Dr Chris Moores

Dr Chris Moores

Department of History
Senior Lecturer
Contemporary History

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 Birmingham from its formation in 2014 until 2018 and I am an Associate Editor of the journal Contemporary British History. My book Civil Liberties and Human Rights in Twentieth Century Britain was published by Cambridge University Press in 2017 and was shortlisted for the Royal Historical Society's Whitfield Prize in 2018.

Feedback and office hours

Spring Term, Tuesday 10-11

Room 428, Arts Building

Qualifications

BA, MA, PhD (University of Birmingham)

Biography

I joined the University of Birmingham as a Birmingham Fellow in 2013 before becoming a Lecturer in 2018. Prior to this I was a Global Research Fellow at the University of Warwick's Institute of Advanced Study. Before that, I completed my PhD at the University of Birmingham in 2011 and spent two years there as a Teaching Fellow between 2010 and 2012.

I am Associate Editor of Contemporary British History and served as Director of Modern British Studies from the Research Centre's formation in 2014 until 2018. I also served as Academic Lead on a Heritage Lottery Funded Project entitled Selly Oak Activism which I am continuing to develop with different community groups.

Teaching

Undergraduate

Level C

  • Module Convenor: Making of the Contemporary World
  • Practising History A: Feeling Politics: Emotions and Politics in 20th Century Britain
  • Practising History B: Activism, Community and Identity in Post-War Britain

Level I

  • Option: There is Black in the Union Jack: An Introduction to Black and South Asian British History
  • Research Methods

Level H

  • Special Subject: The Revolting Right - Conservative Activism in Late Twentieth Century Britain
  • Dissertations on a range of topics relating to Contemporary British History

Postgraduate

  • New Directions in Modern British Studies (Distance Learning and Campus)
  • Sites and Sources in Modern British Studies (Distance Learning and Campus)
  • MA Dissertations on a range of topics, usually related to twentieth century Britain, activism or the history of human rights

Postgraduate supervision

I am happy to discuss supervision in subjects relating to my research interests. Feel free to get in touch to talk about research ideas or potential projects.

I currently co-supervise the work of Emma Barrett, Katie Jones, Ellie Munro, Martha Robinson Rhodes and Chelsea-Anne Saxby.


Find out more - our PhD History  page has information about doctoral research at the University of Birmingham.

Research

My broad research interests are in Contemporary British History and the histories of social, cultural and political activism in British and transnational contexts. I have written a number of articles on the history of civil liberties activism in Britain since the 1930s and my book entitled Civil Liberties and Human Rights in Twentieth Century Britain was published by Cambridge University Press in 2018 and was shortlisted for the Royal Historical Society's Whitfield Prize in 2018.

I am now working on the history of extra-parliamentary conservative activism in the second half of the twentieth century which examines various different short-lived, single-issue campaigns, movement organizations, quasi-party organizations as well as NGOs, voluntary associations, think tanks and charities. Work developing out of these research interests include articles on the history of Neighbourhood Watch and opposition to CND and the Greenham Women's Peace Camps which have been published in Contemporary British History and History Workshop Journal. I also edited with my colleagues Professor Matthew Hilton and Dr Florence Sutcliffe-Braithwaite a collection of essays on the history of Britain in the 1980s (see below for full list of publications). 

In addition to this, I am keen to explore histories of activism in Birmingham outside formal academic outputs. Some initial work has been carried out for this in relation to the Heritage Lottery Funded Activist Selly Oak Project on which I acted as academic league and involved map-building, plaque-making, oral histories, newspaper production and walking-tours as a collaboration between volunteers, community groups, local artists and academics.

Other activities

  • Associate Editor, Contemporary British History

Publications

Recent publications

Book

Moores, C 2017, Civil liberties and human rights in twentieth-century Britain. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. <http://www.cambridge.org/gb/academic/subjects/history/twentieth-century-british-history/civil-liberties-and-human-rights-twentieth-century-britain?format=HB&isbn=9781107088610>

Article

Hilton, M, Moores, C & Sutcliffe-Braithwaite, F 2017, 'Introduction to special issue: New Times Revisited: Britain in the 1980s', Contemporary British History, vol. 31, no. 2, pp. 145-165. https://doi.org/10.1080/13619462.2017.1306214

Moores, C 2017, 'Solidarity for Chile, transnational activism and the evolution of human rights', Moving the Social: Journal of Social History and the History of Social Movements, vol. 57, pp. 115 – 136. https://doi.org/10.13154/mts.57.2017.115-136

Moores, C 2017, 'Thatcher’s troops? Neighbourhood Watch Schemes and the search for ‘ordinary’ Thatcherism in 1980s Britain', Contemporary British History, vol. 31, no. 2, pp. 230-255. https://doi.org/10.1080/13619462.2017.1306203

Moores, C 2014, 'Opposition to the Greenham Women's Peace Camps: RAGE against the 'obscene'', History Workshop Journal, vol. 78, no. 1, pp. 204-227. https://doi.org/10.1093/hwj/dbt038

Moores, C 2012, 'From Civil Liberties to Human Rights? British Civil Liberties Activism and Universal Human Rights', Contemporary European History, vol. 21, no. 02, pp. 169-192. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0960777312000100

Review article

Moores, C 2009, 'The Progressive Professionals: The National Council for Civil Liberties and the Politics of Activism in the 1960s', Twentieth Century British History, vol. 20, no. 4, pp. 538-560. https://doi.org/10.1093/tcbh/hwp045

Special issue

Hilton, M, Moores, C & Sutcliffe-Braithwaite, F (eds) 2017, 'New Times Revisited', Contemporary British History, vol. 31, no. 2, pp. 145-165.

View all publications in research portal