History

Professor Richard Bradford

Professor of Literary History & Theory

Richard Bradford is Professor of English and Senior Distinguished Research Fellow. His work on poetry and poetics has been praised by John Hollander and René Wellek as offering new, groundbreaking perspectives upon the nature of verse.

His biographies of post-war British writers have received enthusiastic reviews in broadsheets and weeklies, with D.J. Taylor in The Independent commenting on his 'Lucky Him. The Life of Kingsley Amis' (2001) that 'no-one has done such a detailed job of analysis... No-one, either, has so relentlessly exposed the central struggles of Amis's life'.

Roger Lewis, in the Daily Express wrote of 'First Boredom, Then Fear. The Life of Philip Larkin' (2005) that 'Bradford is in such complete command of the subject matter that nothing escapes him. It is as if he has had access to Larkin's very thought processes. A great biography of a great artistic genius. Utterly magnificent'.

He writes occasionally for The Spectator and has been commissioned as authorised biographer of Alan Sillitoe.
Education

He did his BA in the University of Wales and his D.Phil. in Oxford and has held posts in the Universities of Oxford and Wales and in Trinity College Dublin. He was Visiting Lecturer in Eotvos Lorand University, Budapest and in the University of Warsaw.

Since his arrival at Ulster University he has published 15 books on various aspects of literature and culture from the Renaissance to the present day, including A Linguistic History of English Poetry (Routledge, 1993); Roman Jakobson. Life, Language, Art (Routledge, 1994); The Look of It. A Theory of Visual Form in English Poetry (Cork University Press, 1993); and Stylistics (Routledge, 1997).

Professor Elizabeth Crooke

Professor of Museum and Heritage Studies

Professor Elizabeth Crooke is Principal Investigator of UK Research and Innovation funded-project Museums, Crisis and Covid-19: Vitality and Vulnerabilities (Dec 2020-May 2022), which is investigating how the museum sector will emerge and refocus in the aftermath of the Covid-19 crisis.

The project is in collaboration with the Museums Association, NI Museums Council, National Lottery Heritage Fund, and regional museums in Northern Ireland.

This new UKRI project builds on her position as a leading academic in museum and heritage studies and her close connection with the museum sector.

Her co-edited collection Heritage after Conflict: Northern Ireland (Routledge 2018) brought together scholars with varying perspectives on the heritage landscape in Northern Ireland post-1998.

Her peer reviewed journal articles can be found in Memory Studies; Cultural Geographies; International Journal of Heritage Studies; Irish Political Studies; Liminalities: Journal of Performance Studies; and Journal of the History of Collections.

In collaboration with the Irish Museums Association, she is co-supervising a Northern Bridge AHRC-funded Doctoral Research Project investigating the character and legacy of EU funding in the museum sector in Northern Ireland and border counties.

Elizabeth has been invited to speak at museum and academic events by the Association of Critical Heritage Studies UK, Arts and Humanities Research Council, University of Toronto, V&A, Trinity College Dublin, Royal Irish Academy, National Museum of Ireland, University of Stockholm, and University of Antwerp. She has examined PhDs at Universities of Cambridge, Cardiff, Leeds, Limerick, Newcastle and Northumbria.

She has made a significant contribution to the Northern Ireland museum sector as Chair Board Directors, NI Museums Council (Sept 2015-Jan 2021) and as a current Board member.

She is part of the Museum Standards Programme Advisory Committee, Heritage Council (Ireland) and has served on the Board of Directors Irish Museums Association. She was CI on the AHRC-funded First World War Engagement Centre Living Legacies (2014-2019).

Dr Gabriel Guarino

Lecturer in Early Modern History

Gabriel Guarino is a cultural historian. He has various publications on the Spanish expansion and its socio-cultural influence in Europe and the Americas, on the cultural history of European princely courts and on the African-American Diaspora.

He is presently working on a comparative study of the Viceregal courts of Spain, and on the edition of two collections of essays.

Education

BA, MA (University of Haifa), PhD (Cantab.).

Research Fields

Early modern history, cultural studies, communication studies, historical anthropology, Spanish studies, Italian studies, Atlantic history.

Dr Kyle Hughes

Lecturer in British History

Dr Andrew Keanie

Lecturer in English & History of the Irish Book

Andrew Keanie has taught English at Coleraine since 2002. He specialises in Romanticism, and coordinates and lectures on the module Romantics and Victorians (final year BA Hons) and other specialist optional modules.

He is currently final-year tutor and has published books and articles on S.T. Coleridge, Hartley Coleridge, De Quincey, Wordsworth, Keats, Byron and P.B. Shelley. 

Education

1996: BA English, University of Ulster 1999: PhD (Wordsworth), University of Ulster

Research Fields

Romanticism (with a current focus on De Quincey's life-writing, life habits and writing habits), plagiarism (again, with a focus at the moment on De Quincey), and the life and work of T.S. Eliot.

Professor Leanne McCormick

Professor of Modern History

I am Professor of History and Director of the Centre for the History of Medicine in Ireland (CHOMI) at Ulster University. My research interests include women's history, history of sexuality and history of medicine in Ireland/Northern Ireland and the diaspora and I have published widely in these areas.

I was awarded a Distinguished Research Fellowship by Ulster University in 2016 and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in 2018. I am a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

With Professor Elaine Farrell (QUB), I have been working on the AHRC funded 'Bad Bridget: Criminal and Deviant Irish Women in North America, 1838-1918'. We have produced a podcast series, an exhibition at the National Museums NI, Ulster American Folk Park in Omagh and a book, Bad Bridget: Crime, mayhem and the lives of Irish emigrant women which was no.1 in the Irish non-fiction bestseller list.

I was the co-author with Professor Sean O'Connell (QUB) of a Department of Health commissioned report on Mother and Baby Homes and Magdalene Laundries in Northern Ireland. And I am the Co-Chair of the Independent Truth Recovery Panel appointed in 2023 as part of the Truth Recovery Programme seeking truth, acknowledgement and accountability around Mother and Baby Institutions, Magdalene Laundries, Workhouses, and associated pathways and practices, in advance of a statutory Public Inquiry.

From 2022 I have been working on an AHRC funded project, Queer Northern Ireland: Sexuality before Liberation with Dr Tom Hulme (QUB). I have delivered talks on my research in Ireland, the UK and internationally and I was the Visiting Research Fellow at the Centre for Advanced Studies JNU New Delhi in 2018.

I am a member of the Library and Heritage Committee for the Royal College of Physicians in Ireland, a Stakeholder and User Forum member of Public Records Office of Northern Ireland, committee member of the Ulster Society for Irish Historical Studies and board member of the Irish Humanities Alliance.

I am currently an editorial board member for Irish Historical Studies and a have previously been the Book Reviews Editor for the Women's History Association of Ireland. I was a member of the QAA Subject Benchmark Statement Advisory Group for History, 2021 and have been External Examiner on the UG History programmes at Trinity College Dublin and the University of Strathclyde.

Dr Robert McNamara

Senior Lecturer in International History

Dr Robert McNamara previously worked as a research fellow at University College Cork (1999-2002) and taught part-time at Maynooth University (2002-2007). He also worked for the Irish Civil Service (2003-2007)

He joined Ulster University in August 2007 as a Lecturer in international history and was promoted Senior Lecturer in October 2013.

Robert was also Course Director for History between 2009 and 2014 and is currently a member of the Ulster University Research Ethics Committee.

Education

Robert studied at University College Cork, National University of Ireland and was awarded a BA Hons in History and English (1995) and PhD in History (1999) by the National University of Ireland. He was also awarded an MA in Public Administration (2006) from the Institute of Public Administration in Dublin.

Research Fields

Robert's research areas are in the history of British and European decolonisation and he has written or edited several books on aspects of imperial and colonial history. Robert has also published articles in several of major international journals, including the Journal of Contemporary History and the International History Review.

His doctoral dissertation was entitled "Britain's Other Cold War: A Study of British Policy towards Nasser's Egypt from Suez to the Six Day War" at University College, Cork.  He has published seven scholarly articles in Historical journals and numerous book chapters and has written two books. He also edited a book on the Churchill Family and Ireland.

Robert's current research is a project entitled Defying the Wind of Change: The Great Powers, Regional Players and the struggle for Southern Africa 1961-1980. This is a collaboration with Professor Filipe Riberio de Meneses of Maynooth University. Grants awarded to support this project include: A British academy grant of £7084 and €100k from the Irish Research Council for Humanities and Social Sciences. The archival work for this project is based on research in Britain, Southern Africa, Portugal and the United States.

He is happy to receive enquiries from potential PhD and MPhil students wishing to work on British imperial history, African history, decolonization, comparative Empires, and 20th century Irish history.

Dr Ian Miller

Senior Lecturer in History

Ian Miller is Senior Lecturer in Medical History at Ulster University, and Senior Fellow of HEA. Ian is author of eight medical history books. History of Ireland in Ten Body Parts was shortlisted in the An Post Irish Book Awards as 'Hodges Figgis History Book of the Year. Earlier books looked at the force-feeding of hunger strikers, how the Irish diet changed (mostly for the worse) after the Irish Famine and the surprisingly interesting history of the Victorian stomach. In 2024, Ian published two books on the thought-provoking history of self-esteem (Polity), and has a four-volume edition on food in 19th-century Britain forthcoming with Routledge.

Ian is PI on the AHRC/DfE-funded project, Epidemic Belfast, a podcast series and learning resource on Belfast's under-explored medical history.

Ian regularly attracts major funding. He is currently involved in the following funded projects:

• (Co-PI) CHOICE: A Community Consortium To Tackle Health Disparities For People Living with Mental Illness (AHRC PI: Gerard Leavey, UU, School of Psychology).
• (Co-PI): Translating Medical History Research into Screen Projects (AHRC Impact Acceleration).
• (PI) Engaging Local Belfast Communities in Medical History and Heritage (AHRC Impact Acceleration).
• (PI) ‘Feeding Children? Food Poverty across Ireland: Historical, Current and Future Perspectives' (AHRC Impact Acceleration).

Ian has held visiting fellowships at the Max Planck Centre for the History of Emotions (Berlin), INSERM (Paris), Institute for General Practice and Community Medicine (Oslo) and, most recently in 2022, at HEX (Academy of Finland Centre of Excellence in the History of Experiences), University of Tampere.

Ian's work has featured in Guardian, Independent, London Review of Books, New Yorker, Sunday Times, Sunday Post, Irish Times, Times Literary Supplement among many others. Ian has appeared and consulted on a number of BBC, RTÉ and Disney+ stations.

Ian is Book Review Editor for the journal Social History of Medicine, Secretary for Royal Irish Academy (Historical Studies), AHRC Peer Review College member and Irish Research Council Board panel member.

Dr Leonie Murray

Lecturer in International Politics

Dr Peter O'Connor

Senior Lecturer

Dr Andrew Sneddon

Senior Lecturer in International History

Dr Andrew Sneddon is an historian of early modern and modern social and cultural history. A graduate of University of St Andrews and Lancaster University, he worked as a curator at the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland and did his post-doctoral work at Queen's University Belfast. He joined Ulster University's History team in 2009.
He has won numerous awards and grants for his research and has dissimilated it all over the world through conference papers, workshops, invited talks and visiting fellowships. His research has been widely published in books, edited chapters, and journal articles, and most recently deals with the history of supernatural in Britain and Ireland in a global context.

He is committed to civic engagement, outreach, and impactful public history and has designed and delivered numerous public exhibitions, workshops, and talks. He has also consulted on and contributed to a wide range of blogs, podcasts, television and radio programmes (BBC, RTE, TG4, ITV) and written for leading newspapers and magazines.

He teaches early modern global history at Ulster University (from undergraduate to PhD level) and has been external examiner for a number of post-graduate programmes at other Universities.

He is a member of the AHRC Peer Review College, a previous president of Ulster Society of Irish Historical Studies and currently joint editor of leading journal, Irish Historical Studies

Professor Ian Thatcher

Research Director History

Ian Thatcher undertook graduate work in Russian at Soviet History at Glasgow, famous as the scholarly home of the journal Soviet Studies and of the late Professor Alec Nove.

The Head of the Glasgow Institute at that time was Professor Bill Wallace, one of the founders of the History Department at Coleraine. Ian's route to a Chair at Ulster was academic posts in Scotland, New Zealand, and England.

Ian is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, and a member of the Study Group on the Russian Revolution (UK) and of the Association for Slavic, East European, & Eurasian Studies (USA).

Research Fields

The history of Russian Social Democracy, the 1917 Revolution in Russia, and the history of the USSR.

Ian has received funding from the British Academy and the Leverhulme Trust.

He has also held a visiting fellowship at the Slavic Research Centre, Hokkaido University, Japan; a Research Directorship at the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Study, University of Helsinki; and has been a British Academy-Russian Academy of Sciences Exchange Scholar.

Dr Kathryn White

Associate Head of School of Arts & Humanities

Dr Nerys Young

Lecturer in American History