I have been at the University of Plymouth since 2004, prior to my appointment here, I taught at the University of Wales (Bangor) for a year. I did my PhD, entitled “The Republican party and Civil Rights, 1928-1948,” at the University of Hull, supervised by Professor John Ashworth and Dr John White, and successfully defended my thesis, examined by Professor Tony Badger (Cambridge), in 2002.
I taught in the American Studies Department at Hull from 1997 until 2003. Before that, I took a Masters degree in American History at the University of Sheffield from 1994 to 1996, working under Professor Richard Carwardine and Dr Robert Cook and specialising in civil rights. As part of my BA in American Studies at the University of Ulster (graduating in 1993) I spent a year as an exchange student at the University of Mississippi (1991-1992), where I was appointed to the Chancellor’s Honor Roll for Academic Achievement.
At Plymouth, I was head of the Popular Culture degree from 2004 until 2009 and subject leader for American Studies from 2008 until 2010. I have been a member of the History team since 2008.
Professional membership British Association for American Studies (BAAS)
Teaching interests
My teaching concentrates on the United States. I offer a first year core module entitled America from Settlement to Empire (HIST147) which examines American
history from the arrival of Columbus to the end of the Spanish-American War. This module introduces
students to the key themes in the first two hundred years of European
settlement in what would become the United States and demonstrates how the country has been shaped by settlement, revolution,
slavery, civil war, westward expansion and imperialism.
My second year module, America Since 1900 continues from where
HIST147 left off, examining the key moments in the United States’ rise to
superpower status, analysing the Progressive Era, the New Deal, two world wars,
the Cold War, Vietnam, Watergate and America's role in the post-Cold War World.
I developed American
Popular Culture since 1945, a second year module using various forms of mass
culture to understand the United States. Thus, for example, we look at McCarthyism through film, the impact
of television on the democratic process, black history via music and employ sources
as diverse as comic books and political satire as well as more traditional
historical texts, to show how culture operates in its political and historical context.
In the third year I offer two modules on
the civil rights movement, the first deals with the period from 1890 to 1954
and the second from 1954 to 1970. The first of these modules looks at the roots
of the modern civil rights struggle, examining key figures such as Booker T.
Washington, W.E.B. Du Bois, Marcus Garvey and Walter White, and key events such as
Scottsboro, the Great Depression, WWI and WWII and the Cold War. The second
module deals with the more familiar territory beginning with the Brown decision of 1954 and concluding in
the aftermath of the assassination of Dr Martin Luther King.
Research interests
I am currently working
on a number of article length projects relating to the United States, Northern Ireland and the era of the Second World War. My first
project deals with the stationing of African American troops in Northern Ireland during the war, examining their reactions to
the locals and vice versa in addition to their treatment at the hands of their
white comrades and the US military authorities. The second piece will examine the positive
reaction of the government of Northern Ireland, the only self-governing region of the United Kingdom at the time, to the presence of the American military. Stormont saw the war effort and association with the United States as a way of strengthening the union. Conversely,
I will also consider how the issues and problems of Northern Ireland were reported back to Washington by the Belfast consulate. My next project revolves around the
American minister in Eire during the war, David Gray, and his attitude
towards partition and Irish history more generally. The final aspect of this
research analyses the efforts of the Northern Ireland government to seek support for, and investment
in, the country after the war, concentrating primarily on Prime Minister Brooke’s
tour of North America in 1950.
My previous research analysed the pre-1954 civil rights struggle in the United States, looking in detail at the black vote and culminating
in the publication of Lincoln’s
Lost Legacy: The Republican Party and the African American Vote, 1918-1952 (University Press of Florida, 2008). I
recently contributed a chapter on Walter White to Long
is the Way and Hard: One Hundred Years of the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), (University
of Arkansas Press, 2009) and have published articles in the Journal of African American History, the Journal of American Studies, the Irish Journal of American Studies, OVERhere (now the European Journal of American Culture) and the African American National Biography. I have also written a number
of book reviews for national and international journals.
UoP Research group membership
Centre for Humanities, Music and Performing Arts Research (HuMPA) History
Publications
Monographs ·Lincoln’s Lost Legacy: The Republican Party and the African American Vote, 1928-1952, University Press of Florida, 2008
Book Chapter · "All Shadows Are Dark: Walter White, Racial Identity and National Politics," in Long is the Way and Hard: One Hundred Years of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), University of Arkansas Press, 2009
Encyclopaedia Entry · Judge Francis Ellis Rivers for the African American National Biography, joint project of the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University and Oxford University Press, series editor Henry Louis Gates, 2008
Refereed Journal Articles · “‘Never argue with the Gallup Poll:’ Thomas Dewey, Civil Rights and the Election of 1948.” Journal of American Studies, 38, August, 2004, p179-199
· “Supporting Our Friends and Defeating Our Enemies: Militancy and Non-partisanship in the NAACP, 1936-1948.” Journal of African American History, 89, Winter 2004, p17-36
· “‘Turning their pictures of Abraham Lincoln to the Wall:’ The Republican party and African Americans in the Election of 1936.” Irish Journal of American Studies, 8, 1999, p35-59
· “‘In no election since 1860 have politicians been so Negro minded as in 1936:’ Courting the African American vote in the Election of 1936.” OVERhere, 18, No. 3, Autumn 1999, p72-82
· “‘A Question of Citizenship?’ James Meredith and the Ole Miss Integration Crisis, 1962.” Irish Journal of American Studies, 5, December 1996, p93-107
Reports & invited lectures Forthcoming: ‘“Ulster Had a Hand in the First Independence Day:” Northern Ireland and the ‘Reclaiming’ of American History.’ New England American Studies Association Conference, Plimoth Plantation, Massachusetts, November 2011
"Faithful Sentinel: Northern Ireland, America and the Second World War," The Second World War: Culture and Popular Memory Conference, University of Brighton, July 2011.
"Stormont, Washington and the Second World War," BAAS Conference, University of Central Lancashire, April 2011.
"God's Lonely Man" Scorsese's Taxi Driver, American Mavericks Film/Lecture Series, Peninsula Arts, University of Plymouth, November 2010.
"African American Troops in Northern Ireland during the Second World War," BAAS Conference, University of East Anglia, April 2010.
“Of Mr Walter White and Others….” Walter White, Partisan Non-partisanship and the NAACP, 1938-1952. BAAS Conference, University of Nottingham, April 2009.
"Walter White: Forgotten Civil Rights Pioneer,” Peninsula Arts/American Studies Civil Rights Lecture Series, November 2008 “Why Barack Obama is not a Republican: Race and American Politics,” Roosevelt Study Center in association with the Roosevelt Academy, Middelburg, the Netherlands, September 2008
“’The Politics of 1948’: Truman, Dewey and the African American Vote,” ‘1948: American Realignments’ conference, University of Sussex, September 2008
"’The Unfinished Business of America:’ Eisenhower and Civil Rights in the Election of 1952,’ BAAS Conference, Edinburgh University, March 2008
“Harry Truman, Moral Imperatives and Civil Rights," BAAS conference, University of Leicester, April 2007
"Failing 'To Secure These Rights' Harry Truman and the Politics of Race," Peninsula Arts/American Studies Presidential Lecture Series, University of Plymouth, March 2007
“From Anti-lynching to Fair Employment: The Legislative Programme of the NAACP in the Pre-Civil Rights Era,” invited research paper, hosted by the Inter-Disciplinary Human Rights Research Group, University of Newcastle, May 2006
“Walking Between the Raindrops: The African American Vote in the Election of 1952,” Faculty of Arts Research Seminar Series, University of Plymouth, November 2005
“Wendell Willkie: Republican Anathema.” BAAS conference, Manchester Metropolitan University, April 2004
“‘Never argue with the Gallup Poll:’ Thomas Dewey, Civil Rights and the Election of 1948.” BAAS conference, Oxford University, April 2002.
“Non-partisanship in the NAACP during the Depression and New Deal,” BAAS conference, Keele University, April 2001.
“‘In no election since 1860 have politicians been so Negro minded as in 1936:’ Courting the African American vote in the Election of 1936.” the BAAS/OVERhere postgraduate conference, Nottingham Trent University, November 1999.
Conferences organised
Peninsula Arts, "American Mavericks" film and lecture series, 2010
Peninsula Arts/American Studies American History Lecture Series, University of Plymouth, 2008
Peninsula Arts, American Presidency Lecture Series, 2007
Other academic activities
Co-ordinator of Department of Humanities student exchanges with the University of Mississippi, Montana State University and Idaho State University
Co-ordinate Humanities student exchanges to the United States as part of the International Student Exchange Program (ISEP)
Manage study link/scholarship scheme with the Roosevelt Study Center in the Netherlands
