To understand the decision-making and experiences of individuals we must appreciate the wider contexts they lived in. Alysa's teaching is all concerned with experiences of everyday life, from the huge social and economic changes brought about by the industrial revolution, to long-term processes of development and cultural change surrounding marriage, childhood, demography and family life. Students are encouraged to explore these wider contexts and through them, analyse and challenge common perceptions of how individuals at all levels of society related to those around them.
Modules taught
Undergraduate
- A People's History of Britain [Year 1]
- Brings to life the changing social and cultural worlds of the late seventeenth to the early twentieth centuries and how modern Britons were formed.
- The Making of Modern Britain: Culture, Community and Family in Britain 1660-1918 [Year 2]
- Explores how individuals, families and communities experienced gender, class, age and sexuality between the seventeenth and twentieth centuries.
- The History of Food, Politics and Society [Year 3]
- Is it true that you are what you eat? We’ll explore diet, food habits and the politics of food control to uncover what this tells us about society.
Supervision
Alysa has supervised PhD students in a range of areas in economic, social and medical history, including child labour, the history of smallpox, religion and the workhouse in eighteenth-century Westminster, the implementation of the New Poor Law in Hertfordshire, and the history of hospitals. Ongoing projects include the history of loneliness, and nineteenth-century religious communities. She is happy to hear from prospective students working on the history of childhood and the family, poverty, health, food and related issues.