Professor Mark Towsey MA (Hons), MLitt, PhD, FRHistS

My teaching focuses on cultural history and the social history of ideas, exploring the interaction between printed texts and the communities in which they were produced. Much of my teaching depends on close analysis of textual primary sources, but I also try to encourage my students to think about how texts were produced, disseminated, and received by historical readers. I also enjoy collaborative teaching with colleagues in other departments, and with external partners at the Liverpool Athenaeum (a library society founded in 1797) and the Decorative Arts Department at National Museums Liverpool, where eighteenth-century artefacts (snuff boxes, teapots, night shirts and the like) help students think differently about the period they study.

I have been known to teach clarinet, saxophone and chamber music in my spare time, having been a visiting teacher at St Leonard's School and Sixth Form College in St Andrews while completing my PhD.