
A history of pathologising trans women
Cathy Brennan looks at the medical tradition of categorising trans women based on sexuality and its continuing power in transphobic politics.

How the Tignon Laws backfired
Maxine Harrison remembers an oppressive law that sparked a new wave of independent self-expression.

A political history of ‘Afro Blue’
Hugh Morris describes how a jazz track made the leap from song to symbol.

Fanfiction: an alternative pornographic history
Kalli Dockrill asks where fanfiction – a site of sexual exploration in the twenty-first century, particularly for women – fits into a male-dominated history of erotica.

The rise, fall, and rise again of women’s football
Rebecca Johnson writes about women’s football in its first heyday, and the sustained campaign that barred women from the pitch for forty years.

The vagina missing from space
Jessica Thomson writes on the anatomic shortcomings of 1973’s Pioneer Plaque, and the intergalactic implications of our censorship of human bodies.

Yugoslavia’s Roma women
Maisie Revel examines the position of one of history’s most marginalised groups in the Socialist Republic between 1945 and 1992.

What is hidden: the myth of the haughty servant
Emily Sandercock examines the modern relevance of the threat posed by upstart servants to paranoid 18th- and 19th-century elites.

How comedy became resistance
Sophia Marshall writes on the historical relationship between laughter and political dissent.

The language of bushfires
Pepe Bingham-Hall discusses the relationship between language and land conservation in light of the mismanagement of Australia’s fires.

Music of resistance: First Nations hip-hop
Jack Bennett considers the synthesis of Black and Indigenous culture in a radical musical genre.

No more heroes: microhistory in Brecht’s Mutter Courage
Jack Graveney reads one of Brecht’s most famous plays as a polemic against the cult of historical heroism.

The past and future of mental healthcare in the US
Srilekha Cherukuvada asks what a history of asylums and abuse tells us about what’s needed in the coming years.

The moral censorship of Hollywood
The introduction of the Hays Code in 1934 changed the nature of a once boundary-pushing industry. Isabelle Drury considers its continuing effects.

From the old world, for a new world: the power of Utopia
Sam Radford writes on the legacy of More’s Utopia and the radical fantasies it has inspired.

Who makes history?
Alex Stanton puts forward the case for including historiography in the school history curriculum.

Feminist zines in the fight against Franco
Anusha Persson considers the power of DIY publishing in the construction of 20th-century Spanish feminism.

A new way of remembering: the AIDS Memorial Quilt
Connall Maclennan writes on how Cleve Jones’ memorial sets itself apart from other monuments.

The voice of the children
Nick Batho writes on the power and authority of children’s words and views in anti-racist activism.

Femvertising: an oxymoron
Hannah Ross asks what the history of women in advertising tells us about modern trends.

Whose land down under?
Isabella Hendricks discusses the consequences of the false declaration of terra nullius on Australian land.
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