Centre for Modern and Contemporary History

The Centre's chief function is to provide an intellectual forum for academic staff and postgraduates working in the field of modern and contemporary history (since c. 1815). The Centre explicitly seeks to facilitate transnational and comparative research on all aspects (social, cultural, political, economic) of the history of the contemporary world.

Spanning a wide geographical and thematic range, the Centre has particular strengths in the social, political and cultural history of Britain, continental Europe, Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, and North America. It also embraces a truly global perspective through members' research on non-governmental politics, international relations, conflict and the environment. It is keen to encourage study with the following themes:

• How the forces of world history have structured society and shaped the lives of people who lived through them
• Regional and local histories from a global or comparative perspectives
• The links between imperial, global and transnational histories
• The development of knowledge for understanding the contemporary world

Over 30 members of academic staff at the University of Birmingham are associated with the Centre for Modern and Contemporary History. They include scholars from the Department of History and several other departments. The Centre's members also include doctoral students researching related topics, and students on our History programmes.

Department of History

• Nicholas Crowson
  History of party politics, foreign policy and NGOs in contemporary Britain
• Malcolm Dick
  Social History of the West Midlands, 1750 to the present
• David Gange
  History of religion and Near Eastern archaeology in 19th-century Britain
• Armin Gruenbacher
  German post-war social, economic, and political history
• Steve Hewitt
  Spying, security and intelligence in America; anti-Americanism; and Canadian history and politics from the 1960s to the present
• Simon Jackson
  Colonial empire, the Middle East and the Mediterranean in the twentieth century
• Sabine Lee
  20th-century European international history, history of the aftermath of conflict, and history of physics
• Marta Musso
  Historian of energy policies, decolonization in North Africa, international development and the digital world
• Lucie Ryzova
  Middle Eastern History
• Shirley Ye
  Globalization, environmental history, history of science and technology, postcolonial and development studies, Chinese historiography, cultural studies

School of Languages, Cultures, Art History and Music

• Martyn Cornick
  20th-century French cultural history; Franco-British inter-cultural studies
• Nicholas Martin
  German intellectual and cultural history from the Enlightenment to the present day
• Berny Sèbe
  History of 19th- and 20th-century European imperialisms, decolonisation and post-colonialism

Political Science and International Studies

• Peter Burnham
  British political history, radical international political economy (IPE), and state history since 1945
• Timothy Haughton
  20th-century politics of Slovakia, Slovenia and the Czech Republic; party politics in Central and Eastern Europe

Centre for the History of Medicine

• Jonathan Reinarz
  History of hospitals, medical education, medical specialisation, alcohol, and the senses in England, 1750-1950

The Centre for Modern and Contemporary History and the University of Birmingham are able to provide a unique learning experience for prospective postgraduate students interested in contemporary history.

The Centre supports a broader community of postgraduates studying on a variety of courses alongside doctoral research. Postgraduates at the Centre are fully involved with the staff's seminar series and also run events and seminars of their own.

The Centre prides itself on the quality and range of research undertaken by its members and students equally, offering the perfect environment for researching history from a global perspective from the end of World War One onwards. The centre will enable you to develop your research ideas and project through working with staff and fellow students.

With over 30 members of academic staff at the University of Birmingham associated with the Centre for Modern and Contemporary History makes it the perfect place for conducting your postgraduate research, whether at MA or Doctoral level. If you are interested in a particular area of research do not hesitate contact one of the staff for further information about supervision.

Research-based programmes involved with the Centre include:

• MRes History
• PhD History