? [Reserved]

- Dividing colonial subjects: the effects of the Spanish American caste system

- Childless Motherhood; mothers of the Plaza de Mayo against the Argentinian Junta [Reserved]

- The rise and fall of Latin America’s Pink Tide

- Eva Peron: A champion of the people or a self-obsessed star?

- "Maria Rural". Either an article on the life and legacy of Arlen Siu or the Sandinistas and revolutionary peasant consciousness

- Frida Kahlo - using art to portray female sexuality, pain and, feminine beauty standards [Reserved]

- Indigenismo, Bolivian radicalism and the celebration of Indigenous culture and resistance

- Book Review: The Passion of The People by Tony Mason [Reserved]

/// Asian History ///

- Greater East Asia conference: A front of Japanese liberation? [Reserved]

- India-Pakistan; [Reserved]
An article about opposition to Partition, OR
Why is Kashmir so important to India and Pakistan

- Should we consider the Vietnam War a colonial, cold or civil war? [Reserved]

- Geisha - How the West’s image of talented women demean their identity

- “Let a hundred flowers bloom, let a hundred schools of thought contend”. Was the Hundred Flowers Campaign truly designed to promote the flourishing of arts and science or a premeditated act to find those who disagreed with the CCP? [Reserved]

- Rebellion of Li Zicheng - overthrew the ming dynasty OR white lotus rebellion

- The causes of Indonesian independence; Nationalism, Communism, Islam and the Japanese occupation [Reserved]

- How the ‘queue’, or braid, became a symbol of gender identity rather than a symbol of Manchi oppression under the Qing dynasty in China

- The Tamil Tigers and Sri Lanka’s three-decade-long civil war [Reserved]

- North Korea: A self-proclaimed ‘independent socialist state’

- Book Review: The Secret History of the Mongol Queens: How the Daughters of Genghis Khan Rescued His Empire by Jack Weatherford

British and Mancunian Black History:

- Len Johnson vs the Colour Bar

- 'Colonial and Subject Peoples of the World, Unite!'- the 5th Pan-African Congress, Manchester, 75 years on

- A forgotten ‘African Communist in Britain’, An autobiography of Desmond Buckle

/// Modern Western History ///

- Punk: A music revolution! [Reserved]

- Sección Feminina vs The Mujeres Libres: two Spanish women's movements fighting very different causes [Reserved]

- ‘Zog nit keyn mol’: The Anthem of the Partisans

- Mudiad Amddiffyn Cymru – Terrorists or freedom fighters? [Reserved]

- “Noi Donna”, Women and Women's Defense Groups in the Italian Resistenza

- We have been beaten and humiliated...scattered, imprisoned, disarmed and gagged. The fate of European democracy has slipped from our hands.’ Despite their ultimate failure, what did the 1848 revolutions achieve (from edition 35)

- ‘Ghost town’, Music and culture in resistance to Thatcherism [Reserved]

- Film Review: Nome di battaglia Donna

- Graffiti: has the art of resistance now been gentrified? [Reserved]

- Peace and Music: Woodstock 1969 and other musical movements against the Vietnam War [Reserved]

- Reclaiming ‘Australia Day’: The terrible history of the 26th of January and those seeking to abolish it [Reserved]

- Mary Harris Jones: ‘The grandmother of all agitators’

- Cowboys and Indians: The Mythology of the Wild West and its significance for US culture and identity

- Sweden and Norway’s Sami People: an example of European indigenous oppression

- Tsali and the Trail of Tears

- Guerilla Girls: the anonymous feminist art movement [Reserved]

- Reclaiming the Two-Spirit identity, or the impact of colonialism and inseparable sexual prejudice on Native American communities

- Book Review: Miliband, ‘The State in Capitalist Society’

/// Pre- History and Ancient History ///

- Fighting le***an erasure in historiography; restoring Sappho as a q***r identity [Reserved]

- Traders or Raiders? The misconstrued history of the Vikings [Reserved]

- The Ionian Revolt: authentic rebellion or Athenian proxy war?

- The Agricultural revolution in prehistory and how it changed the world as we know it [Reserved]

- Ever since Eve: How the Bible has been used to oppress women since the garden of Eden [Reserved]

- The Exodus and its influence on Civil Rights

- Ancient Egypt, a world without Religious oppression?

- Aztec Flower Wars: A tool of inter-nation stability or a smokescreen of sacrificial intent?

- Viracocha or ‘The White God’, and Spain's moves to colonise Incan deities

/// Early Modern and Medieval History ///

- The Devil in the Shape of a Woman: How Witch Hunts were used to attack the Powerful and the Powerless [Reserved]

- Bloody Mary: is this a name she justly deserves? [Reserved]

- The persecution of ‘Good Christians’: The eradication of Cathars during the medieval inquisition

- Remembering Tolpuddle

- The Abbasid Revolution overthrow of the Umayyad dynasty under Abu Muslim, which was caused by discrimination against non-Arab Muslims and government corruption

- The Mamluks were Turkic slaves who overthrew the Ayyubid dynasty

- Lucrecia de Llión - aka Lucrecia the dreamer - prophetic peasant in 16th-Century Spain. Accurately foresaw the defeat of the Armada, King arrested her during the inquisition

- Christianity as a disrupting force: forced conversion on Europe’s frontiers

- Could mention Venice and the role trading played

- Oliver Cromwell: Liberator or cruel dictator? [Reserved]

- Could discuss differing opinions over the role he played in Ireland

- The German Peasants War of 1525

Issue 37- Oppression and Resistance Within the current climate of protest, our next edition appropriately focuses on Oppression and Resistance. Below are a broad selection of article suggestions, meant as a starting point from which you can develop your article. Most are broad so take a moment t...

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