History
Welcome to the Department of History
History has long been one of the strongest subject areas at the University of Winchester, with a research programme that garners global recognition, high quality and imaginative teaching and a consistently high student satisfaction rate.
Our committed team of historians are passionate about their subjects, which cover a broad range of cultures, wars and traditions spanning 3,500 years. They will help you to mine the past seeking answers to pressing questions from the classical to the modern period in Britain, mainland Europe, USA and Japan.
Our History degrees offer a broad-but-deep experience that can open up multiple career paths. Extensive options allow you to either pursue your specific interests, or to experience a wide range of history.
The History Department has a dynamic community of Master’s, MPhil and PhD students and welcomes enquiries about postgraduate study. Our academics can supervise a wide range of topics, ranging from the Anglo-Saxon and medieval periods to the Holocaust and Colonialism.
We are a community of internationally recognised scholars with particular research strengths in medieval and early modern history, local and regional history, and modern British and contemporary international history. We are actively researching and contributing to current academic debates, and incorporating our research into our teaching – we want you to be part of this. The department boasts a substantial number of research students, and research seminar series are organised every academic year by the Wessex Centre for History and Archaeology and the Modern History Research Centre.
To find out more about the History Department, including student trips and staff achievements read the Winchester History blog.
Meet the History team
Academic team
- Prof. Chris Aldous, Professor of Modern International History
- Dr Mark Allen, Senior Lecturer in Modern History
- Dr Paola Bassino, Lecturer in Classical Studies
- John Blockley, Lecturer in Modern British and European History
- Dr Natalya Chernyshova, Senior Lecturer in Modern History
- Prof. Louise Hill Curth, Professor of Medical History
- Neil Curtin, Senior Lecturer in American History and Head of Department
- Dr Sian Edwards, Lecturer in Modern British History
- Dr Carey Fleiner, Senior Lecturer in Classical and Medieval History
- Dr Robert Gray, Lecturer in Environmental History
- Dr Xavier Guégan, Senior Lecturer in Colonial and Postcolonial History
- Dr Robert Houghton, Lecturer in Early Medieval European History
- Dr Graciela Iglesias Rogers, Senior Lecturer in Modern European and Global Hispanic History
- Prof. Ryan Lavelle, Professor in Early Medieval History
- Dr Gordon McKelvie, Lecturer in Late Medieval History
- Dr Eoghan Moloney, Senior Lecturer in Classical Studies
- Dr Rebecca Oakes, Lecturer in Late Medieval English History
- Dr Emiliano Perra, Senior Lecturer in Modern European History
- Dr James Ross, Reader in Late Medieval History
- Dr Simon Sandall, Lecturer in Early Modern British History
- Dr Katherine Weikert, Senior Lecturer in Early Medieval European History
- Dr Ellie Woodacre, Senior Lecturer in Early Modern European History
- Dr Cindy Wood, Lecturer in Medieval History
Emeritus Professors
Other lecturing staff
Visiting Research Fellows
Research staff
Dr Matthew Holford, Research Officer Inquisitions Post Mortem Project
Research in History
Research strengths and centres
Local and regional history
The Wessex Centre for History and Archaeology, founded in 2004, encourages and coordinates research within the Wessex region (defined as the historic counties of Dorset, Hampshire and Wiltshire), while the Southern History Society focusses on all the historic southern counties of England.
Medical history
The Centre for Medical History was formally launched in January 2015. This interdisciplinary centre focusses on the social history of health and illness from the ancient to the modern world.
Medieval and Renaissance history
Winchester is a dynamic hub for medieval and Renaissance research. From kings and queens to warfare and welfare, from the Anglo-Saxons to the Renaissance, our academics are leading specialists in their fields and work closely with other specialists around the University such as our medieval archaeologists and Old English experts. Find out more.
Early Modern and Modern history
Winchester's Modern and Early Modern historians have expertise in such areas as the Holocaust, Post-War Japan, the Soviet era and Colonialism, while a particular Early Modern specialistm is Postcolonialism. Visit the Modern History Centre webpage to find out more.
For further research strengths, visit the individual profile pages of History academics via the links above. For information on specific history research projects, visit the Projects in Exploring the Past and the World around us page.
Postgraduate research supervision
We offer research supervision in a wide range of subjects. To find out more, explore our academic staff profile pages above for individual areas of supervision or use the Find an Expert search bar below.
Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2014
Output
Of the publications produced by the History Department, 15.4% were rated as ‘world-leading’ (4*) and a further 41% regarded as ‘internationally excellent’ in terms of originality, significance and rigour (3*).
Impact
In terms of ‘impact’, 60% of the History Department’s work was deemed to have ‘very considerable impacts in terms of their reach and significance’ (3*), a further 30% to have ‘considerable impacts’ in these respects (2*).
The two impact case studies submitted – on Fifteenth-Century England and the Local and Regional History of Wessex – reflected the History Department’s longstanding expertise in these areas, which has been refreshed in recent years by the appointment of new staff. Well-funded projects such as Mapping the Medieval Countryside, using the latest techniques to digitise landholding records, together with excellent research on Richard III, have attracted national and international interest, stimulated by the excavation of Richard III’s remains. These projects continue, as does our work on Anglo-Saxon Wessex, which has generated exhibitions of international significance and reach.