[No spoilers!] I’m late to the party with the TV show The Traitors, but my family have recently discovered it and binged the first two series on iPlayer. In the unlikely event that you haven’t heard of it, the show has been a hit on the BBC, having first appeared on Dutch TV as Der Verraders before being franchised all over the world. It is a cross between a game show and a reality show. A group of strangers are taken to a Scottish castle, and at the outset three of them are secretly appointed ‘traitors’, who gather every night to choose which of the other contestants they want to remove from ..read more

When I was hired by Northampton almost five years ago as their first medieval historian, I never expected that I would end up researching very contemporary history! But one of the rewarding things about working within a small, friendly department is finding opportunities for collaboration in unexpected places. So I found myself swapping ideas with Paul Jackson and Dan Jones about the Searchlight Archive and about histories of fascism more broadly, which helped inform the development of my Medieval Chivalry and its Afterlives undergraduate module and led to the publication of an article on teac ..read more

This month, a member of Northampton’s history team begins his term as president of a national scholarly society. Professor Matthew McCormack will serve as President of the British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies until 2026/27. The British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (known as BSECS) is a meeting-place for anyone who works on the global long eighteenth century, including those with interests in history, literature, music, drama, art, languages, politics, or any other subject. It holds regular conferences, publishes a journal, distributes funding, supports postgraduate and ear ..read more

Drew Gray and Matthew McCormack from the University of Northampton offer contrasting reactions to Ridley Scott’s new film, Napoleon. I must declare an interest here. As a child I was obsessed with Napoleon. The ‘little corporal’ replaced Nelson as my boyhood hero and I devoured everything I could about him. At school I played wargames and still have about 500 miniature soldiers, each lovingly painted by the adolescent me. In 1970 I badgered my parents to take me to see Dino De Laurentiis’s ‘Waterloo’, with Rod Steiger playing the emperor and Christopher Plummer his nemesis, Wellington. I’ve se ..read more

My 11 year old son has got into metal detecting. Inspired by YouTube and the comedy show Detectorists, we got a cheap detector off Facebook Marketplace. Armed with the appropriate licenses and permissions, we go out to our local common to see what we can find. He wants to find old coins but we usually turn up things like nails and bottle tops. Occasionally we find something more interesting. Last week we found this chunk of iron. It’s about 5 centimetres square, with a cylindrical section on top. We couldn’t work out what it was. Any guesses? I therefore asked Twitter. For years, Twitter was ..read more

This week the third year students studying module HIS3037, The Wars of the Roses, had the opportunity for a field trip to nearby Delapre Abbey, which as well as being a lovely stately home with pretty grounds is also very probably the site of the Battle of Northampton, a significant battle during the Wars of the Roses as Henry VI was captured at the end of it and taken into custody. Graham talking to the students at Delapre – we were blessed with a lovely autumn day! We were joined by Graham Evans, Chair of the Northamptonshire Battlefields Society, who was able to give us a very interesting g ..read more

Have you done research on the history of Northamptonshire, and wondered about publishing your work? The Northamptonshire Record Society is partnering with History at the University of Northampton to run a free workshop on writing for publication. There are many local history researchers in the county, but sometimes the prospect of getting published can be daunting or mysterious, so we will seek to demystify it! We will discuss issues such as: how to research and write up your discoveries where to publish your work how to prepare a piece for publication the publication process and opportunitie ..read more

Image by Caroline Nielsen, Level 2 of Learning Hub Wellbeing Shelves The History team pleased to announce that the University of Northampton Library has joined the Reading Well scheme! The Reading Well books are guides to help people understand and manage their health condition, or that of their loved ones or colleagues. Reading Well is a national scheme by the Reading Agency to help promote wellbeing and good physical and mental health through carefully selected books. Each book is selected for the lists based on clinical evidence and are recommended by health care professionals and peopl ..read more

The University of Northampton has partnered with the Northampton Branch of the Historical Association to stage a programme of talks. As in previous years, these will take place online, on campus and in local schools: we are particularly keen to hear from History teachers who would like to host a talk at their school. All talks are free to attend and everyone is welcome. Online booking for talks will open shortly! 19 October, 7pm online: Kerry Love (UON), ‘Banners in British Left-Wing Politics since 1800’  Banners and signs are a regular sight present at contemporary protests, and they oft ..read more

[No spoilers!] The sixth season of Black Mirror was released on Netflix recently. Since it started on Channel 4 in 2011, Charlie Brooker’s portmanteau drama series has provided a distinctive commentary on the role of technology in our lives. Issues such as AI, robotics and surveillance – which we increasingly take for granted in the postmodern world – turn out to be nightmarish threats to the human condition. Worse still, no sooner can Brooker’s fevered brain come up with new nightmares, than they seem to come true. Because it is science fiction, Black Mirror tends to be set in the near future ..read more