Linda-Jane Buckle

Postgraduate Research Student

Linda-Jane.Buckle@liverpool.ac.uk


Research Interests

Thesis Title

"Diplomatic communication between Iran, UK and US since 1979."

Peter Buckles

Postgraduate Research Student

P.Buckles@liverpool.ac.uk


Biography

Peter has a BA in History and Music Technology and an MREs in History from Keele University.

Research Interests

Thesis Title

"The French Wars and their impact on Merchant Trade Networks in Bristol, Bordeaux and New York, 1783-1830."


Peter's thesis examines the nature of maritime trade during the French Wars (1793-1815), focusing on merchants operating in Bristol, Bordeaux and New York who traded across the Atlantic. Beginning with the end of the American Revolutionary War in 1783, and finishing with the July Revolution in France in 1830, this study will provide a comparison of trade in the North Atlantic before, during, and after the wars. The main source material for this project is merchant letterbooks and correspondence, with Social Network Analysis and institutional theory used to uncover the scope of the merchants’ business networks, and identify the means by which trade was supported. In doing so, this study will improve our understanding of the socioeconomic impact that the French Wars had on trading relations and on how trade was conducted.

Peter's broader research interests encompass economic history, particularly trade within merchant communities. Further interests include computing and digital humanities. He also looks at how the Global conflicts of the early 19th century affected international trade in these transatlantic cities.

Research Funding

Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)- North West Social Science Doctoral Training Partnership (NWSSDTP)

Justice Chinonso Ujoumunna

Postgraduate Research Student

J.C.Ujoumunna@liverpool.ac.uk 


Biography

Justice has BLIS and MLIS from Library and Information Science of Abia State Unversity, Nigeria. He was currently at the external viva stage on his first PhD in the School of Postgraduate Studies of Department of Library and Information Science, Abia State University, Uturu, Nigeria where he doubles as a lecturer before his scholarship study vacation at the University of Liverpool. 

Research Interests

Thesis Title

"Digital Evidence in the Nigerian Legal System: Admissibility and Evidential Weight of Digital Records"

Justice’s research interests are Information and Communication Technology, Digital Archives and Records Management with specialization in Digital Legal Evidence. Justice has special interest in exploring Digital Librarianship and Information Studies through digital Publishing, ICT, Archive and records management practices.

Research Group Membership

Liverpool University Center for Archive Studies

Research Funding

Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund)

Rachel Collett

Postgraduate Research Student 

rachel.collett@liverpool.ac.uk


Biography

Rachel received a BA in History (2019) and an MSt in History of Art and Visual Culture (2020) from the University of Oxford, both of which were first class. She has also been the recipient of awards such as the Gladstone Prize for Best Undergraduate Thesis in Modern British History, the Caroline Kellett FHS Prize, and Wadham College Scholarships.

Rachel has previously undertaken curatorial work in museums and galleries, which she continues part-time alongside PhD research. She also writes regularly, with book reviews and articles on history, culture and politics published in Tribune, Red Pepper and Left Cultures.

Research Interests 

Thesis Title

“Equal pay for women and Tories Out!”: The Women’s Movement in Merseyside, c.1968-1990

Rachel’s PhD focuses on the Merseyside Women’s Liberation Movement from its conception in the late 1960s to its demise in the 1990s, combining neglected archival material, local feminist print cultures, and original oral history interviews as its primary source base. The project aims to explore the complex dynamic between the local and national within the British Women’s Liberation Movement, making a significant contribution to our understanding of feminist and socialist movements as well as women’s wider radical and community activism in Liverpool and Britain during this period. In demonstrating the importance of regional and political context in shaping feminist identities and priorities, this research highlights a complex and diverse narrative of women’s activism in the regions, inclusive of class, race, and activist ‘afterlives’.

Focused primarily on 19th and 20th century British history, wider interests include gender, feminism and women’s activism; working class identities and culture; Left-wing and radical politics; modern and post-war British art; and alternative print cultures and artistic networks.

Research Funding

Funded by the AHRC, through the North West Consortium Doctoral Training Partnership (NWCDTP).

Emma Copestake

Postgraduate Research Student

hsecopes@liverpool.ac.uk 


Thesis Title

"Laughing through the Pain? Occupational Wellbeing on the Waterfront in Liverpool c.1964-1998."

Biography

Emma's research employs Barbara Rosenwein’s (2002) concept of ‘emotional communities’ to understand how structural change in the port transport industry was understood, mediated and negotiated by dock workers and their families in Liverpool between 1964 and 1998.  

Emma uses oral histories and archival records to focus on the relationship between emotions, bodies and power at work as containerisation, deindustrialisation and tighter health and safety regulations transformed the docks. She analyses how emotions such as love, pride, shame and loss were expressed as well how tools such as humour were used by workers and their families to overcome danger and insecurity.  

Ultimately, this project unites the fields of labour history and the history of emotions by focusing on what it felt like to be a worker.

Research Interests

Emma's wider research interests include: the history of power and emotions, oral history, Modern British History, the history of work including occupational health and wellbeing, deindustrialisation, and public history. 

Research Funding

Emma’s PhD has been generously funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (2017-2021) and the Institute of Historical Research (2021). 

Heather Cowan

Postgraduate Research Student

H.Cowan2@liverpool.ac.uk


Biography

Heather has a 1st class History BA Hons degree and an MRes (Distinction) in History from the University of Liverpool.  Alongside her research, Heather has also worked as a seminar tutor for the History Department and produced a workshop on the history of medicine.

Heather is a member of the Perceptions of Pregnancy Network, European Reformation Research Group and the North West Early Modern Seminar.

Research Interests

Heather’s research interests explore reproductive politics through the realm of gender, emotion and medicine within early modern England. Her thesis explores the nuances around terminology relating to child loss in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries – as terms such as infanticide, abortion and miscarriage were interchangeable during this period.

Thesis Title

"Bodies of (Dis)Order: Definitions of Abortion in Early Modern England."

Research Funding

John Lennon Memorial Scholarship.

Catherine Crossley

Postgraduate Research Student

Catherine.Crossley@liverpool.ac.uk


Biography

Catherine has an MA in Medieval and Early Modern History from the University of Bristol and an MA in Digital Humanities from King's College London.

Research Interests

Thesis Title

"Monstrous men in the medieval mind: intertextuality and interpretation, c.1200-1350."

The thirteenth century sees a steep rise in visual and textual representations of the borderline human beings known as ‘monstrous men’, with headless Blemmye and single-footed Sciapods (amongst many others) found in a variety of visual media and scrutinised in encyclopedic scientific studies.

This project utilises a core corpus of interconnected illuminated world maps (mappaemundi) and books of beasts (bestiaries) as a starting point to examine medieval ideas about the nature of ‘man’ and ‘beast’, analysing representations of these borderline human monstrous men in text and image. We will take an interdisciplinary approach to the various sources depicting monstrous men to understand contemporary concepts of the essence of humanity, which seem to grow out of a newly imported Aristotelian approach to the natural world.

Catherine's wider research interests cover Medieval history, digital sciences and mappaemundi.

Research Group Membership

Centre for Digital Humanities and Social Sciences

James Duncan

Postgraduate Research Student

J.P.Duncan@liverpool.ac.uk


Thesis Title

“The Construction of Christian Identity in Late Antique North Africa, 350-533”

Biography

The PhD project I am undertaking, supervised by Robin Whelan and , began in late 2020. Prior to beginning my research at the University of Liverpool, I completed an MLitt in Medieval History at the University of St Andrews (2019-20), which itself followed my undergraduate study if History there (MA, 2015-19).

Research Interests

My interests surround the topic of religious identity within Late Antiquity. Currently I am researching the construction of the other by Christian authors in Late Roman and Vandal Africa, alongside investigating the use of the biblical past, most prominently the use of biblical personalities and characters, in order to shape Christian identity. My primary focus is on Quodvultdeus of Carthage.

Research Funding

HLC Studentship

Chloé Duteil

Postgraduate Research Student

c.duteil@liverpool.ac.uk


Thesis Title

“The Celtic Edge: Amphibious Environments and Senses of Self on the Breton and Welsh Coasts, 1870s-1930s”

Biography

After completing a licence (BA) in English Language, Literature, and Civilisation at Université Rennes 2 in France and an MA in Modern History at Cardiff University, I started my PhD in History under supervision of  at the University of Liverpool and Dr Christopher Donaldson and Dr Fiona Edmonds at Lancaster University. 

Research Interests

My research interests are located in the fields of coastal, environmental, and cultural history. Specifically, I focus on histories of human interactions with the environment in the spaces where maritime and terrestrial worlds meet and merge.

My doctoral thesis examines how the physicality of coasts as hybrids of water and land shaped the identities, cultural values, and social practices of their dwellers, with a particular focus on Brittany and Wales in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Research Funding

Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) –  North West Consortium Doctoral Training Partnership (NWCDTP)

 

Emily Gibbs

Postgraduate Research Student

E.Gibbs@liverpool.ac.uk


Biography

Emily Gibbs has a 1st class History BA degree and an MA (distinction) in Cultural History from the University of Liverpool. Alongside her research, Emily is a Seminar Tutor for the History Department at the University of Liverpool.

Outside of her studies, Emily is currently writing for the Journal of Contemporary History and has presented at a number of conferences including the University of Liverpool Nuclear Workshop and the History of Emotions annual conference, as well as co-organising the annual NWCDTP Postgraduate Conference.

Research Interests

Thesis Title

"Uncovering, understanding, and disassembling British Nuclear Anxiety, 1952-1989 and beyond."

Local communities, and the individuals living within them, experienced the Cold War in their own distinctive way, informed by international, national, and local identities and relationships, forming unique local nuclear cultures and anxieties. This project seeks to explore the ways that urban communities experienced life in the British nuclear nation-state. By analysing, comparing and mapping the emotional and cultural histories of British nuclear anxiety, this project will build on comparative histories of everyday life in the Cold War era, and contribute to emerging scholarship on nuclear cities, history of emotions and the British nuclear experience. It shall achieve this using oral testimony and the local press in Liverpool, London, Belfast, Glasgow and Cardiff, in the period 1952-1989. This project shall attempt to problematize the popular notion of ‘British nuclear anxiety’ by researching and analysing the different ways in which people responded to, experienced, created, and participated in British nuclear culture.

Emily's wider research interests include nuclear culture, the history of emotions, oral history, modern British history and Cold War history.

Research Group Membership

Oral History Society 
Royal Historical Society 

Research Funding

North West Consortium Doctoral Training Partnership (NWCDTP)

Michelle Girvan 

Postgraduate Research Student

M.Girvan@liverpool.ac.uk  


Thesis Title

Charity, Piety and Commerce: The Liverpool Blue Coat School and Pragmatic Politeness, 1708–1796."

Biography

BA (Hons) History, MRes Modern History: Liverpool John Moores University; PGCE in Secondary History: Liverpool Hope University.   

Research Interests

Today, Bluecoat exists as a flourishing centre for contemporary arts, yet was originally constructed as a charity school for destitute and orphaned children during a period of vast physical expansion within the eighteenth-century town of Liverpool. As one of very few surviving infrastructures dating to Liverpool’s early commercial expansion, Bluecoat consequently offers a rare reflection of the Georgian town’s growing self-confidence, civic-mindedness and humanitarian impulse. 

My thesis seeks to examine the architectural symbolism, meaning and significance inherent within the eighteenth-century Blue Coat building, and the people, spaces and experiences which shaped the school’s early history. Through its socio-cultural examination of Liverpool’s Georgian environment, my research aims to analyse the institution’s interactions with a burgeoning urban landscape, an elite mercantile clique, an expanding sociable arena and flourishing international trade. It will shed new light on the collective consciousness of Blue Coat’s hegemonic trustees, whilst also the multi-faceted purposes for individual exchanges with a fledgling institution. It also importantly aims to recover traces of Blue Coat’s marginalised female patrons and childhood experiences. 

This project will facilitate interdisciplinary methodological and theoretical approaches, as well as a plethora of primary sources. It will specifically focus on papers left by the institution, the Church and the Corporation, to recover a complex network of charity, piety, commerce and pragmatic politeness, acting through a Blue Coat Charity School.  

This thesis is a collaboration between the University of Liverpool and Bluecoat: Liverpool’s Centre for the Contemporary Arts.  

My primary research interests include: socio-cultural history in the long eighteenth centuryparticularly in connection to mercantile communities; space, place and environmentthe recovery of marginalised histories; and digital humanities. 

Research Funding

Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) – North West Consortium Doctoral Training Partnership (NWCDTP) 

David Grealy

Postgraduate Research Student

hsdgreal@liverpool.ac.uk


Biography

David has a BA in History and an MA in 20th Century History from the University of Liverpool.

Research Interests

Thesis Title

"Human Rights and British Diplomacy, 1977-1994: Intellectual Biography of David Owen."

David's thesis attempts to compile an intellectual biography of Lord David Owen, focusing on his diplomatic engagement with human rights from 1977 – the beginning of his tenure as Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary – through to the conclusion of his engagement with the Vance-Owen Peace Plan in 1994. By addressing this important but neglected aspect of Owen’s political career, my PhD seeks to investigate the genealogy of Britain’s ethical foreign policy prior to New Labour. The innovative periodization of my study, which bridges the late-Cold War and early post-Cold War periods, will also allow me to offer a hitherto neglected British perspective on the so-called human rights “breakthrough” by exploring the role of British diplomacy in shaping concepts of human rights and humanitarianism since the 1970s.

David's wider research interests include diplomatic history, global intellectual history, human rights and humanitarianism. His research has a strong focus on the life and political works of David Owen.

Research Funding

Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)- North West Consortium Doctoral Training Partnership (NWCDTP)

Ashleigh Hawkins

Postgraduate Research Student

A.H.Hawkins@liverpool.ac.uk

Biography

Ashleigh Hawkins has an MA in Chinese Studies from the University of Edinburgh and an MA in Archives and Records Management from the University of Liverpool. Ashleigh was awarded the Eleanor and Reginald Allan Scholarship for 2015/16 and before undertaking her PhD was employed as archivist at Canterbury Cathedral. Alongside her research Ashleigh is the Communications Officer for the Archives and Records Association Section for Archives and Technology, the Archives and Records Association Representation on the Bridging the Digital Gap Board and is PGR Research Theme Champion for Digital Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Liverpool.

Research Interests

Ashleigh’s broad area of investigation is consideration of the ways in which Digital Humanities could increase access to and engagement with historic archive collections. Specifically, she uses historic customer records from Barclays Group Archives as a case study, to examine the benefits of Linked Data for use in the archives sector. The Linked Data principles were developed in the mid-2000s and were first applied in the archives sector in 2010. Since then, a number of delimited studies have used Linked Data with various record types but there has been little examination of the benefits of adopting Linked Data for archives and their stakeholders. From examination of a broad body of literature, a practical case study using Linked Data to semantically and geo-location tag a Customer Signature Book of the Bank of Goslings and Sharpe, and focus groups, the study aims to address this gap in the research and develop a multi-purpose framework of the benefits of Linked Data for archives.

Other research interests include sustainability and archives, the history of recordkeeping, and archives and technology. In 2020 she worked in collaboration to publish:

"The Three Character Classic of Archival Work: a brief overview of Chinese archival history and practice", Archival Science (2020)

https://rdcu.be/b5b6Y

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10502-020-09344-x#Abs1

Thesis Title

"Accounts with Interest: Opening Up the Archives of Barclays Bank."

Using historic customer records Ashleigh’s research seeks to examine the ways in which digital humanities could increase access to and engagement with historic archive collections, and investigate the challenges and opportunities this increased and varied use of historic materials presents those responsible for their care.

Research Group Membership

Ashleigh is a member of the Archives and Records Association, International Council on Archives and Oral History Society.

Research Funding

Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)

 

Patricia Harrison

Postgraduate Research Student

hspharri@student.liverpool.ac.uk


Biography

Patricia has a BA in English and Modern History and an MA in Cultural History from the University of Liverpool.

Research Interests

Thesis Title

"Suicide in English Prisons 1865-1895."

Patricia's thesis aims to be the first dedicated study of suicide in nineteenth-century English local and convict prisons. The timeframe of 1865-1895 has been chosen because it has been identified by Forsythe as the period in which reform ideology declined and the greatest changes in English penal administration occurred.

Patricia questions the extent to which the prison system was responsible for self-inflicted deaths in custody, the degree to which the suicidal were subjected to inferior care and treatment because they were offenders and whether the marginalisation and social exclusion of offenders instigated and/or compounded suicidal behaviour. Patricia will extend her research to include bereaved families and how they were treated by and responded to prison authorities and whether or not they successfully contested official ‘truths’.

Research Funding

Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)

Synthia Hynes 

Postgraduate Research Student

Synthia.Hynes@liverpool.ac.uk  


Biography

This research project seeks to improve our understanding of the role of the English Ambassadress by considering these women prosopographically over the long eighteenth century. An analysis of the nature, extent, and impact of their diplomatic/political involvement while on mission will follow and allow an exploration of the ways in which they were tacitly or openly recognised as political actors by their contemporaries, male and female. 

Before pursuing a research degree at University of Liverpool, I completed an MA in History at UCL and a BA in International History, with Political Science and Philosophy Minors at Richmond, the American International University in London. I completed my BA and MA with dissertation titles Elite Women in British Politics During the Long Eighteenth Century" and The Last Tsarina, The Perceptions and Rejections of Alexandra Feodorovna", respectively.  

Thesis Title

"The English Ambassadress in a Cosmopolitan World: Women, Diplomacy and Politics in the Long 18th Century" 

Research Interests

My broader research interests encompass social and political histories and womens studies, particularly between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries.  

Ian Jones

Postgraduate Research Student

Ian.Jones2@liverpool.ac.uk


Biography

I am a 4th year PhD student at the University of Liverpool and a Senior Research Assistant at Newcastle Business School. My research focuses on the role of Barclays Group Archives (BGA) in facilitating the delivery of Barclays plc’s strategic objectives. My thesis brings together organisation studies research on the uses of the past, organisational memory studies, and authenticity with archival science literature on the archival principles of authenticity, reliability, usability, and integrity. It finds that BGA provide unique benefits that are derived from the occupational skillset and tacet knowledge of the archivists that has dictated the construction of the archives.

Thesis Title

"Using the past: Authenticity, reliability, and the role of archives in Barclays plc’s use of the past strategies"

Research Interests

Archives, concepts of authenticity, materiality, organisational memory studies, historical narratives, uses of the past, historical organisation studies, WW1, European history 1848-1991.

Research Funding

Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and Barclays plc

Drahoslava Máchová

Postgraduate Research Student

dmachova@liverpool.ac.uk

Biography

Liverpool based researcher originally from Moravian-Wallachia (Czech Republic), focusing on the social history of communism in Central Europe, previously worked on local history projects exploring the impact and connections of Transatlantic slave trade in North West England affialated with the Institute for Black Atlantic Research and the Migration, Diaspora and Exile Centre (UCLan)

Linktree

Research Interests 

Thesis Title 

Challenging the White Eastern Block Myth: The Cuban Diaspora in Socialist Czechoslovakia (Working title)

History of non-European diasporas in the socialist central Europe.

 

Silence Masiya 

Postgraduate Research Student

Silence.Masiya@liverpool.co.uk 


Biography

Silence Masiya has a BA in History, Economic History and War and Strategic Studies, a Special Honours in War and Strategic Studies and an MA in War and Strategic Studies from the University of Zimbabwe. 

Silence's research is focused on continuity and change in approaches to peacebuilding and post-conflict negotiations. He is particularly interested in the recurrence of politically motivated violence-raising questions about what underpins the continuities and what facilitates the changes in political, economic, social, and cultural spheres. 

Research Interests

Conflict, peace, politics, terrorism, human and state security and strategic studies. 

Thesis Title

"Zimbabwe's Conflict Watersheds: Challenges for Peacebuilding"

Supervision

Dr. Debora Malito 

Kerrie McGiveron

Postgraduate Research Student

k.j.mcgiveron@liverpool.ac.uk


Biography

Kerrie has a BA and an MA in History and 20th Century History, respectively. 

Research Interests

Thesis Title

"What is a Big Flame Group? Uncovering a radical, internationalist socialist-feminist organisation, 1970-1984."

Big Flame was a self-styled socialist feminist revolutionary group formed in Liverpool in 1970. This thesis will be the first qualitative and inter-disciplinary study, combining archival research with in-depth semi-structured interviews, of the Big Flame groups in Merseyside and East London between 1970 and 1984. It interprets Big Flame in the context of the growing literature on post-1968 European radical groups, and provides a unique and timely insight into social protest at grass-roots levels. The project will seek to situate Big Flame within the wider context of socialist feminism to assess the feminist challenge to the New Left and ascertain how Big Flame groups, as an unusual socialist feminist movement, reflected and adapted to broader social changes in feminism at this time. Neglected in historical and sociological scholarship on the politics of the Left in Liverpool, the story of Big Flame promises to make a significant contribution to our understanding of both socialist and feminist movements in Merseyside and Britain more broadly during the 1970s and 1980s.

Kerrie's wider research interests cover new left activism, second wave feminism and specifically, the radical left wing group, Big Flame. She looks at gender, class and radical political movements of the 20th Century. 

Research Funding

Arts and Humanities Research Centre (AHRC) - North West Consortium Doctoral Training Partnership (NWCDTP)

Emily McIndoe

Postgraduate Research Student

hsemcind@liverpool.ac.uk


Biography

Emily has a BA in History and an MA in Twentieth Century History, both from the University of Liverpool.

Research Interests

Emily’s thesis uses archival research and oral history interviews to analyse the different aspects of British aid to El Salvador, including British foreign policy, arms sales, the work of international development agencies and the El Salvador solidarity network. 

Thesis Title

"A Cold War Conundrum: British Aid to El Salvador, 1970 – 2009" 

Research Funding

Economic Social Research Council (ESRC).

Joel Mead 

Postgraduate Research Student 

Joel.Mead@liverpool.ac.uk


Bio

I joined the Department of History in October 2022 to conduct my doctoral studies under the supervision of Dr Chris Pearson (Department of History), Dr Mark Riley (Department of Geography and Planning) and Dr Sarah Arens (Department of Languages, Culture and Film).

Prior to this, I completed a BA in History at the University of Birmingham and an MA in Modern History at the University of Warwick.

Research Interests 

Thesis Title

Breaking and Remaking the British Egg: Intersections of Class, Health and Animal Welfare, 1956-1999.

My doctoral research explores the history of eggs in Britain, 1956-1999. It takes a holistic approach which looks not just at egg production but also the wider societal context of changing consumptive practices and public attitudes. Utilising government, industry and everyday cultural sources, my research is structured around a central driving question: how did developments in egg production and consumption shape and reflect understandings of class, health and animal welfare.

My research interests include:

  • History of Consumer and Popular Culture
  • History of Food
  • History of Medicine 
  • Animal History
  • Environmental History 

Research Funding 

Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) – North West Social Sciences Doctoral Training Partnership (NWSSDTP)

Eddie Meehan

Postgraduate Research Student

e.meehan@liverpool.ac.uk


Biography

Eddie is a postgraduate researcher in the history department working on the NWCDTP funded PhD project titled ‘Ideal rulership between insular and Carolingian worlds’. This studies early medieval advice literature to kings and how it sheds light on political culture more broadly. The project also includes a quantitative element using digital text analysis methods. He is supervised by Dr Marios Costambeys (Liverpool) and Dr Ingrid Rembold (Manchester).

ORCID: 0000-0003-3138-1048

Research Interests

Advice literature; political culture; kingship and queenship; gender; digital humanities; text analysis

Research Funding

AHRC NWCDTP grant number 2636070

Thomas Morrissey

Postgraduate Research Student

 T.morrissey@liverpool.ac.uk


Biography

Thomas has a BA and an MA in History, both of which were attained whilst studying at the University of Liverpool. As part of his PhD programme, Thomas also works as a Graduate Teaching Fellow with the University of Liverpool.

Research Interests

Thesis Title 

"The West Country Gentry and the English Reformation c.1530-c.1580."

Tom's research interests are early modern religious, cultural and political history and his research focuses on the responses of the West Country gentry to the English Reformation, encompassing the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I and the early years of that of Elizabeth I. Tom explores the far reaching impact the Reformation had on both the secular and religious roles of the gentry in local communities as well as the gentry’s role as instigators and implementers of government policy. 

Research Centre Membership

Liverpool Centre for Renaissance and Medieval Studies

Research Funding

University of Liverpool Graduate Teaching Fellowship.

 

Lucy Moynihan

Postgraduate Research Student 

hslmoyni@liverpool.ac.uk 


Bio

I am a first year PhD student in the department of history at Liverpool, where I also studied for my BA and MA degrees. I have worked with the Eighteenth-Century Libraries Online team at the University of Liverpool to trace the biographical details of library members in Liverpool and Manchester, and their connections to the trade in enslaved African people.

Research Interests 

Thesis Title

Race, Slavery and Abolition at the Liverpool Athenaeum and Beyond, 1797-1833.

I am interested in the history of reading communities and libraries in the long Eighteenth-century, especially in uncovering the role of the subscription library as a potential site of cultural, mercantile, economic and social networking. My research seeks to understand the role that reading and libraries played in the exchange of ideas across the Atlantic against the backdrop of the violent system of transatlantic slavery. I am especially interested in libraries in the Anglo-Caribbean world and in drawing connections between readers, from Jamaica and Demerara to Liverpool and Manchester.

Research Funding

Collaborative Doctoral Award funded by the AHRC through the North West Consortium Doctoral Training Partnership.

Daniel Payne

Postgraduate Research Student

D.Payne@liverpool.ac.uk


Research Interests

Thesis Title

"Liverpool: The anatomy of Social and Political change 1918-1939."

Danica Ramsey-Brimberg

Postgraduate Research Student

 D.Ramsey-Brimberg@liverpool.ac.uk


Biography

Danica has a BA in History with a minor in Irish Studies and a MEd in Secondary Education in history from Boston College.  She also has an MA in Medieval Archaeology from the University of York.  While her focus is on early medieval burials, her interests extend more broadly into burial archaeology; early medieval Scandinavia, Ireland, and the British Isles; and the integration of archaeological and historical sources.

Research Interests

Thesis Title

"The Powers That Be: Viking and Ecclesiastical Interactions in the Irish Sea Area from the Ninth to Eleventh Centuries”

Danica’s research analyzes furnished burials labelled “viking” in Irish Sea area churchyards to understand the process of settlement and the relationship and negotiations of power, status, and wealth between vikings and clerics.  This thesis combines both archaeological and historical sources to look at this interconnected, yet diverse area.

Research Centre Membership

Liverpool Centre for Renaissance and Medieval Studies

Teaching and Learning

Current Postgraduate Teaching Assistant for HIST115; Past Teacher for the International Summer School at the University of Liverpool

External Engagement

Co-Leader of the M6 Medieval Reading Group; Volunteer at the Garstang Museum; Recipient of Research Travel Grant from the Royal Historical Society

Harry Roberts

Postgraduate Research Student

h.roberts4@student.liverpool.ac.uk


Biography

BA (History), 1st Class Honours; MA (Cultural History) Distinction: University of Liverpool, 2013- 2017.

Research Interests

"British Nuclear Culture in the Rural Periphery: 1945-1991'

Drawing upon the recent body of scholarship upon British Nuclear Culture and the urban Cold War context, my project seeks to explore the social, cultural, and emotional impact of the Cold War within rural Britain, particularly focusing on the experiences of those citizens who lived alongside the varied ‘nuclear sites’ (RAF bases, weapons silos, power plants etc) that littered the British landscape during the Cold War era.

My study will capture a series of oral ‘life-histories’ from citizens who lived alongside the British nuclear apparatus, tracing the socio-cultural impact of competing attitudes towards nuclear technologies. By examining the interplay between the nuclear state and its citizenry at the local level, I hope to document the British public’s complex relationship with nuclear technologies, presenting the experiences of those individuals who built, lived with, revered, and feared these technologies as a key, as yet under-researched part of British Cold War history.

My thesis will draw upon insights from historical geography, the history of emotions, oral history, and nuclear studies to display the varied ways nuclear technologies conditioned everyday life during the nuclear age; hopefully offering a more rounded understanding of British nuclear culture.

Research Interests: Nuclear Culture; Oral history; Identity; History of Emotions; Space and Place; Use of VR in History; Modernity; Power; Secrecy

Research Funding

Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) - North West Consortium Doctoral Training Partnership (NWCDTP)

Supervision

Dr Jon HoggDr Chris PearsonDr Mark Riley

Sophie Rooney 

Postgraduate Research Student

s.rooney@liverpool.ac.uk  


Biography

Sophie has a BA in Geography from Lancaster University and a MCD in Town and Regional Planning from the University of Liverpool.  

She worked in consultancy (Socio-economic Development and Urban Planning) before commencing her PhD.

Thesis Title

"Expectations and Experiences of Cancer in Liverpool since 1948" 

Research Interests

Liverpool has some of the highest rates of cancer in the UK. Although the NHS has provided free health care for all since 1948, cancer charities have continued to fundraise to supplement state-funded clinical research, and to provide support for cancer patients and their families. There is now a well-established association between the areas of highest cancer incidence and mortality and those with the highest levels of socio-economic deprivation. Poorer people often seek medical advice later with signs of advanced cancer, and there appears to be a ‘fatalism’ response that is historically constructed. 

Sophie’s research will explore how the variation in cancer in Liverpool since 194is related to wider socio-economic and political issues; how cancer research and treatment policies have been influenced by different funding and NHS structures within the city region since 1948; and what role public expectations and experiences have played in creating distinct socio-economic ‘histories’ of cancer.  

Wider interests: 

  • Spatial inequalities 
  • Public health  
  • Economic development in Liverpool  
  • Historical narratives  
  • Social history of Liverpool 

Research Funding

Sophie was awarded a fully funded Studentship by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) as a CASE Doctoral Award with North West Cancer Research (NWCR). 

 

Amy Solomons

Postgraduate Research Student

amyjs@liverpool.ac.uk


Biography

I graduated from the University of Leeds in 2018 with a BA Honours in English and History. I completed an MSc in Information Management and Preservation (Distinction) from 2018-2019 at the University of Glasgow. 

Research Interests

Thesis Title

"Books for Everyone? National Trust Libraries and their Reading Communities in the Long Eighteenth Century"

My thesis examines country house libraries for evidence of shared reading practices across the long eighteenth century. I am specifically interested in interactions women and children had with the libraries and any evidence of engagement with eighteenth-century texts. My research analyses the space of country house libraries and books to counter current suggestions that libraries in the long eighteenth century were masculine spaces.

The thesis is a collaboration with the National Trust. Case studies used within my study include: Dunham Massey, Erddig, Lyme Park, Nostell Priory, Tatton Park and Townend.

I am interested in the history of the book, and, in particular, the history of women’s reading and writing from circa. 1600-1800. A major aspect of my research is country houses and the history of country house libraries and reading. This involves researching the broader social, political and religious context of the period. Other influences on my research include the history of archives and recordkeeping, the intersection between archival theory and practice and creating catalogues with searchable copy-specific information.

Research Funding

Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) - North West Consortium Doctoral Training Partnership (NWCDTP) – Collaborative Doctoral Award (CDA).

Richard Smith

Postgraduate Research Student

r.g.smith@liverpool.ac.uk


Biography

After initially training as a chemist and following a career in innovation the public and private sectors, he obtained a BA (Hons) in Spanish, French and History from the Open University and an MA in Latin American Studies from the University of Liverpool.

He was awarded a Franklin College-University of Liverpool Doctoral Student Short-Term International Research Fellowship in 2017 and was president of PILAS (Postgraduates in Latin American Studies, the postgraduate affiliate of the Society for Latin American Studies (SLAS)) 2017-2018.

Research Interests

Thesis Title

"Opposing Pinochat: The causes and concequences of protest in Santiago de Chile in the 1980s"

His research focuses on the socio-political history of Latin-America. He examines the response of the Chilean people to the Pinochet Government in the 1980s and the complex social networks that underpinned their vigorous opposition.

Research Centre Membership

Conflict, Memory and Heritage

Research Funding

Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) - North West Social Science Doctoral Training Partnership (NWSSDTP)

Frank Thorpe

Postgraduate Research Student

F.Thorpe@liverpool.ac.uk


Biography

Frank graduated with a First Class degree in History from the University of Cambridge, before achieving a Distinction in the interdisciplinary MA in Eighteenth-Century Studies (English Literature/History) at the University of Sheffield

Frank went on to teach secondary school History, before returning to academia. 

Research Interests

Thesis Title

"Changing attitudes to smell in twentieth-century British personal hygiene"

From the 1920s, soaps tackling body odour, or ‘BO’, were marketed at British consumers; by the 1950s, deodorant products had become firmly established in British society. Frank’s research seeks to explain the deodorisation of the personal ‘sensescape’ in modern Britain by exploring shifts in the meanings and stigmas associated with body odours and personal hygiene.

The project involves a partnership with Unilever and documents relating to advertising and market research, as well as material evidence such as product packaging, will be analysed at the company archives. Other key sources for the research include reports from local Medical Officers of Health and school inspectors, the Mass Observation archive, lifestyle magazines and newspapers

Frank’s work is informed by, and will contribute to the development of, methodologies and concepts used in sensory history, the medical humanities and histories of production and consumption.

Twitter: FrankThorpe17

Research Group Membership

Frank is a member of the organising committee for the North West Medical Humanities Postgraduate Network.

Research Funding

Frank was awarded a fully-funded Studentship by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) through the North West Social Science Doctoral Training Partnership (NWSSDTP), as a CASE Doctoral Award, in partnership with Unilever.

Catherine Tully

Postgraduate Research Student

catherine.tully@liverpool.ac.uk


Research Interests

Thesis Title

"Bare lives/ abject deaths: abolitionism, affect, and the execution of women in Britain 1868-1968."

Catherine's thesis examines the abolitionist campaign against the death penalty in Britain between 1868, when state executions were first privatised, and 1968, shortly after the death penalty was abolished. Focussing on the role the execution of what were regarded as ‘deviant’ women, namely those who flouted perceived gender norms by killing, it will interrogate how abolitionists were able to exploit the unique psychological sphere generated by the privatisation of executions; how women were represented by abolitionists; to what extent such representations supported or subverted gendered discourses about women who killed; and how these discourses permeated the public psyche.

Laurence Westgaph

Postgraduate Research Student

L.Westgaph@liverpool.ac.uk


Research Interests

Thesis Title

"African Liverpool: Black Community in a Slave Trade City ."

Elizabeth Wilkinson

Postgraduate Research Student

Elizabeth.Wilkinson@liverpool.ac.uk


Biography

Elizabeth attained her BA and MA (Distinction) in History at the University of Liverpool (2016-2020). Her MA dissertation examined emotions in religious polemics dating to the 1520s and 1530s concerning purgatory. Elizabeth is employed by the University as a Graduate Teaching Assistant for the 2022–2023 academic year.

Elizabeth’s research takes a history-of-emotions approach to the study of death in sixteenth-century England, covering the deathbed, funerals and the afterlife. The aim of the thesis is to determine whether there was a degree of emotional continuity across varied sources from the pre-Reformation and later sixteenth century. In order to achieve this, Ars Moriendi treatises, funeral accounts, sermons, and religious polemics will be consulted.

Research Interests 

Thesis Title

Death and Emotions in Sixteenth-Century England: Preparing to Die, Funerals and the Afterlife

Elizabeth’s research interests include religious, cultural and social history. She is particularly interested in the early years of the Reformation.

Research Funding

Scholarship awarded by the School of Histories, Languages and Cultures at the University of Liverpool.