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Department of History

Emeritus Professor Carolyn Steedman FBA

 

History Department
University of Warwick
Coventry CV4 7AL
Email: c.k.steedman@warwick.ac.uk

I have been Emeritus Professor in the University of Warwick History Department since 2014. Poetry for Historians; or, W. H. Auden and History was published in April 2018; History and the Law. A Love Story was published by Cambridge University Press in February 2020. A Play on the Recent Past. History, Writing and Stanley Middleton's Novels will be out in August 2025.

Academic Profile
  • BA Sussex
  • PhD Cambridge [a full cv is available here: ckscv.pdf]
Publications: Books
  • The Tidy House (1982)
  • Policing the Victorian Community (1984)
  • Language, Gender and Childhood (edited with Cathy Urwin and Valerie Walkerdine, 1985)
  • Landscape for a Good Woman (1986)
  • The Radical Soldier's Tale: John Pearman, 1819-1908 (1988)
  • Margaret McMillan. Childhood, Culture and Class in Britain (1990)
  • Past Tenses. Essays on Writing, Autobiography and History (1992)
  • Strange Dislocations. Childhood and the Idea of Human Interiority, 1780-1930 (1995)
  • Dust (2001)
  • Master and Servant. Love and Labour in the English Industrial Age (2007)
  • Labours Lost. Domestic Service and the Making of Modern England (2009)
  • An Everyday Life of the English Working Class. Work, Self, and Sociability in the Early Nineteenth Century (2013)
  • The Radical Soldier's Tale. John Pearman, 1819-1908 (2016). This has been reissued as a Routledge Library Edition in The Victorian World series.
  • Language, Gender and Childhood (1985) has been resissued as part of Routledge Revivals: History Workshop Series (2016)
  • Poetry for Historians; or, W. H. Auden and History (2018)
  • History and the Law. A Love Story (2020)
Publications: Some Recent Articles, Chapters, Reviews, Essays and Journalism (written after retiring from Warwick)
  • 'Living with the Dead’, The Craft of Knowledge. Experiences of Living with Data, Carol Smart and Jennifer Hockley (eds), Palgrave, 2014, pp.162-175.
  • `Mayhew: On Reading, About Writing', Journal of Victorian Culture, 19:4 (2014), pp. 550-561. http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/TEY4aEsU62usRPqU4g2i/full
  • `Review of Hanne Østhus, Contested Authority. Master and Servant in Copenhagen and Christian, 1750-1850', Sjuttonhundratal. Nordic Yearbook for Eighteenth-Century Studies, 2014, pp.132-4.
  • `On a Bridge', Changing English. Studies in Culture and Education, 22:3 (2015), pp. 245-259.
  • `The Poetry of It (Writing History)', Angelika Bammer and Ruth-Ellen Joeres (eds), The Future of Scholarly Writing: Critical Interventions, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2015, pp. 215-226.
  • `A Lawyer's Letter. Everyday Uses of the Law in Early Nineteenth-Century England', History Workshop Journal, 80:1 (2016), pp. 62-83.

  • Review of Fatherhood and the British Working Class, 1865-1914, by Julie-Marie Strange, The English Historical Review, 131 (2016), pp. 693-695

  • 'Wall in the Head’, Review of Respectable: The Experience of Class by Lynsey Hanley, London Review of Books, 38:15 (28 July 2016), pp. 29-30

  • 'Being There: Living the Industrial Revolution’, Industrialisation and Society in Britain. Cromford and Beyond in the Era of the Industrial Revolution, Chris Wrigley (ed.), The Arkwright Society, Cromford, 2016, pp.39-55

  • `Threatening Letters. E. E. Dodd, E. P. Thompson and the Making of "The Crime of Anonymity", History Workshop Journal, 80:2 (2016), pp. 50-82.
  • `Sluzba I Milczenie', Praktyka Teoretyczna, 1:23 (2017), pp. 64-83.
  • `Middle-class Hair', London Review of Books, 39:20 (19 Oct 2017), pp. 31-32.
  • `Lord Mansfield's Voices: In the Archive, Hearing Things', Stephanie Downes, Sally Holloway, Sarah Randles (eds), Feeling Things. Objects and Emotions through History, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2018, pp. 209-225.
  • `Blackstone and Women', Anthony Page and Wilfrid Prest (eds), Blackstone and His Critics, Hart, Oxford, 2018, pp.133-152.
  • `Archive Fever, Ghostly Histories', David Dean (ed.), A Companion to Public History, Wiley, Hoboken NJ, 2018, pp. 97-100.
  • `Where Have You Been?', Pal Brunnstrom and Ragnhild Claesson (eds), Creating the City. Identity, Memory and Participation. Conference proceedings,Institute for Studies in Malmo's History, University of Malmo, 2019, pp. 18-34.
  • `Out of Somerset; or, Satire in Metropolis and Province', The Oxford Handbook of Eighteenth Century Satire, Paddy Bullard (ed.), Oxford University Press, 2019, pp. 680-695.
  • `Waiting. Arnold Wesker and The Nottingham Captain, Social History, 45:1 (2020), pp. 81-114.
  • `"Great Learning" and Private Schooling', Review of Francis Green and David Kynaston, Engines of Privilege. Britain's Private School Problem (2019), History Workshop Journal, 45:1 (2020), pp. 81-114.
  • `How He Saw It. Visual Satire in the Writings of Joseph Woolley', Nicholas Chare and Mitchell B. Frank (eds), History and Art History. Looking Past Disciplines, Routledge. New York and Abingdon, 2020, pp. 25-38.
  • `Social History Comes to Warwick', Jill Pellew and Miles Taylor (eds), Utopian Universities. A Global History of the New Campuses of the 1960s, Bloomsbury, London, 2020, pp.157-173.
  • `And She Did', Historic Passion, History Workshop Journal, 91 (2021), pp. 234-239.
  • Review of Many Mouths. The Politics of Food from the Workhouse to the Welfare State, by Nadja Durbach, American Historical Review, 126:4, (2021), pp. 1689-1690.
  • `About a Play. Stanley Middleton's Pentrich Revolution', History Workshop Journal, 94 (2022), pp. 84-108.
  • `The Notes, the Markings: Along the Margins of the Years', Rethinking History, 26:2 (2022), pp.267-287.
  • `Sad Historian', American Historical Review, 127:4 (2022), pp. 1897-1904.
  • Review of Age Relations and Cultural Change in Eighteenth-century England, by Barbara Crosbie, Journal of Modern History, 95:1 (2023), pp. 188-190.
  • `Foreword', Andrew Prescott and Alison Wiggins (eds), Archives. Power, Truth and Fiction, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2023, pp. xxviii-xxx.
  • `So What?', Ecrire Histoire. Histoire/Litterature/Esthetique, 24 (2024), pp. 175-182; traduction par Ninon Vinsonneau, pp. 183-191.
  • `On the Doorstep', Exchanges: The Interdisciplinary Research Journal, 11:4 (2024), Special Issue: MRC@50 , pp. 21-27.
  • `Who Reads Renan', History of the Human Sciences, 37: 5 (2024), pp. 3-20. https://doi.org/10.1177/09526951241256522
  • Recent Talks, Papers, Conference Presentations and Broadcasts (since retiring from Warwick)
  • `Beginning Archive Fever', 20 Years of Archive Fever, The Freud Museum, London (held at the Anna Freud Centre), July 2014.
  • `"Nothing to Say But Itself". Writing at the End of the Early Modern Era in England', Newberry Library, Chicago, October 2014
  • `A Lawyer's Letter. Everyday Uses of the Law at the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century in England', Nicholson Center for British Studies, University of Chicago, October 2014.
  • `Writing Everyday. A Framework Knitter's Diaries c.1800-1815', Diaries Symposium, Manchester Centre for Regional History at Manchester Metropolitan University, November 2014.
  • `Writing Up the Writer. Joseph Woolley, Sir Gervase Clifton, and the Law', The Local History Seminar, University of Nottingham, November 2014.
  • `Gendered Subjectivity, A Conversation with Catherine Hall', Gender Institute, London School of Economics, November 2014.
  • Roundtable Discussion (with Ruth Percy) of Selina Todd's The People, Institute of Historical Research, November 2014.
  • `Writing a Writer (Autour d'un écrivain): Joseph Woolley, Sir Gervase Clifton and the Law', Séminaire franco-brittannique d'histoire, Université Paris IV-Sorbonne, February 2015.
  • `A Lawyer's Letter. Everyday Uses of the Law at the Turn of the English Nineteenth Century', Contemporary British History Seminar, History Department, University of Birmingham, February 2015
  • `A Lawyer's Letter. Everyday Uses of the Law at the Turn of the English Nineteenth Century', Modern British History Seminar, University of Cambridge, March 2015.
  • `Text or Document? The Diaries (1800-1815) of Joseph Woolley', Archives and Texts Seminar, University of Reading, April 2015.
  • `Law in the Archive', Archives and Forms of Knowledge Seminar, University of Oxford, May 2015.
  • `What Remains', Plenary Lecture, Performance and Politics in the 1970s Conference (QML & Live Art Development Agency), Whitechapel Gallery, London, May 2015.
  • `Being There. Living the Industrial Revolution', Industrialisation and Society in Britain Conference, Arkwright Society, Cromford Mill, Cromford, September 2015.
  • `Law and the Making of Community in early Nineteenth-century England', The Long Ninteenth-century Graduate Seminar: Reshaping Communities in the Long Nineteenth Century, University of Oxford, October 2015.
  • `Young Women at University in the 1960s and 1970s: A Conversation with Margaret Drabble', Warwick History's Anniversary Event, University of Warwick, October 2015.
  • `Threatening Letters. E. P. Thompson, E. E. Dodd, and the Service Relationship in Historical Research', Reconfiguring Britain Seminar, Institute of Historical Research, University of London, November 2015
  • `Poetry for Historians', School of History Seminar, University of Bristol, November 2015.
  • `Lord Mansfield's Voices. In the Archive, Hearing Things', Plenary Lecture, Gerald Aylmer Seminar on `The Experience of the Archive', Institute of Historical Research, London, April 2016.
  • `Fleeting and Fragmentary. Things Fall Apart', Im/material: Encounters within the Creative Arts Archive Conference, Chelsea College of Art, University of the Arts, London, May 2016.
  • `Poetry for Historians', History Seminar, Manchester University, October 2016.
  • `Where Have You Been?', Keynote Lecture, Creating the City Conference, University of Malmo, February 2017.
  • `Restoring Lost Voices of History', Medea Vox #15, Malmo University, Sweden, March 2017, media.mah.se/2017/02/vox-lost-voices-of-history/
  • `Poetry for Historians', Philosophy of History Seminar, Institute of Historical Research, London, March 2017.
  • Interviewed for `Archive Fever', BBC Radio 4, Archive on 4, Saturday 15th April 2017–but you can't Listen Again: `Matthew Sweet attempts to live in the moment and evade posterity as he pieces together an edition of Archive on 4 without the use of any archive whatsoever–and in a valiant attempt at autodestructive radio, ties to remove all trace of this very programme from the world ...'.
  • `Never Married', Keynote Lecture, Women's History Association of Ireland Annual Conference, University of Galway, April 2017.
  • `Remembering: Jeremiah Brandreth, E. P. Thompson, Arnold Wesker', Plenary Lecture, Radicalism and Popular Protest in Britain 1790-1820, Derby University and Derby City Museum, June 2017.
  • `About the House, Beyond the Home. Eighteenth-century Servants' Poetry', Keynote Lecture, Beyond the Home. New Histories of Domestic Servants Conference, University of Oxford, September 2017.
  • Participant in the `Archives in a Post-truth World' conference, University of Northumbia, Newcastle, October 2017.
  • `Poetry for Historians', Friends of Summertown Library Lecture Series, Oxford, February 2018.
  • `What the Servants Knew', Keynote Lecture, Servants Past Conference (ERC/re:work) Humboldt University, Berlin, April 2018.
  • `History and Poetry: Work', re:work, Berlin, April 2018.
  • `History and Poetry', Zentrum fur Theorien in der historischen Forschung, Universitat Bielefeld, June 2018.
  • `Still Not Writing Biography', Plenary Lecture, `Life Writing. Truth Lies History' Conference, Johannesburg Institute of Advanced Studies, August 2018.
  • `Social History Comes to Warwick', Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research, University of the Witwatersrand,Johannesburg, August 2018.
  • `On A Bridge', `Where We Come From' Workshop, City, University of London, January 2019.
  • `How Did They Know? A Servant and a Stockingmaker, England, 1780-1820', Plenary Lecture,11th Annual Conference of the Finnish Network for 19th Century Studies, University of Oulu, January 2019.
  • Concluding remarks, Historical `I' Conference, University of Essex, June 2019.
  • `Making Something, Making History: the Poetics of Doing', Keynote Lecture, TECHE Conference, Brighton University, July 2019.
  • `History, the Law and the Archive', Keynote Lecture AERI Conference, University of Liverpool, July 2019.
  • `What William Godwin Couldn't See', Imaginative Pasts Conference, University of Essex, July 2023.
  • `Novel History', Institute of Historical Research, Research Lecture, November 2024.