Alex Riggs is a fourth-year PhD student in History at the University of Nottingham, funded by Midlands4Cities. His research focuses on American left-wing politics in the 1970s and 1980s, using case studies from national and local politics to trace its intellectual history in the period. His writing has appeared in U.S. Studies Online, the Journal of the History of Ideas blog and the Midlands Historical Review.

Building a Rainbow: Ideas and Coalition Building on the American Left, c. 1973-88

To some observers, the emergence of Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other parts of the American left can appear to have come from nothing. Yet by looking at the intellectual and political changes of the 1970s and 1980s, we can see that they in fact have clear historical origins. The idea of a ‘rainbow coalition’ in particular reveals how they owe much to concepts developed in this foundational period.

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How to Use SciSpace Library to Organise and Understand Your Research

The SciSpace Library is built to help you organise research papers, pull out what matters, and actually understand the papers you are working with. It turns a mess of PDFs into something searchable, interactive, and manageable without the constant back-and-forth between tabs, folders, and notes. In this blog post, we will introduce SciSpace Library and outline the various ways in which you can use it and its key features.

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To Be or Not To Be (a Reviewer 2): Should I Review Articles as a PhD Student?

For the wheels to continue turning in research, we need reviewers. Although often a thankless endeavour (littered with Reviewer 2 jokes), acting as a gatekeeper for the integrity of your research field remains vital. As a PhD student, you may find the process of reviewing a manuscript pretty novel, but a reviewer request email may enter your inbox in the near future. This article guides you through the pros and cons of reviewing articles.

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