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Talks and presentations

European Social Science History Conference (Gothenburg, Sweden): “Making the Word New (again): the Bible for Today (1941) and ‘Modern’ Christianity” (13 April 2023)

Wissen ordnen und entgrenzen – vom analogen zum digitalen Europa? (Leibniz Institute of European History, Mainz): Commentary on first day of conference papers (16 March 2022)

Leibniz Institute of European History (Mainz): “Christianity, Technology and Sacralisation: The World Council of Churches and the Technological Society, 1937-1948”, Beyond Secularization– (De)Sacralization in Modern European History | Jenseits der Säkularisierungstheorie – (De)sakralisierung in der neuzeitlichen Geschichte Europas (25 November 2021, virtual).

Leibniz Institute of European History (Mainz): “Christianity, Technology and Sacralisation: Christian Intellectuals in Britain and the Challenge of the Technological Society, 1930s–1950s”, Autor:innen-Workshop: Sakralisierung-Disziplinäre Zugänge und empirische Forschungsperspektiven (12. Oktober 2021).

European Social Science History Conference (Leiden, The Netherlands) (AS PANEL ORGANISER: “Religion and social change in the twentieth century”): “Christian Intellectuals in Britain and the Challenge of Technology from the 1930s to the 1950s” (25 March 2021, virtual)

European Social Science History Conference (Leiden, The Netherlands): Commentator on the “Religious Change and Secularisation” panel, European Social Science History Conference (26 March 2021, virtual).

Johannes Gutenberg University (Mainz), inaugural lecture (Antrittsvorlesung): “Der Killer mit dem blauen Auge: Ein deutscher Polizistenmörder in London und die britische Justiz der 1950er Jahre” (7 November 2018)

Johannes Gutenberg University (Mainz), Habilitationskolloquium: “Rasse und Differenzkonzepte im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert” (4 July 2018)

University of Siegen, Symposium: Counter/Narratives of Punishment and Criminal Justice: “Sympathies and Scandals: (Counter-) Narratives of Criminality and Policing in Inter-war Britain” (22 June 2018)

European Social Science History Conference (Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK): Invited commentator at a panel session on Patrick Pasture, Imagining European Unity since 1000 AD. (7 April 2018)

European Social Science History Conference (Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK) (AS PANEL ORGANISER: “Christian modernities in Britain and Ireland in the twentieth century”): “‘Going part of the way together’: Christian Intellectuals, Secularity, and the European Crisis, 1937–1949” (4 April 2018)

(INVITED SPEAKER) Justus Liebig University (Gießen), International Graduate Centre for the Study of Culture: “‘Dies ist eure Stunde’: Ein christlicher Intellektuellenkreis in Großbritannien und die europäischen Krisen der 1930er und 1940er Jahre” (28 June 2017)

Johannes Gutenberg University (Mainz), Research Colloquium, Neueste Geschichte: “This Is Your Hour: Christliche Intellektuelle in Großbritannien und die europäischen Krisen der 1930er und 1940er Jahre” (25 January 2017)

German Historical Institute (London), Research Colloquium: “Christliche Intellektuelle in Großbritannien und die europäischen Krisen der 1930er und 1940er Jahre” (27 September 2016)

Britain and the World Conference 2016 (London) “‘The hopes of Europe have descended upon this island’: War, Religion, and the National ‘Mission’ in a British Christian Intellectual group, 1937–1949” (23 June 2016)

European Social Science History Conference (Valencia, Spain) (AS PANEL ORGANISER: “Comparative Perspectives on Religion and Secularity in the Twentieth Century”): “Explorations on the ‘Frontier’: Christian Principles and Secular Knowledge in a British Intellectual Network, 1937–1949” (31 March 2016)

Institute of Historical Research Modern Religious History Seminar (London): “‘This Is Your Hour’: Crisis, Cultural Renewal and a Christian Intellectual Circle in Britain, 1937–1949” (10 February 2016)

Leibniz Institute of European History (Mainz, Germany): Workshop: European Christianity and the Challenge of Plurality in the 1960s and 1970s, “A Prologue to Plurality? Secularity, Pluralism, Freedom and a Christian Intellectual Circle in 1940s Britain” (5 October 2015)

Leibniz Institute of European History (Mainz, Germany) Commentary on lecture by Prof. Till van Rahden, “Minority and Majority as Asymmetrical Concepts: The Perils of Democratic Equality and Fantasies of National Purity” (7 July 2015)

(INVITED DISCUSSANT) KADOC (KU Leuven, Belgium) Reassessing a Thought System: A Workshop on Twentieth Century Neothomism (29–30 June 2015)

KADOC Seminar Series (KU Leuven, Belgium): “‘So the darkness shall be the light’: A Christian Intellectual Network in Britain and the European Crises of the 1930s and 1940s” (23 April 2015)

(INVITED DISCUSSANT) The British Press in the Second World War: A Symposium (London) (8 July 2014)

European Social Science History Conference (Vienna, Austria) (AS PANEL ORGANISER: “Christianity and national identity in twentieth-century Europe”): “‘The rock of human sanity stands in the sea where it always stood’: Britishness, Christianity and the experience of defeat, 1939–1941” (24 April 2014)

European Social Science History Conference (Vienna, Austria) Session discussant: “Crossing the Line: European Police Culture across Ranks” (23 April 2014)

Film series: Propaganda, Pazifismus, Kosmopolitismus: Die Welten des Ersten Weltkriegs im Film (Leibniz Institute of European History, Mainz, Germany): Introductory talk on Charlie Chaplin’s Shoulder Arms/Gewehr Über (30 October 2013)

Workshop: Kulturelle Souveränität: Annäherung an ein Forschungskonzept (Leibniz Institute of European History, Mainz, Germany), “‘A fundamental re-orientation of outlook’: Christliche Ordnungskonzepte und ‘kulturelle Souveränität’ in Großbritannien, 1937-1949” (18 October 2013)

Forschungskolloquium Neuere/Neueste Geschichte (Lehrstuhl für Neuere und Neueste Geschichte, Georg-August-Universität, Göttingen, Germany) “‘This is your hour, and the power of darkness’: Christliche Intellektuelle in Großbritannien und die Krisen der 1930er und 1940er Jahre” (18 June 2013)

Our Criminal Past: Caring for the Future: First Network Seminar (London, UK) Session commentator, “Historians of Crime and Social Media” (17 May 2013)

Forest of Dean Local History Society (Bream, Gloucestershire, UK): “The Trials of Beatrice Pace” (9 March 2013)

British Crime Historians Symposium (The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK): “‘Unimaginable Agonies and Degradations and Cruelties’: Criminal Justice and the ‘Martyrdom’ of Beatrice Pace, 1928” (6–7 September 2012)

International Association for Media and History Conference: Perception, Reception: The History of the Media in Society (Aberystwyth, Wales): “Christian Intellectuals and the Mass Media in 1930s and 1940s Britain” (4–6 July 2012)

Zwischen Verehrung und Verachtung? Der Transfer der Kulturmorphologie Oswald Spenglers ins Europa der Zwischenkriegszeit (1919–1939) (“Between Reverence and Contempt: The Reception of Oswald Spengler’s Morphology of Cultures in Inter-war Europe”) (Leibniz Institute of European History, Mainz, Germany): “‘German Foolishness’ and the ‘Prophet of Doom’: Oswald Spengler and the Inter-war British Press” (20–21 June 2012)

European Social Science History Conference (Glasgow, UK) (AS PANEL ORGANISER: “Crime Stories: Justice, Criminality, Policing and the Inter-War Press”): “The Constables and the ‘Garage Girl’: The Inter-war Press, the Metropolitan Police and the Case of Helene Adele” (11–14 April 2012)

Religion und Kapitalismus/Religion and Capitalism (Società, Forum für Ethik, Kunst und Recht, Vienna, Austria): “Zwischen Mammon und Marx: Christliche Kapitalismuskritik in Großbritannien 1930-39” (“Between Mammon and Marx: Christian Critiques of Capitalism in Britain 1930–39”) (18 November 2011)

West-Östlicher Ideentransfer. Ordnungsentwürfe transnationaler Querdenker für Europa in der ersten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts (Institute of European History, Mainz, Germany): “‘Planning for Freedom’: Karl Mannheim, Joseph Oldham und ‘The Moot'” (16 November 2011)

Making Sense of Violence? Interdisciplinary Approaches to Violence Past and Present (University of Bern, Switzerland): “A part of us or apart from us? The cultural, social and psychological sense of violence” (9 September 2011)

Research colloquium (Forschungskolloquiuim), Institute of European History (Mainz, Germany): “Kriminalitätsgeschichte als Kulturgeschichte” (“Crime History as Cultural History”) (12 April 2011)

Crime and Punishment in Modern Europe, 1870-1990 (German Historical Institute, Washington DC, USA): “‘Heroic Doses of Being Left Alone’: Criminal Justice, the Press and Civil Liberties in Inter-war Britain” (11 March 2011)

Social Science History Association Conference (Chicago, USA): Commentary on American Homicide, by Randolph Roth (20 November 2010)

Social Science History Association Conference (Chicago, USA): “Police Powers and Parliamentary Politics in Late 1920s Britain” (18 November 2010)

Drink in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries: Consumers, Cross-Currents, Conviviality (Conference: University of Bonn): “Drinking, Fighting and Working-Class Sociability in Nineteenth-Century England” (5 November 2010)

XXI. Polizeihistorisches Kolloquium (University of Cologne, Germany) “Police Powers and their Limits in 1920s Britain” (16 July 2010)

Ethnicity, Crime and Justice; Contemporary and Historical Perspectives (The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK) “Prejudice and Practice: The Experience of Black Offenders and Victims in the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries” (8 June 2010)

European Social Science History Conference (Ghent, Belgium) “Change of Perspective: Integrating Evolutionary Psychology into the Historiography of Violence” (13–16 April 2010)

(AS CONFERENCE ORGANISER) Policing, Media and Civil Liberties in Inter-war Britain (The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK) “The ‘Third Degree’: The Cultural History of an American Phrase in Britain, 1900–1939” (26 February 2010)

Reading British Spaces: Annual Conference of the German Association for the Study of British Culture (University of Paderborn, Germany) “Reading Spaces and Reading Violence in Nineteenth-Century Britain” (19–21 November 2009)

Social Fears and Moral Panics (University of Aberystwyth, UK) “The Press, the ‘Third Degree’ and Police Powers in Late-1920s Britain” (8–11 July 2009)

Violence in Public Places (University of Central Lancashire, Preston, UK) “And never the twain shall meet? Evolutionary Psychology and the History of Violence” (25–27 June 2009)

Justice and Public Space(s) in the Western World, from Antiquity to the Present (Centre interuniversitaire d’études québécoises, Montreal, Canada) “Police Powers and Public Opinion in Late-1920s Britain” (8 May 2009)

Women and Crime in Britain and North America since 1500 (University Lyon 2 and University Lyon 3, France) “Police Powers and the Celebrity Female Victim in Mid-Interwar Britain” (11–13 September 2008)

(AS INVITED PLENARY SPEAKER) Symposium on New Directions in the History of Crime (Leeds Metropolitan University, UK) “Cultural and Biological Approaches to the History of Violence: An End to Splendid Isolation?” (4–5 September 2008)

“From Shanghai to Shepperton”: An International Conference on J. G. Ballard (University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK) “‘Going mad is their only way of staying sane’: The Civilised Violence of J. G. Ballard” (5 May 2007)

Crime, Violence and the Modern State Conference (University of Rethymnon, Crete, Greece) “Violence and Victimisation in Interwar Britain: The ‘Martyrdom’ of Mrs. Pace” (10 March 2007)

Policing and Violence Between and After Wars seminar (The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK) “A Study in Interwar Victimisation: Police, Press, Public and the ‘Tragic Widow of Coleford'” (16 February 2007)

“Assaulting the Past” – Placing Violence in Historical Context Conference (Oxford Brookes University, UK) “Locating Violence: Space and the Construction of Physical Aggression” (7 July 2005)

Fourth York Cultural History Conference (York, UK) “Conceptualising Cultures of Violence and Cultural Change” (April, 2005)

Workshop Gender- und Frauenforschung (Johannes Gutenberg-University, Mainz, Germany) “What a Man’s Got To Do: Historical Perspectives on Violence, Culture and Masculinity” (22 January 2005)

Second Transdisciplinary Forum Magdeburg, “Diskurse der Gewalt – Gewalt der Diskurse” (Otto-von-Guericke-University, Magdeburg, Germany) “The Process of Civilization (and its Discontents): Violence, Discourse and History” (July 2004)

British Society of Criminology (BSC) Conference (Keele University, UK) “The Civilising Bargain: Mentality, Protection and Delegated Violence in Britain” (17 July 2002)

Comparative Histories of Crime Conference (Keele University, UK) “It’s a Small World After All?: Reflections on Violence in Cross-national Perspectives” (16 July 2002)

International Conference on the History of Violence (University of Liverpool, UK) “‘Speakable’ Violence: Narrative, Mentality and Violence in Nineteenth-Century England” (5 July 2001)

Victorian Studies Reading Group (Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA) “A Useful Savagery: Violence, Civilization and Middle-Class Identity” (28 September 2000)

History Workshop Seminar (London, UK) “Custom, Law, and Violence in Nineteenth-Century England” (10 January 2000)

Royal Geographic Society-Institute of British Geographers (RGS–IBG) (Brighton, UK) “‘The Wrongdoing of the Poor Man is as Open as Day’: Violence and Working-Class Social Space in Nineteenth-Century England” (6 January 2000)

Group for Early-Modern Cultural Studies (GEMCS) (Coral Gables, FL, USA) “‘The Brave Old English Custom’: Dispute, Sport and Ritual Fighting Among Working-Class Men in Nineteenth-Century England” (9 October 1999)