Culture, media and sport
Culture, media and sport are a major focus for the University and for policy makers. These researchers are actively engaging with the policy process and would welcome further engagement from policy makers.

Emeritus Professor of Mission and Pentecostal Studies
I research the areas of history, theology and mission studies relating to the global Pentecostal and Charismatic movements, with some concentration on the history of these movements in Africa and Asia, and the history of world Christianity.
- Email
- a.h.anderson@bham.ac.uk

Barber Professor of Jurisprudence
Anthony Arnull specialises in the law of the European Union. He worked at the European Court of Justice from 1989-92 and was Head of Birmingham Law School between 2006 and 2009. He was Acting Head of the College of Arts & Law at Birmingham from April to August 2015. Professor Arnull is the author of The General Principles of EEC Law and the Individual (Leicester University Press, 1990); The ...
- Telephone
- +44 (0) 121 414 6295
- Email
- a.m.arnull@bham.ac.uk

Professor of Law
Deputy Head of School (Research)
Kate is an interdisciplinary scholar, with a background in law and political economy, development, and gender/sexuality studies. She joined Birmingham Law School in 2018. She is currently the Head of Research
- Email
- k.bedford@bham.ac.uk

Senior Lecturer in Sport Psychology
Chair of Health and Safety Committee, College of Life and Environmental Sciences
Dr Boardley is internationally known for his expertise on the psychosocial processes governing moral behaviour in physical activity contexts. This work includes moral behaviours that occur on the sports field (e.g., prosocial and antisocial behaviour), as well as those that occur in sport, exercise, and dance (use of image and performance enhancing drugs). Ian’s research has been supported ...
- Telephone
- +44 (0)121 415 8399
- Email
- i.d.boardley@bham.ac.uk

Reader in Modern History
As a historian, I am primarily interested in how institutions and individuals respond to the challenges of war. I believe that this is best studied using an approach which is both comparative and cross-disciplinary.
- Telephone
- +44 (0)121 414 5512
- Email
- j.f.boff@bham.ac.uk

Senior Lecturer in Law
Meghan Campbell is a Lecturer in Law at the University of Birmingham. Her research explores how the international human rights system can best respond to gender inequality and poverty. Her monograph Women, Poverty, Equality(Hart Publishing, 2018) explores how the concept of equality in the UN Convention on the Discrimination on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women can be ...
- Telephone
- +44 (0)121 414 6315
- Email
- m.campbell.1@bham.ac.uk

Senior Lecturer in Heritage Valuation
I am an archaeologist with an interest in what archaeology ‘does’ in the world – how it came to be as it is, why we study what we do in the way we do it, and what that means in terms of understanding ourselves. I work particularly in two fields: cultural heritage; and conflict archaeology, especially the archaeology of battlefields. I have been recently honoured with a ...
- Telephone
- +44 (0)121 414 7493
- Email
- j.carman@bham.ac.uk

Professor of Archaeology
Henry’s research interests centre on the later prehistoric period, and particularly the relationships between human activity and environmental change within past landscapes and focusing on wetland sites. He specialises in the use of digital technologies to enable the modelling and analysis of the wide range of information required for such study to engage with past sites and landscapes.
Thi ...
- Telephone
- +44(0)121 45505
- Email
- h.chapman@bham.ac.uk

Lecturer in Sport Policy and Management
Dr Shushu Chen is a Lecturer in Sport Policy and Management. Her principal research interests include sport policy analysis and evaluation, and Olympic studies (particularly in the areas of Olympic legacy evaluation). Her recent research projects examine policy and management issues of sport in China, as well as on evaluating Olympics legacies.
陈姝姝,博士A ...
- Telephone
- +44 (0)121 415 8386
- Email
- s.chen.5@bham.ac.uk

Professor of Contemporary British History
Professor Nicholas Crowson is a Professor of Contemporary British History with a particular interest in homelessness from the 1880s to the modern day. This includes recreating the life stories of vagrants in late Victorian times; exploring the hidden history of the mass squatting of military camps in 1946; examining the role of the Reception Centres after 1946; and considering the impact of ...
- Telephone
- +44 (0)121 414 5485
- Email
- n.j.crowson@bham.ac.uk

Reader in the Public Understanding of Religion
Director, Edward Cadbury Centre
School Head of Education
Although my interests are varied, I am fundamentally a biblical scholar who works on the reception history of the Bible, particularly its influence on society, its handling by Pentecostals and Evangelicals throughout the world today and its interpretation in music and the arts. My PhD, in the field of biblical ethics, provoked my interest in literary-critical approaches to the Hebrew Bible ...
- Telephone
- +44 (0)121 415 8348
- Email
- a.davies.4@bham.ac.uk

Senior Lecturer in Regional and Local History
Director, Centre for West Midlands History
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.
- Telephone
- +44 (0)121 415 8253
- Email
- m.m.dick@bham.ac.uk

Chair of Shakespeare Studies and Fellow
I’m interested in the life in Shakespeare and other literature, and in exploring the ways in which it can inform, enhance and challenge life now. I'm also interested in the way standard critical forms (such as the essay and approved styles of critical prose) reveal but also limit the kind of experience reading is held to be, and I'm ...
- Telephone
- +44 (0)121 414 9506
- Email
- e.fernie@bham.ac.uk

Lecturer in Ethnomusicology and Popular Music Studies
I research electronic dance music scenes (e.g., house, techno, etc.), with a special focus on issues of affect, sexuality, tourism, and the creative industries. My ethnographic fieldwork focuses primarily on Berlin, Germany.
- Telephone
- +44 (0)121 414 6041
- Email
- l.garcia@bham.ac.uk

Senior Lecturer in Pedagogy in Sport, Physical Activity and Health
Victoria is a pedagogical researcher in physical education and sport pedagogy. Her research focusses on digital technologies and social media in young people’s health and wellbeing, teacher professional development and curriculum innovation, as well as digital methods and ethics.
- Telephone
- +44 (0)121 414 4874
- Email
- v.a.goodyear@bham.ac.uk

Professor of Hebrew Bible and Second Temple Judaism
Head of School of Philosophy, Theology and Religion
My main research interests are the Dead Sea Scrolls, and I began my doctoral work at King's College London in the Qumran glasnost year 1991 when access to all the unpublished material was granted to the world of scholarship at large. Because of the sheer scale of new material now available, the opening of access to all the unpublished texts had, in practical terms, a ...
- Telephone
- +44(0)121 414 8337
- Email
- c.hempel@bham.ac.uk

Professor of New Testament Textual Scholarship
Director of the Institute for Textual Scholarship and Electronic Editing
Director of Research, Department of Theology and Religion
I work on the text of the New Testament in Latin and Greek, using and developing electronic tools to create digital editions of individual manuscripts and biblical books which will provide the basis for future generations of scholarship. I have been on the committee of the International Greek New Testament projectfor over a decade, and in 2016 was appointed Executive Editor for the Pauline ...
- Telephone
- +44 (0)121 41 58341
- Email
- h.a.g.houghton@bham.ac.uk

Senior Lecturer in Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies
Director of Centre for Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies
Broadly speaking, my research interests lie within Islamic studies and Middle Eastern politics and history; my research interests and writings cover areas such as the socio-political study of Islam, Modern and contemporary Islamic thought, Women in Islam, Feminism and Islam, Islam in Britain, especially New Muslims, Islam and the West, Islamism and Extremism, Islamic beliefs and practices, Islam ...
- Telephone
- +44(0)121 41 58337
- Email
- h.a.jawad@bham.ac.uk

Senior Lecturer in Sikh Studies
I’ve been a lecturer at the University of Birmingham since 2002. My research encompasses a range of related topics in Sikh Studies, such as gender and Sikhism, science and Sikhism and contemporary Sikhism.
On the teaching side, I teach Introduction to Sikhism (second-year undergraduate); Placement Module (second–year undergraduate); and an MPhil(B) course on Sikh Studies, MA in ...
- Telephone
- +44 (0)121 41 58338
- Email
- j.jhuttijohal.1@bham.ac.uk

Lecturer in Cultural Heritage Studies
An anthropologist by education, I enjoy doing interdisciplinary research. My main interest is the production of heritage in post/colonial contexts and the associated politics of history, social memory and development, including local as well as transnational relations and practices, from heritage management to tourism and the social lives of the people living near designated heritage sites.
- Telephone
- +44 (0)121 414 5498
- Email
- h.jorgensen@bham.ac.uk
Professor in Modern History
Head of School of History and Cultures
Having graduated from the University of Düsseldorf with a degree in mathematics, history and philosophy I completed an M.Phil in International Relations and PhD in Modern History at the University of Cambridge. I took up a lectureship in European history at the University of Hull in 1993 before joining the Department of Modern History here at Birmingham in 1994.
- Telephone
- +44(0)121 414 5749
- Email
- s.lee@bham.ac.uk

Lecturer
Rehana Parveen is a former solicitor and former senior tutor at The University of Law, having taught on the GDL, LPC and BPTC courses. Rehana is currently a Teaching Fellow and Phd student of the University of Birmingham. Her research project is in the area of Islamic/Shariah law and its place in English law, particularly with regards to matrimonial and family disputes which are ...
- Telephone
- 0121 414 2099
- Email
- r.parveen@bham.ac.uk

Professor of Cultural Heritage
Director, Ironbridge International Institute for Cultural Heritage
I am Director of the Ironbridge International Institute for Cultural Heritage - a major inter-disciplinary research and graduate Institute working with the World Heritage Site and associated museums of Ironbridge.
My interests lie in how we produce and consume categories of heritage within changing cultural and cross-cultural contexts. I am particularly interested in how tourists experience ...
- Telephone
- +44 (0)121 414 3119
- Email
- m.d.robinson@bham.ac.uk

Professor of Islamic Studies
I research modern, contemporary and classical forms of Islam, employing both historical and ethnographic research methods. My interests include modern Islamic reform, Shia Islam, Sufism, Islamic messianism and as well as the historical and contemporary presence of Muslims in Europe. I am particularly interested in making current theories and methods in Religious Studies relevant to the academic ...
- Telephone
- +44 (0)121 41 43082
- Email
- o.scharbrodt@bham.ac.uk

Lecturer in Islamic Studies
My research focuses on the dynamics and trajectories of gender in Islam within the context of contemporary diasporic and transnational Muslim women’s spaces. I work on Muslim women communities in Europe and their transnational links to the Middle East. I also have a particular research interest in the authority and leadership of Muslim women and the changing nature of women’s ...
- Telephone
- +44 (0)121 414 9180
- Email
- y.shanneik@bham.ac.uk

Senior Lecturer
I am a cultural historian and literary scholar interested in the nature of emotional experience and its relation to art - in particular Shakespeare’s. My research splits into two distinct but nonetheless related strands: the cultural history of the emotions, especially sadness, and the performance of Shakespeare today.
- Telephone
- +44 (0)121 414 9513
- Email
- e.sullivan@bham.ac.uk

Emeritus Professor of Christianity and Islam
Nadir Dinshaw Professor of Interreligious Relations
For many years one of my specialist interests has been the history of religious thought in Islam and the structure of Islamic religious thinking. A particular aspect of this is relations between Muslims and followers of other faiths, especially Christianity. I have made this a major topic of my research and writing.
- Telephone
- +44 (0) 121 415 8373
- Email
- d.r.thomas.1@bham.ac.uk

Lecturer in the History of 19th Century Britain and the Wider World
I am a historian of the 19th and 20th centuries with particular specialisms in the history of work, artistic culture, and women’s lives. My first book Women Art Workers and the Arts and Crafts Movementwas published by Manchester University Press in 2020. My other publications span the history of the suffrage campaigns, the Arts and Crafts movement, historical pageantry, global feminisms, ...
- Email
- z.thomas@bham.ac.uk
Coin Curator, The Barber Institute of Fine Arts
Maria Vrij is curator of the coin collection at the Barber Institute of Fine Arts, which comprises over 16,000 objects, most of which are Byzantine, but also includes around 5,000 Roman coins (further information about the collection can be found at www.barber.org.uk/coins). In this role she facilitates academic research and teaching (both university UG and PG level, and schools outreach) with ...
- Telephone
- +44 (0)121 414 7332 (office)/+44 (0)121 414 3730 (coin study room)
- Email
- m.c.vrij@bham.ac.uk

John Ferguson Professor of Global Ethics
Deputy Pro-Vice Chancellor Research (Impact)
Professor Heather Widdows is the John Ferguson Professor of Global Ethics and the Deputy Pro-Vice Chancellor for Research Impact. In this role she seeks to support and extend the impact of Birmingham's research across policy, cultural and industrial sectors. Her track-record shows her commitment to public engagement and work with policy makers. As such she has served as a ...
- Telephone
- +44 (0)121 414 8399
- Email
- h.widdows@bham.ac.uk

Lecturer
Dr Chen Zhu is committed to teaching and researching intellectual property (especially copyright). His publications have appeared in leading peer-reviewed academic journals such as Social & Legal Studies and International Journal of Information Technology and Law.
- Telephone
- 0121 414 8564
- Email
- c.w.zhu@bham.ac.uk