Contact
Expertise Summary
My research engages with the intellectual politics of twentieth-century Britain. I am particularly interested in the political ideologies that informed parliamentary politics.
Office Hours
I am teaching online in the 2020-21 academic year. Students can arrange to meet me via Teams by sending me an email.
Postgraduate Supervision
I welcome enquiries from doctoral students who are interested in the following:
- The history of political ideas in Britain
- Party politics in modern Britain
- Theoretical approaches to the study of ideologies
- Class identities in modern Britain
Teaching Summary
Undergraduate Teaching
Alongside Professor Steven Fielding, I convene HIST2037, a module for students enrolled on the History and Politics joint honours programme. This module, which is designed to help students navigate the boundary between their two disciplines, explores different concepts and approaches that scholars employ to understand political change.
I also convene The Rise and Fall of Thatcherism, a special subject explores the political, social and cultural changes that took place in 1980s Britain.
As well as the above, I also teach on the following team-taught undergraduate modules:
- Learning History
- Contemporary World
- Road To Modernity, 1789 - 1945
Postgraduate Teaching
I convene Past Futures: Reimagining the Twentieth Century. Taking the concept of modernity as its starting-point, this course interrogates the social and political changes that re-shaped Britain in the twentieth-century.
I contribute to Exploring English Identities.
Research Summary
Current Research
I have recently published a monograph that explored the political publishing of Penguin Books. Using the publisher's book as a way of thinking about shifts in political thought, it claims that the three decades after the Second World War might be best understood as a 'meritocratic moment' in Britain's political development.
Research Supervision
David Civil, 'Meritocratic Discourse in Post-war Britain' (Awarded in 2020)
Matthew Kidd, 'Popular Politics in Urban England, 1867-1918' (Awarded in 2016)
Joseph Himsworth, 'The Political Thought of Keith Joseph'
William Noble, 'Our poor, tired little island just can't cope': race, immigration and 'decline' in the post-war English Midlands, c.1958-1981'
Alex Riggs, 'Democratic Party Presidential Primary Campaigns and the Left, 1980-1988 Research Area'.
Rebecca Hickman, 'Gender-nonconformity and the quest for 'recognition' in the United Kingdom, from the 1970s to the present day'.
Selected Publications