Members of the Centre for Midlands History and Cultures

I am a historian of memory and communities, with research expertise in local and family history, the social history of archives, and the mental afterlife of conflict. I am especially interested in the ways memory and the representation of the past shapes individual and collective identities, with a particular emphasis on the experiences of non-elite men and women. My first book, Recollection ...

My research is in the history of the West Midlands region, most especially in the politics and society of the Modern era. I have published political biography and electoral analysis as well as studies on sport, business and the arts. I also broadcast regularly with the BBC on historical and political questions. 

I am a social and regional historian with teaching and research interests in the history of the West Midlands region after 1700 and the history of ethnic minorities and anti-slavery. I am also Editor-in-Chief of the History West Midlands project.

I am a historian of medieval culture, memory and identity, focusing in particular on the impact of the crusading movement. My publications have explored these subjects in the period between the high Middle Ages and the early modern era, and my most recent article, which examined the commemoration of crusaders in late medieval England, appeared in English Historical Review. My forthcoming ...

I am a political historian of twentieth century Britain, with a particular interest in conceptual history, political ideologies, and ideological change.

I work on the histories of coastlines, oceans, and the communities that rely on them. I like to explore the past by ‘doing’ as much as reading, taking small boats out to sea to research the culture and heritage of shorelines, and encouraging students to use built and natural environments to understand how past people lived.

I am a historian of political and social activism with a particular focus on civil liberties and human rights and, increasingly, extra-Parliamentary conservative action in its many different forms which I examine across a range of different political spaces. I acted as Director of Modern British Studies at Birminghamfrom its formation in 2014 until 2018 and I am an Associate Editor of the ...

I specialise in the impact of Great Power intervention in the Balkans and Middle East in terms of diplomacy and conflict, predominantly from a British perspective. My teaching reflects these interests and more broader interests such as the origins of the two world wars and the Cold War. Modules taught include ‘Conflict in the Modern Middle East’, ‘Facing the Fuhrer, the Duce and ...

I study the social and cultural history of Britain, Ireland, and the British Empire in the late 19th and 20th centuries. I'm interested in the origins of modern ideas about race, gender, family, and national identity. Those questions have led to me write about a range of topics, including the Irish in Britain, queer history, and the co-operative movement. I'm currently working on an intellectual ...

My research and teaching considers what the history of the United States might tell us about colonialism, racial capitalism, and social movements in a global context.

My research focuses on Gothic fiction and on maritime writing, both as separate and overlapping areas of study. I have a long-standing interest in voice and utterance in literary writing, and my work on the Gothic focuses on the haunted and haunting voices that resonate within late-eighteenth and nineteenth-century American Gothic literature. I also work on the deep sea as it is depicted in a ...

Professor Jonathan Reinarz is the Director of The History of Medicine Unit. He is Professor of the History of Medicine.

Jonathan has published extensively on the history of hospitals and medical education, including a history of the Birmingham teaching hospitals (2009), the history of the senses, especially smell, and the history of accidents, including burns and scalds. Most recently has led an ...

Siân joined the School of Education in 2016. Siân initially trained as an archivist, and worked as a senior archives practitioner in the heritage sector for several years. During this period she was involved in a number of archives and heritage learning projects, most notably the Heritage Lottery Funded Connecting Histories project and the Children’s Lives project. Before ...

I am a specialist in race and immigration history and have a particular interest in racial science, race and the media and the history of racial violence. My present research also focuses on constructions of Jewish history and the treatment of minorities in Britain during the Second World War.

I am an historian of eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Britain and empire. I research how historical actors produced, consumed, and derived meaning from, the material world. I am currently working on a monograph provisionally entitled Losing Possession in the Long Eighteenth Century. My recent books include, Material Goods, Moving Hands: Perceiving Production in England, 1700-1830 (2014), N ...

I work on the creation and regulation of communities in the early and central middle ages. I’m particularly interested in the ways in which institutions or groups of people – as well as individuals – were gendered. I’ve just finished writing a book on monasteries and families in the early middle ages (600CE-1100CE); previously, I’ve worked on the origins of ...

I am a social and cultural historian with particular specialisms in British history and the Anglophone world post 1850, histories of work, artistic culture, feminism, suffrage, and women’s and gender history. My first book Women Art Workers and the Arts and Crafts Movement (2020) won the Historians of British Art award for a single-author book with a subject between 1800-1960 and ...

I am interested in all aspects of the history of war, but with a particular focus on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.  My research explores British military history, military thought and strategy in this period: in particular, it covers British colonial warfare, counterinsurgency, the First World War and the Second World War. My teaching includes these topics, as well as ...