Susie Johns
- Title
- PhD Candidate
- Location
Biography
My undergraduate degree was a BA Archaeology, and my dissertation focused on how the architecture and material culture of a 17th - 19th century school was designed to maintain social class systems. My Masters degree was in Applied Research with Forensic Archaeology, with my independent project investigating the use of images of human remains on social media and public reaction to them. I have worked in the alternative education sector for 10 years, using heritage and archaeology to engage hard to reach audiences, and creating education resources for museums. I have recently completed work experience placements in Romania excavating a Roman villa, with the Maritime Archaeology Trust recording a neolithic underwater site in the Solent, and with the Centre of Archaeology at Staffordshire University compiling desk based research around Holocaust camp-scapes. I currently work part-time for the Sherwood Forest Trust, managing a HLF funded community project exploring the affects the Second World War had on the Sherwood Forest area. I love conducting research, and working with archives really gives me a feeling of connection with the people whose words I am interpreting. Telling the time is something we take for granted with technology reinforcing the time and date continuously, so it will be fascinating to understand how people considered time before clocks and calendars were readily available.
Research and scholarship
In Search of Past Time: Popular Perceptions of Time c.1550-c.1800. The project will use witness testimonies from the Staffordshire Record Office archives of the Lichfield Consitory Court to record and analyse how individuals placed events in time without the wide use of clocks and calendars. It will seek to compare the references to time used in different geographic areas and between different genders, ages and occupations. It will identify how these references change and develop over 300 years as areas became more industrialised.