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Black Sailors and Legal History from the Bottom Up

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Dr Michael A. Schoeppner is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Maine, Farmington. His research explores how the lived experience of race intersected with and informed legal culture and constitutional change in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

In his contribution to the Research Exchange, he reflects on the writing of his new book, ‘Moral Contagion: Black Atlantic Sailors, Citizenship, and Diplomacy in Antebellum America’ (Cambridge University Press, 2019), which was awarded the 2017 Hines Prize by the Carolina Lowcountry and Atlantic World program at the College of Charleston.

Punk Rock, Provincial Pride and the History of Local Journalism

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Dr Andrew Hobbs is a senior lecturer in international journalism at the University of Central Lancashire, interested in provincial print culture of the 19th and 20th centuries. He is currently working on a scholarly edition of the only known diaries of a provincial 19th-century journalist, Anthony Hewitson (1836-1912). Follow @HewitsonDiaries for daily extracts from the diaries.

In his contribution to the Research Exchange, he explains the emotions and experiences behind his new open-access book, ‘A Fleet Street in Every Town: The Provincial Press in England, 1855-1900’ (Open Book, 2018).

Opera before “Elitism”

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Dr Alexandra Wilson is Reader in Music at Oxford Brookes University, where she researches the social and cultural history of opera. She is the author of ‘The Puccini Problem: Opera, Nationalism, and Modernity’ (Cambridge University Press, 2007) and ‘Opera: A Beginner’s Guide’ (OneWorld Publications, 2010).

In her contribution to the Research Exchange, she discusses her research on Opera’s surprising place in the 1920s ‘battle of the brows’ for her new book ‘Opera in the Jazz Age: Cultural Politics in 1920s Britain’ (Oxford University Press, 2019).

Charity Entrepreneurs

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Dr Sarah Roddy is Lecturer in Modern Irish History at the University of Manchester. She is the author of ‘Population, providence and empire: the churches and emigration from nineteenth-century Ireland’ (Manchester University Press, 2014).

In her contribution for the Research Exchange, she explains how innovative and competitive the fundraisers were that she researched for her new book with Julie-Marie Strange and Bertrand Taithe, ‘The Charity Market and Humanitarianism in Britain, 1870–1912’ (Bloomsbury, 2018).

Rethinking Learie Constantine

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Jeffrey Hill is an emeritus professor of historical and cultural studies at De Montfort University. He has written on various aspects of nineteenth and twentieth century popular culture, with a special emphasis in recent years on the study of sport and its ideological influences.

In his contribution to the Research Exchange, he discusses the need to tell the story of cricketing hero Learie Constantine with a new focus on race, Empire and the Commonwealth. ‘Learie Constantine and Race Relations in Britain and the Empire’ was published by Bloomsbury in December 2018.

Immigrant Life in Medieval England

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Dr Bart Lambert is Assistant Professor in Late Medieval Urban History and a member of the HOST research group at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium. His work focuses on migration flows and international trade in Europe between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries.

In his contribution to the Research Exchange, he reflects on the life of Gervase de Vulre, one of those whose story was uncovered during his collaboration with Mark Ormrod and Jonathan Mackman, which led to the publication of their co-authored monograph ‘Immigrant England, 1300-1550’ with Manchester University Press in December 2018.

Emotions, Gender and Selfhood

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Dr Laura Kounine is Lecturer in Early Modern History at the University of Sussex. She is the co-editor of ‘Cultures of Conflict and Resolution in Early Modern Europe’ (Ashgate, 2015), ‘Emotions in the History of Witchcraft’ (Palgrave, 2017) and the online platform ‘History of Emotions – Insights into Research’.

In her contribution to the Research Exchange, she explains why she wanted her new book – ‘Imagining the Witch: Emotions, Gender and Selfhood in Early Modern Germany’ (Oxford University Press, 2018) – to be less a history of accusations and executions, and more a history of resistance.

Exploring the Supernatural in WW1

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Owen Davies is Professor of Social History at the University of Hertfordshire and a leading authority on the belief in witchcraft, magic, ghosts, and popular medicine from the ancient world to the modern era. He is the author of numerous books and articles, including Grimoires: A History of Magic Books (OUP, 2009) and America Bewitched: The Story of Witchcraft after Salem (OUP, 2013).

In his contribution to the Research Exchange, he reflects on how he came to write his new book, ‘A Supernatural War: Magic, Divination, and Faith during the First World War’, which was published by Oxford University Press in October 2018.

On White Fury

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Christer Petley is Professor in History at the University of Southampton. His work focuses on the histories and legacies of slavery in the Americas, in particular slave societies and colonial settlers in the British Caribbean.

In his contribution to the Research Exchange, he reflects on his new book ‘White Fury: A Jamaican Slaveholder and the Age of Revolution’, which was published by Oxford University Press in October 2018.

Divided Kingdom

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Pat Thane is Research Professor in Contemporary British History at King’s College London and the Honorary President of the Social History Society. She is a leading authority on the political, social and welfare history of modern Britain. Amongst her many publications are ‘The Foundations of the Welfare State’ (Longman, 1996) and ‘Old Age in English History: Past Experiences, Present Issues’ (Oxford University Press, 2000).

In her contribution to the Research Exchange, she reflects on how she came to settle on the key themes for her new survey of twentieth-century Britain’s social and political history ‘Divided Kingdom: A History of Britain, 1900 to the Present’, published by Cambridge University Press in August 2018.