Research groups in History

Seminars

This research group organises a seminar series  about the history of science, medicine and technology.  You can find the programme for this year on the HSMT group seminar page.

HSMT-Ed combines Edinburgh’s remarkable history and unique resources with world-leading research in the fields of medicine, science and technology. Geographically, we span the globe from East to West, with a focus on Europe. Thematically, our members’ expertise includes: the history of sexuality and the body from the Middle Ages to modern times, the history of modern psychiatry both in the East and in the West, the history of epidemics and natural disasters and related emotional responses, the history of distributed cognition, the history and philosophy of biology, medieval to modern pharmacology and medicine, the history of public health and administration, veterans’ health during WWII, popular and learned healing practices from Anglo-Saxon times to the Renaissance, the history of astrology and astronomy, the Scientific Revolution, Newtonianism and the Enlightenment, Renaissance to modern mathematical culture, British 18^th-  and 19^th-century medical professions, collecting and life writing, and late Antique and early Byzantine engineering. Our wide range of specialisms is unique in Scotland and provides the basis for lively and mutually beneficial exchange within and beyond the academy.

Membership

We're always looking for more members and participants! To be added to the HSMT-Ed email listserv for updates on events, please subscribe here or contact one of the group Co-ordinators.

Co-ordinators

• Zubin Mistry (School of History, Classics and Archaeology)
• Richard Oosterhoff (School of History, Classics and Archaeology)
• Petros Bouras-Vaillanatos (School of History, Classics and Archaeology - Wellcome Lecturer in History of Medicine)

Staff members (School of History, Classics and Archaeology)

• Dr Bill Aird
• Dr Miranda Anderson
• Dr Thomas Ahnert
• Dr Petros Bouras-Vaillanatos
• Dr Emily Brownell
• Professor Douglas Cairns
• Professor Jim Crow
• Dr Gayle Davis
• Dr Linda Fibiger
• Dr Julie Gibbings
• Dr Julian Goodare
• Dr Chris Harding
• Dr Kathleen McSweeney
• Professor Stana Nenadic
• Professor Richard Rodger
• Dr Richard Sowerby
• Dr Justyna Aniceta Turkowska

Staff members (School of Social and Political Science)

• Dr Michael Barany
• Dr Lawrence Dritsas
• Dr Lukas Engelmann
• Dr Miguel Garcia-Sancho
• Professor Steven Sturdy
• Dr Niki Vermeulen

Staff members (School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Science)

• Dr Alix Cohen
• Professor Michela Massimi 

Honorary and emeritus

• Professor Sam Cohn
• Professor John Henry

We have close working relationships with a number of Irish universities and the Irish Research Council. Two members of the group are Honorary Members of the Royal Irish Academy (only 30 or so scholars in the humanities and social sciences worldwide hold this distinction) and the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and one is a Fellow of the British Academy. One of the group was appointed by the Irish Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht to the Irish Manuscripts Commission, the first such appointment from outside the island of Ireland. We have established links with the modern Irish history group at Cambridge University, including holding regular joint PhD workshops in both Edinburgh and Cambridge. We also work closely with colleagues at the major North American centres of Irish Studies at Boston College, the University of Notre Dame and New York University.

Our aim is to explore the history of modern Ireland in a comparative, transnational and global context, with a particular focus on political, social and cultural relationships with Scotland, England and Wales, as well the principal countries in which the Irish have settled in over the last three centuries.

Graduate students work on a wide range of topics and hold funding awards from the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland, the Economic and Social Research Council as well as University and School studentships. We also host the only PhD scholarship in the UK devoted exclusively to the study of Irish history, the Justin Arbuthnott PhD Scholarship in Modern Irish History.

Activities

The activities of the group include hosting a seminar series, which features many of the most original scholars working in the field from Ireland, Britain and further afield, a fortnightly early career researchers’  workshop, and the annual Justin Arbuthnott Lecture in British-Irish Relations, delivered in recent years by distinguished figures including Tom Bartlett,  Mary E. Daly, Diarmaid Ferriter, Fintan O’Toole and Roy Foster.

We regularly host symposia and workshops on aspects of Irish history including recent events on 'Writing the Troubles', ‘The Irish Border’, ‘The 1918 General Election’, ‘Abortion in Ireland: A Transformative Moment?’, 'History, Storytelling and 1916’ and ‘Transnational Irish History'. In July 2022 we will host the ‘Ireland and Sexualities in History’ workshop.

The principal aim of the group is to provide a space for scholars at all career stages and with diverse geographical and chronological focuses, but with shared interests in researching past politics. One key early objective is to open up discussions around political and international history themes with colleagues in cognate disciplines, especially within the School of Social and Political Science.

The Political and International History Research Group has a blog, research.shca.ed.ac.uk/political

Research areas

Research in the following broad areas is being undertaken by members of the group:

• Modern British, Scottish and Irish politics. Work includes: the editing of the Oxford Handbook of Modern British Political History, 1800-2000, research on the late-seventeenth-century revolution in Scotland, an exploration of the political cultures of unionism and nationalism in post-1945 Scotland, and research into political mobilization across the Irish diaspora.
• International and diplomatic history. Work includes global, and transnational work, alongside International Relations colleagues in the School of Political Science.
• American political history. Work includes: an examination of the political rivalry between George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, research on the nature of the domestic debate on the Vietnam War, and a study using the life and career of Spiro Agnew as a lens onto American politics in the 1960s and 70s.
• African History. This includes collaborative work with political scientists on citizenship in Africa.
• European history. Work encompasses: postwar French politics and political culture, politics and violence in twentieth-century Spain, and emperors and high-office holders in the late Roman Empire.

Seminars and events

The focus of this group is to encourage doctoral students and early career colleagues to present their in-progress work during lunchtime brownbag seminars, in order to receive feedback and encouragement from their peers.  If you would like to present your work at one of our seminars, please contact Dr Kaufman. The Group also runs occasional seminars, lectures and events to which all are welcome - Political History Research Groups seminar.

Membership

Please direct any queries to the Group co-ordinator Dr David Kaufman.

Co-ordinators

• Dr David Kaufman and Dr Benjamin Weinstein

Academic staff members

• Dr Bill Aird
• Dr Felix Boecking
• Dr Deona Cali
• Professor Ewen Cameron
• Professor Mirko Canevaro
• Dr Emile Chabal
• Dr Robert Crowcroft
• Prof Frank Cogliano
• Professor Julian Goodare
• Dr Fabian Hilfrich
• Professor Emma Hunter
• Professor Alvin Jackson
• Professor Gavin Kelly
• Dr Iain Lauchlan
• Professor Robert Mason
• Dr Gordon Pentland
• Dr Gianluca Raccagni
• Dr Alasdair Raffe
• Dr Julius Ruiz