Professor Martin Johnes

Research Highlights

1. Johnes, M. (2022). Humbug and a ‘Welsh Hindoo’: A Small History of Begging, Race and Language in Mid-nineteenth Century Liverpool. Journal of Victorian Culture, 27(3), 387-404.

   https://doi.org/10.1093/jvcult/vcac033, SU Repository: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa58949
2. Johnes, M. (2021). Masculinity, Modernity and Male Baldness, c.1880‐1939. Gender & History

   https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-0424.12580, SU Repository: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa58155
3. Johnes, M. (2020). Race, Archival Silences, and a Black Footballer Between the Wars. Twentieth Century British History, 31(4), 530-554.

   https://doi.org/10.1093/tcbh/hwaa023, SU Repository: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa54325
4. Laucht, C. & Johnes, M. (2019). Resist and Survive: Welsh Protests and the British Nuclear State in the 1980s. Contemporary British History, 33(2), 226-245.

   https://doi.org/10.1080/13619462.2018.1519423, SU Repository: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa43532
5. Johnes, M. & TAYLOR, M. (2020). Boxing, Race and British Identity, 1945–1962. The Historical Journal, 63(5), 1349-1377.

   https://doi.org/10.1017/s0018246x19000724, SU Repository: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa52440

All Research

• ‘A future without a past’? Social Mobility in South Wales between 1945 and 1999. (current)

  PhD

  Other supervisor: Dr Sarah Crook

• Sport in Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire, c.1840-1880 (current)

  PhD

  Other supervisor: Prof Louise Miskell

• Edward King Gaylord: Power and Influence (current)

  PhD

  Other supervisor: Prof Louise Miskell

• A Welsh Vision of Empire? Welsh Imperialists and the Indian Empire (current)

  PhD

  Other supervisor: Dr Gethin Matthews

• 'Landscapes of the Bristol Channel: Changing Perceptions of Time and Space in a Maritime Region, c.1780-1914' (awarded 2022)

  PhD

  Other supervisor: Prof Louise Miskell

• Modern Business Model of the Chickasaw Nation (current)

  PhD

  Other supervisor: Prof Louise Miskell

• A study to reconstruct the experiences of a cohort of doctors who migrated from South Asia to Wales between 1948 and 1990. It aims to explore broader questions about the nature of medical migration into Wales and how this affected the provision and use of medical care in Wales. (current)

  MPhil

  Other supervisor: Dr Michael Bresalier

• Student to add subtitle (current)

  MA

  Other supervisor: Prof Louise Miskell

• HI-M22 Dissertation

  Students produce a dissertation of up to 20,000 words on a historical topic, chosen in conjunction with their supervisor. This represents the culmination of the History MAs, and constitutes Part Two of the programme.

• HI-M39 Research Folder

  This module is designed to help students to identify a dissertation topic appropriate to their interests and expertise, and to tackle the problems of methodology, develop the research techniques, and undertake the project planning which are the necessary preliminaries to researching and writing a 20,000 word dissertation.

• HI-M70 Wales since 1945

  TBC

• HIH121 Europe of Extremes, 1789–1989

  The nineteenth century saw the rise of a western European civilization, characterized, as Eric Hobsbawm has noted, by capitalist economics, liberal politics, and the dominance of a middle class that celebrated morality and science. In the twentieth century this civilization faced unprecedented challenges from new political ideologies, and from a working class demanding the right to govern in its own name. The result was an eruption of violence not seen on the continent for centuries; in its wake, the Cold War divided the Europe with an Iron Curtain, and saw the continent become the client of two world superpowers ¿ the USA and the Soviet Union. This team-taught module relies on the specialist knowledge of its tutors to examine economic, political and social themes in the history of nineteenth and twentieth-century Europe.

• HIH122 Making History

  History is an imprecise art and what historians say and write about the past is not the same as what actually happened in the past. Most people's knowledge about the past doesn't come from professional historians at all but rather from 'public history'. Public history is the collective understandings of the past that exist outside academic discipline of history. It is derived from a diverse range of sources including oral traditions, legends, literature, art, films and television. This module will introduce you to the study and presentation of the past. It will consider how the content, aims and methods of academic and public history compare and contrast and you will engage in your own small research project to investigate this. The module will also teach you about the fundamentals of studying and writing history at university. You will learn about essay writing, group work and critical analysis and employ these skills to understand and assess history today, both as an academic activity and as public knowledge.

• HIH284 Disunited Kingdom? Class, Race, Gender and Social Division in Twentieth-Century Britain

  This module examines the dynamics and structure of British society over the course of the 20th century. Despite radical social, political and economic changes, the idea of a British nation, a British people and a British way of life remained powerful and persistent. Yet beneath a veneer of social and and national unity were profound divisions and inequalities. This module explores how categories such as gender, class, race, region, nation and religion evolved and persisted. In doing so, the module considers what causes social change and the extent to which there was anything resembling British society at all. The module will relate these historical contexts to the present day. It asks how history can be used to understand contemporary social divisions and seeks to empower and enable students to think critically about how Britain and `Britishness¿ are constituted in contemporary society.

• HIH3300 History Dissertation

  The History dissertation is a free-standing, 40-credit module that runs across both semesters of Level Three. Candidates conduct research upon a subject of their choice, devised in consultation with a member of staff teaching for the degrees in History, and concerning a topic that falls within staff research and teaching interests.

• HIH3327 Observing Britain: Everyday Life in the Mid 20th Century

  This module explores life in Britain in the middle of the twentieth century through the Mass Observation archive. Mass Observation was founded in 1937 with the aim of recording how British people experienced and thought about the issues of the day, including work, commemorative practices, religion, sex, politics and newspaper horoscopes, the challenges and anxieties of life in war-time Britain and much more. Drawing on a variety of methods ¿ interviewing, diary writing, participant observation and directives to its national panel ¿ Mass Observation turned the anthropologists' gaze on the British themselves and the material collected forms a hugely important picture of everyday life, popular culture and ordinary people's actions, attitudes and opinions from the 1930s to the 1950s. In this module students will explore the archive, interrogating the texts written and produced by the Mass Observation volunteers and staff. It will also consider the historiography relating to Britain in this period focusing on key issues such as attitudes to war, government in war and peace-time, civilian morale, notions of citizenship and identity, race and ethnicity, gender relations, work and recreation.

I regularly contribute to the print and broadcast media. In 2019 I wrote and presented a BBC television series entitled Wales: England’s Colony? Links to my journalism and online essays can be found here.

A podcast series on Welsh history I made for the BBC can be found here.

A programme I made for Radio 3 on writing history can be listened to here.

A Radio 4 documentary on Welsh nationalism and the investiture that I wrote and presented can be listened to here.

A Radio Cymru programme discussing my life can be listened to here.

Some of my other appearances on the BBC can be found here.