 Dr Matthew McCormack
Telephone: 01604 892126
Email: matthew.mccormack@northampton.ac.uk
I developed an interest in modern British history as an undergraduate at York, which I pursued further as a postgraduate, ESRC postdoctoral fellow and lecturer at Manchester University. My PhD on the idea of 'independence' in Georgian England started out as a study in political culture, but increasingly became focused on issues of gender as I tried to understand the role of masculinity in debates about citizenship. I arrived in Northampton in 2004 and am now a Senior Lecturer and Course Leader for Single Honours History.
Research interests
My subsequent research has built on my doctoral work by focusing upon the wider relationship of politics to masculinity in modern Britain. My first book, The Independent Man, explored the ways in which political and personal freedom were conceived of in terms of 'manly independence', particularly in relation to the vote. Other projects have tried to think about citizenship in a broader way, such as in relation to fatherhood or military volunteering, and my current work is on the cultural history of the militia in eighteenth-century England.
Recent publications
Books
Articles and Book Chapters
- 'Tobias Smollett’s 'Ode to Independence' and Georgian political culture', British Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies, 26 (2003).
- 'The independent man: gender, obligation and virtue in the 1832 Reform Act', in M.J. Turner (ed.), Reform and Reformers in Nineteenth-Century Britain (Sunderland University Press, 2004).
- 'Metropolitan “radicalism” and electoral independence, 1760-1820', in M. Cragoe and A. D. Taylor (eds), London Politics, 1760-1918 (Palgrave, 2005).
- 'Masculinity, nationhood and citizenship in the Affair of the Hanoverian Soldier, 1756', The Historical Journal 49, 4 (2006).
- '“Married men and the fathers of families”: fatherhood and franchise reform in Britain', in H. Rogers and T. Broughton (eds), Gender and Fatherhood in the Nineteenth Century (Palgrave, 2007).
- 'Radicalism', in The Dictionary of Liberal Thought (2007).
- 'The New Militia: Gender, Politics and War in 1750s Britain', Gender and History, 19, 3 (2007).
Teaching
In addition to thesis supervision and skills teaching, I teach on a range of modules relating to British political, social and gender history, including:
- Introduction to women’s history
- Research skills in History
- Victorian Britain
- Citizenship and Gender in Britain, 1760-1918
- Research Skills
PhD supervision
I am currently supervising a PhD project on parliamentary elections in Northampton, and welcome enquiries about doctoral projects in the areas of political culture and/or gender in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Britain.
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