Penelope Corfield (MA, Oxford, PhD, London)
Professor of History
FHEA, FRFistS, FRSA, FSA
Organiser/editor of annual Hayes Robinson lecture; Member History sub-panel 62 for RAE 2008; President of the British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies; Visiting Fellow, All Souls College, Oxford, 2008/9
email: p.corfield@rhul.ac.uk
office: McCrea 310
phone: 01784 443299
Research Interests
Penelope J. Corfield has two linked sets of research interests. One focuses upon the social, cultural, and urban history of Britain from the eighteenth to the early twentieth centuries. She is currently planning a new project entitled 'The Long March of Meritocracy'.
The other research interest focuses upon History as a subject of study, which is defined as Historiology (what are the concepts and approaches inherent to the study of history?) in contrast to Historiography, which is concerned with History-writing (who wrote what, when, and why?).
Specifically, Penelope Corfield is fascinated by how the specialist periods and themes studied by historians might fit (or perhaps not fit) into the Big Picture - making a common human history. Her own study considers the different 'shapes' of history. Does it move in circles, always returning to where things started? Or does history travel along a straight line - and it so, to what destination? Or does it jump from stage to stage, through a series of discontinuous rather than continuous changes? Or does history simply exemplify a 'random walk'? Those interested in these questions are invited to study her book, Time and the Shape of History (2007).
Penelope Corfield supervises an international galaxy of research students (past and/or currently from Australia, Canada, England, Israel, Japan, Spain's Basque Country, Taiwan, USA, Wales) with a wide range of subjects over a long span of time - from seventeenth-century piracy through to the late twentieth century demise of the British Communist Party. All 27 of her former PhD students have proceeded to publish books and/or articles based upon their research; and over half of these former PhD students now hold academic and research posts in (variously) England, Japan, Taiwan, and Wales.
Classes Taught (subject to availability)
Undergraduate
HS1002 History and Meanings
HS2246 From Rakes to Respectability? Conflict and Consensus in Britain 1815-51
Postgraduate
HS5450 Core Course: History Past and Present - Definitions, Concepts and Approaches
HS5432 The Advent of Meritocracy: Social Dynamics in Britain 1780-1880
Links
How Historiology defines History
DVD – Red Battersea: One Hundred Years of Labour 1908-2008
Tel/Fax : +44 (0)1784 443314 /433032