This author has not written his bio yet.
But we are proud to say that Penelope J. Corfield contributed 199 entries already.
If citing, please kindly acknowledge copyright © Penelope J. Corfield (2016) Referenda seek to answer big questions with big answers: let the people speak. But they also constrain voters. They are called upon to choose between simple either/or alternatives. In practice, however, referenda are not always easy to answer. There are plenty of cases when […]
If citing, please kindly acknowledge copyright © Penelope J. Corfield (2016) First find your evidence and check for provenance; reliability; and typicality.1 But what next? Here are three golden rules; and three research steps. Rule One: Approach every source with a keen mixture of critical excitement. That is, embrace new evidence whilst being prepared to […]
from Battersea Labour Party Annual Report (2015), pp. 23-4 Lily Harrison had a strong, feisty, ‘giving’ personality, with an intense civic commitment to the Shaftesbury Estate community in particular and to Battersea in general. In another generation, when opportunities for working-class women were greater, she would have taken a front-seat role. But she did more […]
If citing, please kindly acknowledge copyright © Penelope J. Corfield (2016) ‘Evidence, evidence: I hate that word’, a vehement colleague in the English Department once hissed at me, when I had, all unawares, invoked the word in the course of an argument. I was surprised at his vehemence but put it down to a touch […]
If citing, please kindly acknowledge copyright © Penelope J. Corfield (2016) Talking of taking a long time, it took centuries for women to break the grip of traditional patriarchies. How did women manage it? In a nutshell, the historical answer was (is) that literacy was the key, education the long-term provider, and the power of […]
If citing, please kindly acknowledge copyright © Penelope J. Corfield (2016) Women can certainly make it to the top of the political greasy pole. Indira Gandhi (India), Margaret Thatcher (UK), Angela Merkel (Germany) and Aung San Suu Kyi (Myanmar) are just four among several eminent examples, in very different political systems. Nonetheless, such women are […]
If citing, please kindly acknowledge copyright © Penelope J. Corfield (2016) Many more voters than previously realised cast their votes in local and national elections in eighteenth-century England.1 They were thereby creating – sometimes riotously and casually, but generally decorously and seriously – a culture of constitutionalism. It amounted to an emergent proto-democracy. It was […]
If citing, please kindly acknowledge copyright © Penelope J. Corfield (2016) Is the past dead or alive? Posing such a binary question insists upon choice; but the options constitute a false dichotomy. Nonetheless, the death of the past is often proclaimed. This BLOG examines the arguments for and against; and highlights the snares of binary […]
DIRECTED BY: RICHARD EYRE PERFORMED AT: THEATRE ROYAL HAYMARKET STARRING: SIMON RUSSELL BEALE Review of play seen on 30 December 2015 If in the early twentieth century Sarah Bernhardt in her 70s could move audiences to tears, whilst wearing a wooden prosthetic leg,1 why could not Samuel Foote in his 50s stir eighteenth-century audiences to […]
If citing, please kindly acknowledge copyright © Penelope J. Corfield (2016) Does the study of History ‘progress’? That verb is cited cautiously in inverted commas, because we are all wary of over-simplified claims for historical Progress which can be deceptive, even cruelly so. But the study of History is a highly pluralistic discipline. It’s undertaken […]
Penelope J. Corfield is a historian, lecturer and education consultant. She recently served as the President of the International Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (ISECS).
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