I am an historian of twentieth-century Britain, with a speciality in politics, gender, sexuality and culture. I am the author of, most recently, Sexual Politics: Sexuality, Family Planning and the British Left from the 1880s to the Present Day (Oxford, 2012), as well as articles on the photographer Roger Mayne, on Britain in the 1980s and on themes of love and romance in popular music and film in the twentieth century. In 2024, my new book, London, 1984: Conflict and Change in the Radical City will be published by Oxford University Press. In 2020, I was awarded a SSHRC Insight grant to begin a project entitled 'Politics and Emotion in Britain, c.1970 to c. 1970'. The project will explore the centrality of emotion to questions such as racism, inequality and globalization, as well as to the experience of specific historical developments and events in the late twentieth century such as refugee crises, famine, and economic change over a tumultuous thirty-year period.

Research Interests

• York University, Faculty of Arts Fellowship 2007-2008 - 2007-2008
• Residency, Rockefeller Foundation, Bellagio Study Centre, Bellagio, Italy 2005 - 2005
• Residency, Getty Summer Institute in Visual Culture, University of Rochester, New York 1998 - 1998
• Burgess Research Fellow, Dalhousie University 1997 - 1997
• James McGill Award, McGill University 1989 - 1989
• Province of Ontario Graduate Scholarship 1986 - 1986
• SSHRC Insight Grant - 2012
• SSHRC Insight Grant - 2020

Current Research Projects

I am an historian of twentieth-century Britain, with a speciality in politics, gender, sexuality and culture. I am the author of, most recently, Sexual Politics: Sexuality, Family Planning and the British Left from the 1880s to the Present Day (Oxford, 2012), as well as articles on the photographer Roger Mayne, on Britain in the 1980s and on themes of love and romance in popular music and film in the twentieth century. In 2024, my new book, London, 1984: Conflict and Change in the Radical City will be published by Oxford University Press. In 2020, I was awarded a SSHRC Insight grant to begin a project entitled 'Politics and Emotion in Britain, c.1970 to c. 1970'. The project will explore the centrality of emotion to questions such as racism, inequality and globalization, as well as to the experience of specific historical developments and events in the late twentieth century such as refugee crises, famine, and economic change over a tumultuous thirty-year period.

Degrees

Professional Leadership

Co-editor, Twentieth-Century British History, 2004 to 2011 Co-editor, Left History, 2001 to 2008

Associate Editor, Dalhousie Review, 1997-9

Community Contributions

Member, Editorial Board, Twentieth-Century British History, 2000 to present

Member, Editorial Board, Journal of British Studies, 2006 to present

CHA Programme Committee, Toronto, 2006

Member, Editorial Board, Contemporary British History, 1994 to 1999

North American Conference on British Studies, Toronto conference, 2001, Local Arrangements Organizer

Manuscript reviewing for Oxford University Press

Member, History Adjudication Committee for Research Grants, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Committee of Canada, 1993-6

Member, Canadian Commonwealth Scholarship and Fellowship Committee, 1990-4

Research Interests

Awards

• York University, Faculty of Arts Fellowship 2007-2008 - 2007-2008
• Residency, Rockefeller Foundation, Bellagio Study Centre, Bellagio, Italy 2005 - 2005
• Residency, Getty Summer Institute in Visual Culture, University of Rochester, New York 1998 - 1998
• Burgess Research Fellow, Dalhousie University 1997 - 1997
• James McGill Award, McGill University 1989 - 1989
• Province of Ontario Graduate Scholarship 1986 - 1986
• SSHRC Insight Grant - 2012
• SSHRC Insight Grant - 2020