Dr Shahmima Akhtar

Department of History
Assistant Professor of Black and Asian British History

Contact details

Email: s.s.akhtar@bham.ac.uk

Address: University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

I am a historian of race, migration and empire. My first book Exhibiting Irishness: Empire, Race and Nation, c. 1850-1970 (forthcoming) traces multiple constructions of Irish identity in national and international displays as Ireland moved from a colonial to an independent, globally-connected state. As a cultural history of Irish identity, the book considers exhibitions as a formative platform for imagining a host of Irish pasts, presents and futures. My second project continues my interest in visual histories and is provisionally titled Brumistan: Race and Resistance in Birmingham’s British Bangladeshi Communities in the 1970s and 80s, seeks to interrogate the activism, community networks and anti-racist action of this collective in the late-twentieth century. I have formerly worked at the Royal Historical Society to improve BME representation in UK History, whether working with schools and the curriculum, cultural institutions, community groups or other learned societies. I have also worked closely with museums and heritage sites as a researcher and consultant on shaping histories of the British Empire for today’s populace. Overall, I am committed to researching histories of race, migration and empire and thinking through their presentation in historic or contemporary visual platforms.

Qualifications

PhD in History, University of Birmingham, 2019
MA in Global History, University of Birmingham, 2015
BA (Hons) in History, University of Birmingham, 2014

Biography

I completed my higher education training at the University of Birmingham, undertaking my BA, Masters and PhD (funded by the Arts and Humanities Council, Midlands3Cities Award). I was a Lecturer in Minorities in Multi-Ethnic Britain at Royal Holloway, University of London from 2020 to 2023. I have formerly worked with the Royal Historical Society on race equality policy in history higher education. Further, I have worked with Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery alongside the curatorial and collections team. I am a fellow of the Higher Education Academy and ECR Fellow of Royal Historical Society.

Teaching

I teach on a range of undergraduate and taught postgraduate programmes at the University of Birmingham. Courses I have taught include:

Group Research
Making of the Contemporary World
Centre for West Midlands History
‘There is Black in the Union Jack’: An Introduction to Black and South Asian British History
MA Supervision

Postgraduate supervision

I welcome graduate students working on race, migration and empire in nineteenth and twentieth century Britain. Further, I am happy to supervise on projects related to visual and cultural histories whether looking at world's fairs, exhibitions or display in any form.

Find out more - our PhD History page has information about doctoral research at the University of Birmingham.

Research

I am a historian of race, migration and empire. My first book Exhibiting Irishness: Empire, Race and Identity, 1850s to 1960s (Manchester, 2024) traces multiple constructions of Irish identity in national and international displays as Ireland moved from a colonial to an independent, globally-connected state. As a cultural history of Irish identity, the book considers exhibitions as a formative platform for imagining a host of Irish pasts, presents and futures. I have formerly worked at the Royal Historical Society to improve BME representation in UK History, whether working with schools and the curriculum, cultural institutions, community groups or other learned societies. I have also worked closely with museums and heritage sites as a researcher and consultant on shaping histories of the British Empire for today’s populace. Overall, I am committed to researching histories of race, migration and empire and thinking through their presentation in historic or contemporary visual platforms.

Other activities

Disciplinary:

Co-convenor for the IHR Public History Seminar (2020–Present).
Co-convenor for the IHR Black British History Seminar Series (2020–Present).
Member of the Institute of Historical Research Equality Working Group (2020–Present).
Co-convenor for the BME Social History Network (2019–Present).

Editorial

Reviews Editor for Modern British History Journal (2021–Present).
Editor for Midlands History Journal (2023-Present).

Publications

Recent publications

Book

Akhtar, S 2024, Exhibiting Irishness: Empire, Race and Nation, c. 1850-1970. Studies in Imperialism, Manchester University Press. <https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526157256/>

Article

Akhtar, S 2023, 'Learning ‘The Customs of their Fathers’: Irish Villages in Chicago’s Columbian Exposition, 1893', Journal of Victorian Culture, vol. 28, no. 4, pp. 529–553. https://doi.org/10.1093/jvcult/vcad008

Akhtar, S 2022, '"Have I Done Enough for Japan Today?": Japan's Colonial Villages in the Japan-British Exhibition of 1910', Journal of National Taiwan Normal University, vol. 67, no. 1, pp. 41-69. https://doi.org/10.6210/JNTNU.202203_67(1).0002

Dháibhéid, CN, Akhtar, S, Hassett, D, Kenny, K, McAtackney, L, McBride, I, McMahon, TG & Ohlmeyer, J 2022, 'Round table: Decolonising Irish history? Possibilities, challenges, practices', Irish Historical Studies, vol. 45, no. 168, pp. 303-332. https://doi.org/10.1017/ihs.2021.57

Akhtar, S 2021, 'Revisiting RHS ‘Race, Ethnicity & Equality in UK History: A Report and Resource for Change’', Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, vol. 31, pp. 115-122. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0080440121000062

Chapter (peer-reviewed)

Akhtar, S 2023, Racism, redistribution, redress : The Royal Historical Society and Race, Ethnicity & Equality in UK History: A Report and Resource for Change . in J Doble, L Liburd & E Parker (eds), British Culture after Empire: Race, decolonisation and migration since 1945. 1 edn, Studies in Imperialism, Manchester University Press, pp. 147-165. <https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526159748/>

Expertise

Modern British History
Histories of race, migration and empire
Worlds fairs in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries

Media experience

I have appeared in the following historical documentaries and podcasts:

Interview with Nadifa Mohamed for ‘Britain’s Human Zoos’, TV Documentary, Channel 4 (4 October 2023) discussing 19th and 20th century ‘ethnographic entertainment’.
Interview with Gurinder Chada for ‘Queen Victoria and the British Maharaja’, TV Documentary, Channel 4 (August 2022) discussing the British Empire, the Victorian monarchy and scientific racism.
Interview for ‘1,000 years of History: Ireland’, TV Documentary, Channel 5 Select, Raise the Roof Productions (November 2021) discussing historic exhibitions of the Irish in world’s fairs.
Interview for ‘Walking Victorian Britain’, TV Documentary, Channel 5 Select, Rumpus Media Limited (October 2021) discussing back-to-back houses in Birmingham.
Interview for ‘Walking Wartime Britain’, TV Documentary, Channel 5 Select, Rumpus Media Limited (September 2021) discussing post-war migration to Britain and London Central Mosque.
Podcast on ‘A Cultural History of Irish Identity on Display’ for Architecture and Colonialism Podcast for Society of Architectural Historians (June 2021).
Podcast on ‘Ethnographic Expositions’ for ‘Imperial London Meets the Machine Age’ episode for Eccentric Circles: The Machine Age Podcast (December 2020).

Expertise

Race equalities
Access to history higher education

Policy experience

Working with the Race, Ethnicity, Equality Working Group at the Royal Historical Society and Past and Present Society to improve BME representation in History Higher Education.

Furthermore, I have taken part in numerous public events discussing the future of teaching history at higher education in Britain. See below:

Justin Champion Workshop, IHR Public History Seminar Series Group (September 2021). Paper on future of Public History in Britain.
New Voices in Black British History, University of Essex (October 2021). Roundtable at Centre for Public History on Black British Histories.
Royal Historical Society's annual New to Teaching History Event (July 2021). Presented on ECR strategies for ‘Decolonising the Curriculum’.
‘Ireland and the British Empire’ for FindmyPast, UK (June 2021). Live broadcast on researching within Ireland and the British Empire to subscribers.
‘Black Lives Matter in Britain: History, the Curriculum and Education’, BAE System (March 2021). Talk on the histories of the Black Lives Matter Movement in the UK.
Decolonising Irish History Panel Online, Universities of Oxford and Sheffield (November 2020). Talk on how the discipline of Irish History can engage with decolonising narratives.
Reparative Histories of Race Roundtable Online, University of Bristol (October 2020). Talk on how the RHS Race Report can be embedded within UK universities.
‘How can we decolonise the university without decolonising Britain’, Royal Holloway, University of London (October 2020).
‘Legacy of Empire: Brutal Truths’, Human Rights Festival Week, Kingston University (February 2020). Part of panel discussion between community activists and academics on the British Empire, focusing on the teaching and curriculum aspects of it.
British Foreign Policy Institute (February 2020). Discussion on ‘Rethinking the British Empire and its Legacy Today’ as part of a conversation on the legacy of Empire, how the UK can address its imperial past, and addressing views on Empire in today’s political climate. Simon Heffer of the Sunday Telegraph and Maya Goodfellow from SOAS were on the panel also.
‘Are the Humanities for Us?’, School of Advanced Studies, Being Human Festival (October 2019). Discussion addressed important concerns around who is being left out of the humanities, and what is being done to make change happen.