Author: Guest contributor

Paper proposals are invited for a conference on ‘Death, art and anatomy’ that will take place at the University of Winchester, UK, 3–6 June 2016. This interdisciplinary conference will explore the intersections between death, art and anatomy, by bringing together… Continue reading

Dr Angela Cassidy shares some of the challenges of being an historian of the recent past. How to make sense of the recent past? At what point does an issue or event stop being part of today’s social fabric and… Continue reading

To mark the end of a month long ‘festival of facial hair’ we give you Margaret Pelling’s salute to the barber. And thanks and farewell to Alun Withey – our wonderful guest editor for ‘Movember’. (For men only – as… Continue reading

Writer Lucinda Hawksley provides the seventh in our series of posts for Movember.  The series is commissioned by guest editor and “pogonographer-in-chief” for the month, Dr Alun Withey. My book, Moustaches, Whiskers & Beards, a history of facial hair in portraiture,… Continue reading

Christopher Oldstone-Moore provides the sixth in our series of posts for Movember.  The series was commissioned by guest editor and “pogonographer-in-chief”  Dr Alun Withey. In 1913, the British Army faced a minor revolt within its ranks. Some officers were petitioning… Continue reading

To mark Movember, we invited “pogonographer-in-chief” Alun Withey, to commission a month of posts celebrating the history and culture of facial hair. Here’s the fifth in the series, by Clodagh Tait. Hair was a political issue in early modern Ireland.… Continue reading

To mark Movember, we invited “pogonographer-in-chief” Alun Withey, to commission a month of posts celebrating the history and culture of facial hair. Here’s the fourth in the series, by Justin Bengry. Having slept little, enjoying only a fitful and restless… Continue reading

As noted by Elma Brenner in her post ‘The enigma of the medieval almanac’, Wellcome MS. 8932, a folding almanac produced in England in the first part of the 15th century, is a remarkable object. The almanac is of great… Continue reading

To mark Movember, we invited “pogonographer-in-chief” Alun Withey, to commission a month of posts celebrating the history and culture of facial hair. Here’s the third in the series, by Jessica P Clark. In July 1870, a sensational trial unfolded at… Continue reading

To mark Movember, we invited “pogonographer-in-chief” Alun Withey to commission a month of posts celebrating the history and culture of facial hair.  Here’s the second in the series, by Daryl Green. The beard is an outward marker of the masculine… Continue reading