20 March 2017
The web is bursting with tributes and obituaries to Chuck Berry, the songwriter and guitarist who died on Friday at the age of 90. And this is understandably so. Berry’s famous repertoire which includes songs like ‘Johnny B…
17 November 2016
This review was written by 2nd year undergraduate student Jenna M. Pateman. As November begins, I felt it was right to look back at this year’s Black History Month in Cheltenham, a yearly event put together by a number…
18 October 2016
This post comes from John Hughes, Professor of Nineteenth Century Literature at the University of Gloucestershire, and author of Invisble Now: Bob Dylan in the 1960s (2013). Any admirer of Bob Dylan’s work soon becomes aware of all the…
13 September 2016
Writing a preview of the Cheltenham Literature Festival, I suggested all History students should read literature. I was reminded of this today when I read the (belated – he died in June) obituary of Michael Herr in The…
7 September 2016
On the face of it this year’s Cheltenham Literature Festival does not offer a great deal of interest to the student of history. Yes, there are sessions on Rethinking the Somme, the Great War, Cheltenham in the Great…
13 June 2016
Having just been to see Race, the (rather boring, I have to say) bio-pic about the great African American athlete, Jesse Owens, I found myself thinking about people like Owens, and Joe Louis, and contrasting them with Muhammad…
9 June 2016
This Friday will witness the funeral of Muhammad Ali, the greatest boxer in history and a figure whose importance transcended sport. Hundreds will attend his funeral and many thousands more around the world will mourn his passing because…
28 April 2016
When I was thinking of a subject for a possible blog post on my Fulbright experience, I had no shortage of options. I could have easily talked about teaching American history to American students at Elon University, which…
16 February 2016
Last Saturday, while on my four month stay in the USA, I took the opportunity to visit the nearby International Civil Rights Museum in Greensboro, North Carolina. This museum is in the Woolworth building, which holds a special…
29 January 2016
This weekend I leave for Elon in North Carolina, where I will be spending four months teaching and researching as part of the Fulbright-Elon Scholar Award 2015-16. I was delighted to receive this award as I would have…