Profile

I am a third year PhD student in the Department of History at Lancaster University. Currently, I am in the process of writing a doctoral thesis entitled 'Museums and the Changing City: Liverpool History, Nineteenth Century to the Present Day,' supervised by Dr Yoke-Sum Wong and Professor Derek Sayer.

The thesis compares the different ways museums have conveyed ideas about Liverpool's past, present and future at various points in the city's history. It is divided into three parts: 'Part One ? Representing the City: Liverpool Museums, c. 1850-1914,' 'Part Two ? Reflections on the City: Images and Memories of Liverpool and Museums,' and 'Part Three ? Regenerating the City: Liverpool Museums, c. 1980-2012.'

This structure is intended to contrast museums' role in promoting Liverpool as a major world port and bastion of cultural taste during the nineteenth century with their latter-day function as agents of urban regeneration. Because Liverpool is my hometown, my research is also concerned with the way personal experience intersects with the wider history of the city and its changing urban environment. As such, the middle section of the thesis contains elements of autobiography.

In keeping with this aspect of my scholarship, I am particularly interested in the litearure of Turkey's Nobel Laureate Orhan Pamuk. Other of my interests include popular music, football, boxing and film.

Career Details

Prior to undertaking my doctoral studies, I have received a BA (Hons) in American Studies from Lancaster University (2009), during which I spent a year studying at the University of Missouri-St Louis, and an MA in Film & Cultural Studies, also from Lancaster (2010).

I have been the recipent of several academic awards:

 

-       Awarded one of the six annual Princess Alexandra Chancellor's Medals presented to graduates of Lancaster University for outstanding academic attainment (July 2009)

-       Awarded the annual American Studies Prize as the highest performing undergraduate by the American Studies department (July 2009)

-       Awarded the annual A.H. Woolrych Prize for the best undergraduate essay by the History department (July 2009)

 

At present, I work as a postgraduate teaching assistant and have tutored on two courses in Lancaster University History Department: History 100, the 24-week introductory course taken by all history majors and some minor students, and History 257 'After Vietnam: Remembering, Representing and Refighting the "Bad War,"' which focuses on the memory of the Vietnam War in American culture.

I have also guest-lectured on each of these courses, on topics repsectively titled 'International Expositions and the Modern World,' and 'Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the USA" and American Memory of the Vietnam War.'

Thesis Title

Museums and the Changing City: Liverpool History, Nineteenth Century to the Present Day