Sex representation in novels may feel like a modern addition to literature. However, there’s plenty of examples of classics in which sex scenes feature, or even where sex plays a dominant role in the plot line. The earliest example in English literature is Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, published in 1748 by John Cleland….
Features
Concrete: Writing History
When we write for Concrete, we want to be up to date and reflect on the issues of the moment. However, for this article I want to take a look back, into history. I am currently halfway through my history degree, and I have learnt a lot about how my subject functions and creates its…
Travel
Tales From Back Home
When I tell British people that I’m from the south-west of Ireland, they think of shamrocks, leprechauns, Guinness and potatoes – they don’t hesitate to tell me that. And it’s true, growing up in Killarney, one of the island’s most popular tourist destinations, this iconography was ever-present in my childhood, but to a point where…
Features
International Women’s Day : a brief history
International Women’s day is celebrated each year on the 8th of March with the aim of ensuring a bright, equal, safe and rewarding future for women. It is seen as one of the important days of the year in regards to celebrating the achievements of all women, raising awareness about equality, lobbying for an acceleration…
TV, Venue
Is Historical Accuracy that important?
Yes, but it’s not everything. I love historical fiction, it’s one of my favourite genres. There is so much to love about it: intriguing storylines, beautiful costumes and extravagant houses and castles we can only dream of living in… but I also love history, so I’m known to nit-pick every time a show deviates from…
#BLM, Comment
Difficulties with decolonising the curriculum
Spray painted on the base of his Parliament Square statue in London, the new epitaph reads: “Churchill was a Racist.” The words were known to us but never spoken in wider society. It took George Floyd being murdered by Minneapolis state police and over two months of worldwide protests for us to reach this point. …
#BLM, Arts, Venue
The unheeded Black muses of art history
Black subjects in fine art have often been overlooked by art historians’ Eurocentric focus on White subjects. In Western art, Black figures integral to our history have been grossly underrepresented. The descriptions of paintings which do feature Black subjects often outrageously belittle their significance, and sometimes even leave them unidentified. Black subjects have also historically…
#BLM, Comment
Tearing down statues is the right thing to do
Protests erupted throughout the United States and countries across the world as a result of the senseless killing of unarmed Black man George Floyd on May 25th. Some protesters resorted to defacing and removing historical statues as a clear message of intolerance towards racism within our society, beginning in Bristol on June 7th with the…
#BLM, TV, Venue
The History of Race through Television
The first time I was ever exposed to the Black Lives Matter movement and related activism was at the end of the fourth season of Orange is the New Black. The murder of Poussey Washington (Samira Wiley), an incarcerated Black woman, by a white male prison officer in a prison uprising, sparked riots and uproar…
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