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Our Staff

The Centre for Modern Studies' MA in Culture and Thought after 1945 has a diverse range of optional modules as well as a wide ranging core module supported by several departments. The Centre's teaching and administrative staff are listed below. Our associated researchers at the univeristy, and potential partners in research strand, reading groups and grant applications are listed in our research directory.

Centre Staff

 Director: Prof Matthew Campbell

 Administrator: Megan Russell

Academic staff

Name (Department)Research interests
Keith Allen (Philosophy) Philosophy of mind; history of modern philosophy.
Henrice Altink (History) Racial inequalities in the British Caribbean.
David Beer (Sociology) Popular culture/popular music culture; digital technologies, new media and web cultures; noise and sound in urban contexts; social and cultural theory.
Oleg Benesch (History) History of early modern and modern Japan.
Sanjoy Bhattacharya (History) The medical, environmental, political and social history of 19th and 20th century South Asia; history and contemporary workings of international and global health programmes.
Clare Bielby (Centre for Women’s Studies) Terrorism; violence; affect; the history of feminisms; queer studies and feminist queer theory.
Ana Bilbao Yarto (History of Art) Curating contemporary art; histories of exhibition-making and art institutions; contemporary art from the Global South.
Lawrence Black (History) History of political culture in Britain in the later 20th century.
James Boaden (History of Art)

American art from the mid-20th century; the crossover between experimental film culture and the art world.

Lola Boorman (English and Related Literature)

20th and 21st century American writing; literary institutions; intersections between literature and linguistics; short story form; American essay; African American film and literature; contemporary film.

Emma Bryning (Archaeology)

Heritage; feminist art history; performance art; intersection of contemporary art and heritage.

Matthew Campbell (English and Related Literature)

British and Irish poetry of the last two centuries.

Claire Chambers (English and Related Literature)

Religion and literature; writing from South Asia, the Arab world, and their diasporas; multicultural textualities in Britain; literary representations of British Muslims. 

Sabine Clarke (History)

The place of science and technology in the British imperial enterprise between 1914 and 1965.

David Clayton (History)

Customs, laws and consequent behaviours in Hong Kong; Hong Kong’s place in global economic networks during the 20th century; the rise of mass consumption; the transition from austerity to affluence in post-war Britain.

Victoria Coulson (English and Related Literature) 19th and early 20th century American and British literature, and narrative representations and the material culture of the period.
Geoffrey T Cubitt (History)

The political, intellectual, religious and cultural history of 19th century France; issues of social memory; political, social and cultural aspects of relationships to the past in modern societies.

Jason Edwards (History of Art) Queer and animal theory; world and other complex systems.
Paul Gready (Centre for Applied Human Rights)

Transitional justice; development and human rights; culture and human rights practice; human rights practice and strategy.

Joanna de Groot (History)

Social history of Iran in the 19th and 20th centuries; modernisation; interactions of material and cultural change in the Middle East; histories of race, empire, ethnicity and nationalism; the role of global and colonial relationships in the formation of communities, classes and nations in India, Europe and the Middle East.

Alice Hall (English and Related Literature)

Contemporary and global literature; literature and the body; disability; ageing; autobiographical fiction; medical humanities.

 Jasper Heinzen (History)  

The history of modern European nationalism; the Napoleonic Wars and prisoners of war.

Andrew Higson (Theatre, Film and Television)

British cinema history, especially the silent period, and the 1990s/2000s; Film Europe in the 1920s; cinema and the past; national/transnational cinema; Anglia Television and the history of ITV.

Jonathan Howlett (History)

The history of modern China.

David Huyssen (History)

History of U.S. political economy and urban life, particularly that of New York City; global capitalism from the 19th century to the present.

Stevi Jackson (Centre for Women’s Studies)

Feminist theory; theories of gender and sexuality; women's and family relationships; sociology of childhood.

Ann Kaloski Naylor (Centre for Women’s Studies)

 

Contemporary fiction and culture, particularly death, digital texts and popular culture; feminist cultural politics and production; lesbian, bisexual and queer studies; feminist pedagogy and e-learning.

Catriona Kennedy (History)

Modern British and Irish history with particular focus on the the cultural history of war, politics, gender and national identity.

Alexandra Kingston-Reese (English and Related Literature)

 

Form, affect, and aesthetics in the contemporary novel and the post45 essay.

Teresa Kittler (History of Art)

Artistic practices from 1945 to the present; Italian postwar art; art and the environment.

Peter Lamarque (Philosophy)

Philosophy of literature; theories of imagination; ontology of art; fictionality.

Catherine Laws (Music)

 

The relationship between music, language and meaning, with a special focus on the musicality of the work of Samuel Beckett and composers’ responses to his texts.

Louise Le Page (Theatre, Film, Television and Interactive Media)

 

Contemporary drama; theatre and robotics; posthumanist theory and theatre.

Gerard McCann (History)

Race and ethnicity; diaspora; decolonization; governance; political economy; globalization; historical international relations and ‘development’, particularly related to sub-Saharan Africa and India.

Gareth Millington (Sociology)

 

Race; racism; immigration; the city; urban culture; urbanization.

Shaul Mitelpunkt (History)

 

American cultural history; U.S. and the World; war and society; gender and masculinity.

Emilie Morin (English and Related Literature)

 

20th century British and Irish drama; European avant-garde movements.

Duncan Petrie (Theatre, Film, Television and Interactive Media)

 

British, Scottish and New Zealand cinema history; cinematography; Scottish culture; moving image policy and institutions.

Bryan Radley (English and Related Literature)

 

Cultural identity, genre, and place-making in contemporary Irish-American fiction; theories of comedy; 20th and 21st century Irish literature, in particular the novels of John Banville.

Chris Renwick (History)

The history of the biological and social sciences since the mid 19th century, focusing on how the relationship between the two has shaped the way we think about, study, and govern society.

Victoria Robinson (Centre for Women’s Studies)

 

Feminist theory; gender and sexualities; fashion and footwear cultures; feminist sociology of everyday life.

Shane O'Rourke (History)

Imperial and Soviet Russia, with a focus on the Cossacks; the history of Brazil.

Mark Roodhouse (History)

Modern British history; the histories of economic life; crime and criminal justice; everyday ethics; history and social theory.

John Schofield (Archaeology)

 

Cultural heritage management; archaeology of the contemporary past.

Hugo Service (History)

 

The social and political history of Poland and Germany in the 20th century.

Erica Sheen (English and Related Literature)

 

American and European film; film and literature; the Cold War; animals.

Miles Taylor (History)

 

The ideas, literature and historiography of the 19th-Century Chartists; the history of parliamentary representation in the UK, c.1820-1914; impact of empire on the British state, political system and social policy in the 19th and 20th centuries; historiography and heritage of Victorian political and cultural life.

Richard Walsh (English and Related Literature)

 

Narrative theory / theory of fiction; innovative fictions (especially American); narrative across media; narrative approaches to early film.

JT Welsch (English and Related Literature)

 

Contemporary poetry; modernism; critical and cultural theory; the creative industries.

Claire Westall (English and Related Literature)

 

Postcolonial literature and theory, particularly questions of the nation and national identities; postcolonial rethinking of Englishness, Britishness and the legacies of empire; economic, cultural and literary consequences of globalisation.

Michael White (History of Art)

 

20th century European art and architecture, especially Constructivism and Surrealism.

James Williams (English and Related Literature)

Victorian and Modernist poetry; Victorian nonsense writing and its influence; poetic form and metre; and the works of James Joyce and Samuel Beckett.

 

Research Strand Leaders

The Contemporary Essay

Medievalism and Imperial Modernity

Mental Health and Memoir