Academic staff in the Department of History

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We're home to experts spanning many different subjects areas across philosophy, history, art history, and interdisciplinary studies.

Our experts are open to research supervision and have a variety of research interests which span many intellectually stimulating topics. We recommend browsing staff profiles to learn more about our staff's specific areas of research, and to explore supervision opportunities. You'll also find details on current postgraduate student supervision and details of recent and previous publications. If you'd like to search for a specific research opportunity, you'll need to enter your keywords on research finder.

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Head of School

Dr Matthew Grant

Head of School

School of Philosophical, Historical, Interdisciplinary Studies, University of Essex

Dr Matthew Grant's covers the history of Britain since 1939, focusing on the cultural and political impact of war and conflict on the home front. His other research interests also covers the cold war and nuclear conflict, and citizenship in Britain.

Art History, Curating, and Heritage

Explore our art history, curating, and heritage staff profiles to learn about their teaching, research, current supervision, and research supervision opportunities.

Explore our staff profiles

Dr Lisa Blackmore

Research interests: Modernity in Latin America; Visual culture; Space and politics; Memory politics; Human-nature relations; Water, hydraulics, liquid ecologies in the arts; Environmental aesthetics; Photography; Digital culture; Contemporary visual production in Latin America; VENEZUELA RESEARCH NETWORK. With Dr. Penélope Plaza (University of Reading), Dr. Rebecca Jarman (University of Leeds).

Dr William Carruthers

Research interests: History of heritage; History of museums; History of archaeology; History of anthropology; Politics and ethics of archaeology and heritage; History of the field sciences; The field sciences, imperialism and colonialism; History, politics, and practice of archives; Dams and dispossession; Middle East history

Dr Paola Di Giuseppantonio Di Franco

Research interests: Disaster Heritage; Community Resilience; Heritage and Sense of Place; Digital Replicas of Heritage; Virtual Museums; Digital Heritage; Immersive environments for Heritage and Museums; The Heritage of Natural Catastrophes; Affect, Cognition and Perception in Digital Heritage Studies; Video Ethnography for Heritage Studies

Dr Matt Lodder

Research interests: tattooing and body modification in their historical and theoretical contexts; lowbrow, outsider, countercultural, kitsch and erotic art & visual culture; the visual and cultural contexts of sex and sadomasochism, including pornography; internet and digital art; methodologies of art historical and visual culture study

Dr Natasha Ruiz-Gomez

Research interests: Art and science/medicine; Auguste Rodin's oeuvre; Nineteenth-century French sculpture; Architecture and urban planning in nineteenth-century Paris; Auguste Rodin and science; Jean-Martin Charcot and art; Objectivity and medical imagery; Medical portraiture; Nineteenth-century medical photography; Theories of degeneration and genius

Dr Joerg Schaub

Research interests: Social and Political Philosophy (focus on contemporary theories and 19th century German authors); Frankfurt School and Contemporary Critical Theory; Aesthetics

Dr Michael Tymkiw

Research interests: Spectatorship; Histories of modernism; Exhibition design and curation; The relationship between art and politics; The use of digital technologies in museums and galleries; Intersections between pre-modern and modern art

Professor Diana Bullen Presciutti

Research interests: visual hagiography; charitable institutions (hospitals, confraternities); visual culture of social problems; late medieval and Renaissance Italian visual culture (1300-1600); reception theory; visual culture of the mendicant orders; gender and sexuality; medical humanities

Philosophy

Explore our philosophy staff profiles to learn about their teaching, research, current supervision, and research supervision opportunities.

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Dr Matthew Burch

Research interests: Matt works on issues at the intersection of phenomenology; action theory; and research in the cognitive and social sciences.

Dr Lorna Finlayson

Professor Fabian Freyenhagen

Research interests: Theory, history and practice of autonomy; Frankfurt School (especially Adorno); Ethics (particularly critique of Kant's and Kantian ethics); Political Philosophy

Dr Steven Gormley

Research interests: Ethics and politics of attention (particularly the work of Iris Murdoch); Deconstruction; Deliberative democratic theory;

Dr Fiona Hughes

Research interests: Phenomenology (French and German)

Professor Timo Jütten

Research interests: Critical Social Theory (Adorno, Habermas, Honneth); The moral status of Capitalism and Markets; Philosophy; Feminism (especially sexual objectification, prostitution, pornography); Philosophical foundations of human rights (the relationship between human dignity and human rights, mental capacity and human rights, human rights and Big Data); Competition and Competitiveness

Professor Wayne Martin

Research interests: Philosophy of Psychiatry; Phenomenology (esp Hume, Husserl, Heidegger, Th Lipps, L&oslashgstrup); Kant and post-Kantian idealism (esp Fichte); The history and philosophy of logic; Philosophy and painting; Self-Consciousness; Autonomy and the Regulation of Care; Political Philosophy; Will, Agency and Contract

Professor Irene McMullin

Research interests: Existentialism; Phenomenology; Ethics

Dr Joerg Schaub

Research interests: Social and Political Philosophy (focus on contemporary theories and 19th century German authors); Frankfurt School and Contemporary Critical Theory; Aesthetics

Dr Ellisif Wasmuth

Research interests: Ancient Philosophy, with particular focus on Plato; ancient conceptions of the self and self-knowledge; Socratic ethics; the Platonic dialogueAlcibiades I.;

Dr Daniel Watts

Research interests: Kierkegaard; Wittgenstein; The theory of judgement; Medical Humanities; Existentialism and phenomenology; Moral and political philosophy and; Philosophy of religion

History

Explore our history staff profiles to learn about their teaching, research, current supervision, and research supervision opportunities.

Explore our staff profiles

Dr Thomas Freeman

Lecturer, School of Philosophical, Historical, and Interdisciplinary Studies

Research interests: Medieval and Early Modern Martyrdom; Perceptions of the Middle Ages in the Early Modern Period; Early Modern Historical Writing; Demonic Possession and Exorcism; Early Modern Colchester; Film and History; English Reformation;

Dr Alix Green

Reader, School of Philosophical, Historical, and Interdisciplinary Studies

Research interests: Political cultures and policy; Public history; Archives and archiving

Professor Peter Gurney

Professor, School of Philosophical, Historical, and Interdisciplinary Studies

Research interests: Consumerism and consumer movements; Popular politics and popular protest; Working-class culture and autobiography

Professor Sean Kelley

Professor, School of Philosophical, Historical, and Interdisciplinary Studies

Research interests: New World slavery; The transatlantic slave trade; Africans in the Americas; Transnational mercantile networks and connections; Maritime history; Testimony, autobiography, and narrative in African and Atlantic history; Global and transnational approaches to history

Professor Tracey Loughran

Director of Centre for Public and Policy Engagement - Professor (R), School of Philosophical, Historical, and Interdisciplinary Studies

Research interests: History of gender; History of psychology and psychoanalysis; History of subjectivity; History of war and trauma; Historiography and historical theory; Empathy and emotion in medical training

Professor Lucy Noakes

Professor, School of Philosophical, Historical, and Interdisciplinary Studies

Research interests: I am a social and cultural historian of modern warfare

Dr Andrew Priest

Senior Lecturer, School of Philosophical, Historical, and Interdisciplinary Studies

Research interests: US foreign policy since c1860; Public opinion and foreign policy; Anglo-American relations

Prof Matthias Röhrig Assunção

Emeritus Professor, School of Philosophy and Art History

Research interests: History of slavery and post-emancipation societies; Agrarian and peasant history; Political history of Nineteenth and twentieth century Brazil; Latin American popular culture; Capoeira - combat games and martial arts in the Black Atlantic

Professor Nadine Rossol

Professor, School of Philosophical, Historical, and Interdisciplinary Studies

Research interests: German history, especially social and cultural history of Weimar and Nazi Germany; European cultural and urban history; police history

Professor Alison Rowlands

Professor, School of Philosophical, Historical, and Interdisciplinary Studies

Research interests: The social and cultural history of early modern Germany.; Gender in early modern Europe.; Witchcraft, magic and witch-trials, especially in early modern Germany and England; Witch-trials in fiction, commemorative practice, and public history.

Dr Felix Schnell

Senior Lecturer, School of Philosophical, Historical, and Interdisciplinary Studies

Research interests: Russian and Soviet History in the late 19th and 20th Century; History of Ukraine; War, Violence, and Revolution in 19th and 20th Century Europe

Dr Lisa Smith

Faculty Dean Postgraduate (Humanities) - Senior Lecturer (R), School of Philosophical, Historical, and Interdisciplinary Studies

Research interests: Britain and France, ca 1600-1800; Digital History; Medicine and Science; Supernatural; Body; Gender History; Food

Dr Xun Zhou

Reader, School of Philosophical, Historical, and Interdisciplinary Studies

Research interests: Race and Ethnicity in East Asia; Social History of Drugs; Visual History, Southeast and East Asia; Social and Political History of Modern China; History of Public Health and Medicine in 20th century China; Food and Foodways; Global Environmental History; History of Religion in Modern East Asia; Global Public Health

Dr Matthew Grant

Head of School - Reader, School of Philosophical, Historical, and Interdisciplinary Studies

Research interests: British history since 1939; impact of war and conflict on the home front; The cold war and nuclear conflict; Citizenship in Britain

Interdisciplinary studies

Explore our interdisciplinary studies staff profiles to learn about their teaching, research, current supervision, and research supervision opportunities.