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Last updated 18th April 2024

I am Reader in Modern History with a special interest in the cultural history of humanitarianism, peace activism, refugee history and craft practice. I am currently Co-I on the AHRC funded Asylums: Refugees and Mental Health project.   

I am working currently on two edited book projects: Humanitarian Handicraft, which explores the history of craft production for humanitarian markets, and Craft in Extremis, with Wendy Wiertz, an interdisciplinary study of the role of creativity in economic, emotional and physical survival in modern war.

I am interested in the local history of international activism and in the role of women's life writing in their politicking.  With Janette Martin I am exploring the work of Florence Lockwood, a Colne Valley suffragist, pacifist and textile artist.  We are preparing her autobiography, An Ordinary Life, for republication by the Huddersfield Local History Society.  

With Helen Dampier (Leeds Beckett) and Cornelis Muller (University of Pretoria) I am working on the AHRC- funded Emily Hobhouse Letters Project, with a special focus on Hobhouse's Boer Home Industries scheme and her extensive biographical writings.  We have worked with the Bodleian Library in Oxford to oversee the cataloging of the Emily Hobhouse papers, a selection of which are now available digitally: https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/inquire/Discover/Search/

I serve on the Advisory Board for the Humanitarian Archive at the John Rylands Library and Research Institute in Manchester, and as a series editor for MUP's Humanitarianism: Key Debates and New Approaches.  I am Director of the Centre for History, Culture and Memory at the University of Huddersfield.