Our Expert Experience sessions are designed to deliver specific subject insight to your students from our range of academics.
Sessions can be offered remotely; we use Microsoft Teams but are happy to offer on whichever platform is suitable to your students place of learning.
Our Expert Experience for those interested in History is offered with 9 options.
Richard III and the Princes in the Tower
Richard III is one of history's great villains. Though king for only two year, his reign began under a cloud of suspicion regarding the fate of his nephews and ended with him becoming the last English king to die on the battlefield. This talk will consider the importance of Richard III in English history, whether his reign was truly the end of the Middle Ages and how myths surrounding his reign have developed.
Was Henry VII a successful king?
Popular perceptions of Henry see him as a skilful diplomat and as restoring strong royal government. This talk will challenge such assumptions and suggest a different interpretation of Henry, as a king who struggled in his foreign policy and whose domestic policies were unpopular and problematic.
The Personal is Political: Second Wave Feminism and Women’s Lives
Popular perceptions of the history of feminism often privilege the Suffragettes, as the most influential feminist movement of the twentieth century in Britain. Yet, arguably, the Women’s Liberation Movement of the 1970s can be understood as creating a more significant shift in women’s position in society. This session will explore the aims, tactics and legacy of Second Wave Feminism and consider the significance of the movement for British women in the second half of the twentieth century.
History for our Times; Historians, Climate Change and the Current Environmental Crisis
How are historians contributing to contemporary debates about climate change and environmental crisis? How are these changing the way we think about the past, reassessing the impact of industrialization, empire and how we live our lives? This session will consider the value of history, as a subject and a way of thinking about the relationship between the past, present, and future, to some of the most urgent issues we face today.
What is genocide?
Genocide has affected humanity throughout its existence, many factors, including the upheavals caused by climate change and the rise of authoritarian governments around the world, legitimise concerns that genocides might occur in this century, too. This session will discuss a range of 19th and 20th century examples to explore what constitutes genocide, how past genocides happened, who perpetrated them, and their impact on victim communities. In thus doing, the session introduces fundamental current questions of genocide prevention and, when prevention fails, restorative justice.
Life in a ‘Gilded Cage’ at the Renaissance Court
What was it like to be a courtier at the Renaissance court, mixing with and serving royalty? This session will examine the weighty expectations placed on courtiers in terms of how they should act and behave in an environment where reputation was everything. It will also reveal the challenge of navigating the court, a place riven with factions, high politics, gossip and rumour—getting it wrong could see you expelled from court or worse, if you fell foul of the monarch, ending up in prison or on the block.
Image is Everything: Crafting the image of the ‘perfect’ queen
As the first woman in the realm, queens were expected to be ‘practically perfect in every way’ and live up the high expectations of their behaviour, serving as models of ideal womanhood to their subjects. This session will discuss the ideals and expectations of premodern queens—looking at examples of royal women across the globe from the medieval and early modern periods. We will then look at how queens created an image which met these lofty ideals, focusing particularly on display and visual depictions including their dress, jewels and portraits. We’ll also think about queens who were successful at creating a positive legacy and those who went wrong and ended up with a ‘black legend’.
The East Anglian Witch Hunt, 1645-47
In the midst of the English Civil Wars, Matthew Hopkins (a.k.a the Witchfinder General) and his assistant John Stearne, embarked on a witch-hunt that toured throughout East Anglia and far exceeded any other grouping of witch trials in England during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in both its ferocity and scale. Instead, the East Anglian trials bore far more resemblance to the more extensive and violent hunts witnessed in mainland Europe. This talk explores the reasons and motivations behind these trials and what they can tell us about popular perceptions of the civil wars.
The Cult of the Dead in the Later Medieval England
The late medieval period is often described as the 'Cult of the Dead' where the relationship between the living and dead was close. This has many physical expressions and can also be seen in documentary sources. This session will consider how the medieval dead can be viewed today and the underlying belief structures. The lecture will outline these beliefs, look at physical evidence, such as churches and tombs, while also considering documents such as contemporary wills.