A great deal of research in the School of History is promoted and experienced through our research centres and forums. These centres differ in their size, funding sources and structures, but all promote innovative research, host visiting scholars, and nurture members of the School, from PGRs and PDRs to fixed-term and full-time members of staff. The centres have inspired new research seminars at QMUL and the IHR, and they support Annual Lectures, workshops, and activities aimed at public engagement.
The Centre for the Study of the History of Political Thought at Queen Mary, University of London was established in 2007. The Centre aims to support the production and dissemination of research of the highest quality in the history of political thought and at encouraging the interaction and cross-fertilisation of the history of political thought with related fields (political theory, philosophy, kaw, legal theory, international relations, intellectual history etc.). The Centre organises high-quality events, promoting the original study of specialised topics as well as methodological innovation. It also promotes scholarly publications in the field and encourages applications for externally-funded grants and awards, and it attracts increasing numbers of Visiting Research Fellows at various career stages who come to conduct research in London under its auspices and who benefit from the events it organizes and the overall research culture that it nurtures.
The QMUL Centre for the History of the Emotions is the only one of its kind in the UK and has led the way over the last decade in supporting and promoting the history of emotions as a vibrant sub-discipline of history, with a particular emphasis on the histories of medicine and the mind, and a strong commitment to public engagement. The Centre has received several research grants, including a £1.6m Collaborative Award from the Wellcome Trust for its project 'Living With Feeling: Emotional Health in History, Philosophy, and Experience'. Please visit our interactive website!
The Leo Baeck Institute London is devoted to the study of German-Jewish history and culture. The LBI is an independent charity and aims to preserve and research this history by organizing innovative research projects, Fellowship programmes, and public events. Through the lens of German-Jewish history, the Institute seeks to address some of the most topical and timely questions of our times.
CREMS aims to consider how new scholarship and interdisciplinary methods and approaches have refigured our understanding of several developments traditionally associated with the term and period ‘Renaissance’. It seeks to inform scholars about developments in approaches and methods in other disciplines, and to disseminate the latest scholarship to a wider community (curators, librarians, the interested public) through a range of activities such as public lectures, seminars, and collaborations with other institutions. CREMS includes a programme of digital humanities events exploring the uses of STEM subject technologies, including network analysis, within the humanities. The interdisciplinary remit of CREMS covers three Schools within HSS: English and Drama; History; and Languages, Linguistics and Film. It is a member of the Center for Renaissance Studies Consortium co-ordinated by the Newberry Library, Chicago, an Associate Organisation of the Renaissance Society of America, and a member of the Prato Consortium for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, run by Monash University.
The Mile End Institute is QMUL's centre for history and public policy. It seeks to promote the university's research, foster public engagement, and connect the academic life of the School to the wider worlds of government, policy-making, the media and the charitable sector.
The Raphael Samuel History Centre is an outreach and research centre dedicated to exploring public, interdisciplinary, and experimental history, supported by a two-way partnership between Birkbeck and Queen Mary. Named after the historian Raphael Samuel, it also maintains an interest in London history and history from below. The Centre runs a regular seminar series with the Institute of Historical Research, an annual Public History Festival and lecture in memory of Raphael Samuel, and regular public history workshops, bringing together academic historians and other humanities and social sciences scholars, heritage and arts sector workers, activists, community workers, and amateur historians. Supported by a dynamic team of established and early career historians, we run a large programme of activities designed to foster new approaches to understanding the past and we are committed to taking history into the wider community through our educational initiatives and public events. We work with universities, museums, libraries, schools, and organizations to create new forums for making history, learning, and discussing history.
The School of History features significantly in Queen Mary’s Centre for Eighteenth-Century Studies, which brings together a very strong group of academics and researchers from across the University. Involving many different approaches to the long eighteenth century, the Centre is exceptionally prominent in its field and beyond.
The Queen Mary South Asia Forum (SAF) was initiated in 2018 by a group of scholars in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, and is designed to pursue three primary aims:
SAF understands the category of ‘South Asia’ in an expansive sense and not simply as a defined geographical area. Its programme of research, debate and critical scholarship is located within the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, but SAF and its affiliates connect broadly to other Faculties in the University as well as the activities of the QM International Office.