Teaching

Making History

Northern Soul: Constructing Regional Identities in the North of England, 1800 to the present

Dissertation

 Alison Twells

a.twells@shu.ac.uk

I am a historian of modern Britain, with interests in women’s history, the history of sexuality and Britain and empire. I am just finishing a book which emerged from a suitcase of diaries and letters left to me by my great aunt and which reveal some dodgy goings-on involving a sailor who wrote to her after receiving a pair of socks she knitted for the Royal Navy Comfort Fund in 1940. For my next project, I will return to the C19th, and the issue of decolonising regional histories.

 As well as publishing academic books and articles, I’ve written resources for schools, including on abolitionist Olaudah Equiano’s visit to Sheffield in 1790.  I am currently working with a former PSHE Advisor to design materials for the Relationships and Sex Education curriculum, using some of the WW2 diaries and letters. I have also written (and enjoy leading) a ‘history walk’ based on the life of Sheffield writer, socialist and LGBT ‘sex reformer’, Edward Carpenter.

I particularly enjoy teaching Public History and seeing students produce creative and often personal work which links with the great passion for history among the wider public.

Outside of work, I enjoy travelling, gardening, reading novels, walking my dog and being a mum to my two girls.