Department of History

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Joe Merton

Lecturer in Twentieth Century History, Faculty of Arts

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Biography

I am a historian of the post-1945 United States, particularly interested in the politics of race and ethnicity in the US, crime and urban politics (with specific focus on New York City), and the wider political and historical legacy of the 1970s.

I obtained my BA in History & Politics from the University of Sheffield, where I won the university's Anglo-American Prize for outstanding achievement in American history, before completing a D.Phil. in History at the University of Oxford, which was successfully examined in 2010. In 2010, I was appointed to the post of Teaching Associate in the School of History at Nottingham, before being promoted to Lecturer in 2013. I have also taught at the University of Oxford, University of Reading, and Queen Mary, University of London.

I am a member of the British Association of American Studies, Historians of the Twentieth Century United States, and the Urban History Association. At Nottingham, I sit on the steering group for the Centre for US in the World Studies, an interdisciplinary research group dedicated to the analysis of US foreign relations, politics, and culture.

Expertise Summary

My main area of expertise is the political, social and cultural history of the contemporary (post-1945) United States. I am particularly interested in the politics of race and ethnicity in the US, crime and urban politics (with a specific focus on New York City), and the wider political and historical legacy of the 1970s, but can offer expertise on large areas of twentieth century American history.

Teaching Summary

Core Teaching

I convene two undergraduate modules, both informed by my research interests. My Year 3 Special Subject 'Life During Wartime: Crisis, Decline, and Transformation in 1970s America' explores the various narratives of crisis and decline constructed during the 1970s, and their role in recasting the United States and its society, politics and culture in significant and far-reaching ways. Using original primary sources, we explore how declinist narratives in areas such as race relations, crime, the city, the economy, and the family provided the foundation for far-reaching changes in American life, from individualism and the rise of the market to mass incarceration and populist conservatism.

My Year 2 option 'Race, Rights and Propaganda: The Politics of Race and Identity in the Cold War Era, 1945-1990', examines the politics of race during the Cold War era, addressing how questions of race and identity played a decisive role in shaping the foreign relations of the period. We explore case studies from the United States, Soviet Union, East Asia, post-colonial Africa, and post-imperial Britain, providing students with a deeper understanding of the relationship between the Cold War and the politics of race and the interconnectedness of the domestic and international, agency and structure, and the state and grassroots, in the Cold War era.

I recently led the wider review and redesign of the History undergraduate curriculum as part of the university's Curriculum Transformation Programme (CTP), and served as Director of Teaching for the Department of History from 2021-22. I won the university's Lord Dearing Award for excellence in teaching and learning in 2019, and a Staff Oscar for best feedback in 2018.

You can see my writing about my teaching here and here. And watch me talking about teaching here.

East Midlands Centre for History Teaching & Learning

I am deeply interested in pedagogy and how students learn, and served as director for the East Midlands Centre for History Teaching & Learning, a subject-specific advocacy group designed to promote innovation and excellence in history teaching in HE across the region, from 2019-22.

Research Summary

I am currently working on two major research projects.

The first, "Ethnic Power! The Politics of White Ethnicity, 1964-1984", addresses the emergence of a new "white ethnic" identity politics in the United States during the long 1970s. It seeks to explain the sudden emergence of a new and distinct political identity - the "white ethnic" - for the mainly working class, third-generation descendants of S/E European immigrants, and its adoption and utilization by a range of actors and institutions from across the political spectrum. Yet despite attracting great political and policy interest this insurgent politics ultimately collapsed, imploding as a coherent force by the 1980s. Thus my research sheds light not only on the strength of ethnic group mobilisation in an era of political vacuum and flux, but also explains how such mobilisation can also fail to establish a durable presence - with implications for our understanding of the American polity, the 1970s, and ethnicity itself.

This project has produced journal articles in the Historical Journal, Journal of American Studies, and Presidential Studies Quarterly, and a book chapter in an edited collection on the Republican Party during the 1960s and 1970s, published by Vanderbilt University Press. I am currently completing a monograph on the subject.

The second project, provisionally titled "Remaking Fear City: Fear of Crime and the Transformation of New York City, 1965-1985", addresses the role of public fears and anxieties over street crime, in reshaping the political and cultural landscape of New York City during the 1970s and early 1980s. I am specifically interested in the impact of public anxieties (and elite responses) in redefining city politics and political coalitions, public policies and attitudes towards them, urban space and design, and media cultures in the city during this period. Together, I argue, the public and elite response to fear of crime was as instrumental as the city's concurrent fiscal crisis in restructuring New York City during the 1970s, transforming it from an exemplar of midcentury social democracy into the prototypical "neoliberal city" of today. You can read me discussing the project on the Urban History Association's Metropole blog.

The project has received funding from the British Academy/Leverhulme Trust and the British Association of American Studies (BAAS). I intend this project to form the basis of my second monograph, and have already published research articles from the project in the Journal of Policy History, Journal of Urban History, and Journal of Social History.

Selected Publications

Future Research

I have been recently awarded funding by the British Academy/Leverhulme Trust for a third project, provisionally titled "Beyond crisis: 'white ethnic' responses to urban crisis and transformation in the United States, 1960-1990". This project builds on my previous research on "white ethnic" identity politics by re-centering ethnicity in the story of urban crisis, decline and transformation in the late twentieth century American city. Drawing on newly-released archival collections and training its focus on a different range of actors, this project reassesses dominant narratives of crisis, decline, abandonment and racial polarization by excavating the work of activists, intellectuals, community organisers, planners and policymakers who interpreted American cities and their residents through the prism of white European ethnicity and argued for the importance of ethnic identity, culture, community and subjectivity to urban experience and as a resource for urban renewal. While not without contradictions, this 'ethnic' urbanism and interpretation of urban problems generated local and national political attention and innovative policy solutions to urban decline, providing a more complex reading of the histories of urban America and its ethnic and racial politics since the 1960s.

Department of History

University of Nottingham
University Park
Nottingham, NG7 2RD

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