Emily Robinson

• Professor in British Studies (Politics), University of Sussex

I am a historian of political ideas and identities in modern Britain, with a particular interest in the way that both time and feeling are conceived within different ideological traditions. I'm also very interested in popular understandings of history, and changing cultures of history-telling.

My latest book is The Politics of Feeling in Brexit Britain: stories from the Mass Observation Project, (co-authored with Jonathan Moss and Jake Watts, Manchester University Press, 2024). My previous work has included books on the uses of the past in modern British party politics (MUP, 2012), and the political claim to be 'progressive' (Palgrave, 2017), as well as articles on the sensory experience of archival research; radical Englishness; 'unpolitics', popular individualism (co-authored with Camilla Schofield, Florence Sutcliffe-Braithwaite and Natalie Thomlinson); and the place of feeling in modern conservatism.

My current project focuses on popular understandings of history, and changing cultures of history-telling, through the story of Ravenser Odd. This was an island that emerged near the mouth of the Humber in the early 1230s, before being washed away 130 years later, just after the Black Death. This is a story built on shifting sands: elusive, obscure, undeniably Odd. It involves shipwreck, piracy, unearthed corpses. I'm interested in how it has been researched and retold by local historians, artists and enthusiasts. What does it tell us about the ways we imagine local and regional identities, the natural environment, and 'weird history'? I have also been collaborating with Dr Kathryn Maude, who is researching the medieval history of the island. Together, we have curated two exhibitions and have an article forthcoming in Archives.

• –present Reader in British Studies (Politics), University of Sussex

MENAFN23092026000199003603ID1111702057