Membership of professional bodies
I am a member of the British Association for Victorian Studies; the Urban History Group; the Voluntary Action History Society; the Historical Association; the Economic History Society; and the Social History Society.
Public engagement and conferences
Over the years I’ve given scores of talks at schools, libraries, museums and branches of the Historical Association on subjects close to my research interests. I’m very happy to consider any and all invitations, so please do get in touch! I’ve also organized a number of conferences—some of which resulted in the edited collections noted above—and I’m currently organizing a two-day symposium (with Ian Cawood of Newman University, Birmingham) on the history of corruption and public service in modern Britain, which will take place at Brookes in January 2019. See here for more information: https://www.brookes.ac.uk/hss/events/corruption/
A more recent public engagement project derives from an event I created with colleagues Bev Clack and Russell Anderson for the Think Human Festival at Oxford Brookes in May, 2018: a performance piece that invited the audience to consider the contrasting lives of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Adolf Eichmann, which mixed narrative sections and dramatic monologues. We’re now working on how we can develop the piece further and engage audiences in schools and the local community. See here for the original advert: https://www.brookes.ac.uk/hss/events/thinking-evil-in-dark-times/
I also try to speak at a handful of conferences, seminar series and public workshops and events every year: below are some of the papers I’ve given since the start of 2018:
(28/6/2018) “The Public in Public Health, c. 1830–1940: Democracy, Strategy, Epidemiology.” Keynote lecture given to the “Publics and their Health: Historical Perspectives, Future Directions,” 28-29 June 2018, Institute of Historical Research, London.
(22/3/2018) “The politics of performance measurement: Searching for standards in Victorian public health and education.” Presented to the History of Medicine Seminar Series, University of Winchester.
(21/2/2018) “ ‘Damn the lot of them!’ Despising MPs in modern Britain.” Presented to the Bloxham branch of the Oxfordshire Historical Association.
(25/1/2018) “Notes on cynicism and populism.” Presented to the “Populism 2.0” workshop, organized by the GPES Centre and International and Political History Group, Oxford Brookes University.