History

The Institute of History at De Montfort University Is composed of a range of leading academics working in fields including migration history, Anglo-Jewry, minorities and sport, the broader field of sports history, photographic history, and specialisms in British, European, colonial and global history. Its members have produced groundbreaking monographs on topics such as internment in the First World War, the history of Montenegro, cultural exchanges in the Indian Ocean World, and the history and heritage of the Olympic Games. 

The Institute is home to two world-renowned Research Centres: the International Centre for Sports History and Culture, and the Photographic History Research Centre. Find out about the International Centre for Sports History and Culture or the Midlands 4 Cities opportunities and supervision in the Photographic History Research Centre.

Further opportunities are located in De Montfort University’s interdisciplinary Stephen Lawrence Research Centre.

The Institute of History Research at De Montfort University invites applications to the Midlands 4 Cities Doctoral Training Partnership. Key contacts for the Institute and members’ research interests are listed below. 

Professor Matthew Taylor – mtaylor@dmu.ac.uk

Professor of History, Director of the Institute of History

History of sport and recreation in Britain and Europe; history of boxing; work and labour relations in the entertainment industry; sport, community identities and regulation in mid-twentieth century Britain; migration of athletes and entertainers; sport and leisure in Second World War Britain; Mass Observation and sport; sport and global history; sport and the British Empire 

Professor Kenneth Morrison – kmorrison@dmu.ac.uk

Professor of Modern Southeast European History, Deputy Director of the Institute of History

The history and politics of Yugoslavia and its successor states 

Dr Sophie Brockmann – Sophie.brockmann@dmu.ac.uk

Lecturer in History

History of science, Latin American history (especially Central America), environmental history 

Dr David Dee – ddee@dmu.ac.uk
Associate Professor in Modern History

Anglo-Jewish history, the relationship between sport and ethnicity 

Dr Elizabeth Lambourn – elambourn@dmu.ac.uk

Reader in South Asian and Indian Ocean Studies

Mobility of people, things and ideas across Islamic South Asia and the Indian Ocean world in the medieval and early modern periods 

Professor Panikos Panayi – ppanayi@dmu.ac.uk

Professor of European History and Subject Leader in History

The history of immigration and inter-ethnic relations, the history of food, the First World War 

 

Professor Martin Polley – martin.polley@dmu.ac.uk

Director, International Centre for Sports History and Culture

History of sport and leisure; history of the modern Olympic Games and their predecessors; history of sport, politics, and diplomacy; sport and gender; sports heritage; sports historiography 

Professor Elizabeth Tingle – elizabeth.tingle@dmu.ac.uk

Professor of History

Early modern European history; French history of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; French wars of religion; counter and Catholic Reformations in France; Material culture of religious life; parish churches in Britain and France 

Dr Pippa Virdee – PVirdee@dmu.ac.uk

Associate Professor
Modern South Asian history, the history of population displacement in South Asia, the history of Pakistan 

Dr Neil Carter – necarter@dmu.ac.uk

Senior Research Fellow

History of sport and leisure in twentieth-century Britain; global history of sport and medicine in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; sport and learning disability; sport and ethnicity in twentieth- century Britain; history of coaching; sport and the state; sport and the media 

Dr Heather Dichter – heather.dichter@dmu.ac.uk

Associate Professor

The Olympic movement, international sport, mega-events, diplomacy and international relations, sport media, Germany, Europe, NATO 

Dr Serena Dyer – serena.dyer@dmu.ac.uk

Lecturer in History of Design and Material Culture and Institute of History Head of Research Students

Material culture history, including consumption, retail and shopping, as well as making, manufacture, dress, and fashion histories. She also has expertise in gender and queer histories 

Dr Beatriz Pichel – beatriz.pichel@dmu.ac.uk

Lecturer in Photographic History

Photographic history / history of photography, medical humanities, history of medicine, cultural history, history of emotions, history of the body, gender and women’s history, history of war, visual science and technology studies 

Dr Christopher Roy Zembe – czembe@dmu.ac.uk

Lecturer in History

Colonial and post-colonial histories of Sub-Saharan Africa; African diaspora; Black British immigration, race and citizenship (African and African-Caribbean); and Pan-Africanism

Find out how to apply.