Postgraduates

I welcome and enjoy supervising Masters and PhD students in Modern History.

My areas of particular expertise include: Czechoslovakia; English Catholicism; Communism; Science and Religion; East-Central Europe; the Cold War; Bible-smuggling; espionage.

I am based at the School of History, Archaeology and Religion at Cardiff University in Wales. Apply to Cardiff University

I have long experience of supervising doctoral and other postgraduate students to successful and timely completion.

Current/recent PhD/MPhil students include:

  • Liz Kohn, ‘Invisible Women in the Slánský Trial’, MPhil expected 2024.
  • James Moffatt, ‘The Rudolf Battěk Trial in Normalized Czechoslovakia’, MPhil expected 2024.
  • Kristof Smeyers, ‘Blood Ties. Stigmatics and Society in Victorian Britain’, (co-supervised with Tine Van Osselaer at the University of Antwerp; PhD degree awarded 2021).
  • Stephen O’Donnell, ‘Trans-National Slovak Nationalism, circa 1890-1914′ (fully-funded PhD; degree awarded 2018).
  • David Green, ‘The Czechoslovak Communist Party’s Revolution’ (ESRC-funded PhD; degree awarded 2014).
  • Jennifer Dowie Roe, ‘Spiritualist Summer Schools, 1860-1900’ (PhD degree awarded 2011).
  • Gregory Williams, ‘Cultural Policy and the Czechoslovak Communist Party, circa 1970-1988′ (fully-funded PhD; suspended for personal reasons).

Other dissertation topics supervised to successful completion include:

  • Beyond the Winton Narrative: Wales and the Kindertransport
  • The British and the Czechoslovak Independence Campaign
  • Understanding the Czech Women’s Suffrage Movement
  • A Study of Censorship: Law and Order during Dubček’s Normalisation
  • Radio Free Europe in Czechoslovakia, circa 1974-1984
  • British Phrenology in Crisis, circa 1880-1930
  • Czechoslovak Representations at the Paris Peace Conference 1919
  • The Development of Francis Galton’s Eugenics Theory from 1865-1911
  • The Czechoslovak Exile Government in London, 1939-1945
  • Satires of Communism in Czech Film of the New Wave
  • Nazi Constructions of Childhood in Theresienstadt Concentration Camp
  • Religious Practice among English Catholics, circa 1829-1850
  • Edvard Beneš and the Expulsion of the Sudeten Germans, 1938-1945
  • The Communist Party of Great Britain’s Response to the Warsaw Pact Intervention in Czechoslovakia in 1968
  • Cardinal Jozsef Mindszenty: A Cameo of the Cold War
  • How Distinctively Czech was the Velvet Revolution of 1989?
  • Edvard Beneš’s Role in the 1948 Communist Coup
  • Portrayals of the 1968 Invasion of Czechoslovakia in British Print Media
  • Spiritualism in Nineteenth-Century Scotland
  • Sketches of Holy Women in Nineteenth-Century Methodism
  • Catholic Social Thought and Action in the 1930s in England

Postgraduate Summer School at NYU in Prague

I designed and co-ran the 5th CRCEES Postgraduate Research Methodology Summer School held at New York University in Prague (11-20 July 2011). This brought together 20 doctoral students and 15 academic experts from universities across Europe, including Britain, the Czech Republic, Germany, Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Kazakhstan and Serbia. The AHRC, SFC and HEFCE funded the ten-day residential postgraduate summer school. Review of Prague Summer School

External Examining

University of Cambridge (2022)

University of Antwerp (2021)

University of Leeds (2019)

University of Edinburgh (2015, 2016, 2017, 2018)

University of St Andrews (2016)

University of Glasgow (2015)

University of Aberdeen (2014)

University of Oxford (2008)

University of York (1998)

Recent interview

Talking with Professor Mary Heimann (EHS podcast 2023)