History

Lecturer in History
Tutor, MA History and European History

Telephone: +44(0)2076791387
E-mail: michael.collins@ucl.ac.uk
Skype: michaelcollinsucl
Office hour:
Term 1, Wednesdays, 9-10am
Term 2, by appointment

Profile:

I joined the department as a permanent lecturer in 2007 after studying at the LSE, Cambridge and Oxford. I was awarded a DPhil in Modern History by the University of Oxford in 2009. At UCL I teach aspects of Modern British, Imperial and World History over roughly the last 200 years. 

My first book was on Rabindranath Tagore, anti-colonial nationalism and the British-Indian imperial relationship. 

My second book (under contract with I. B. Tauris), is entitled Decolonisation and Globalisation Since 1945, and provides a historiographical analysis of the ways in which the end of the European empires intersected with the growth of international institutions, norms and networks. 

In addition, I am working on the history of British experiments with federations, notably in central and east Africa, in the 1950s. My recent journal article 'Decolonisation and the Federal Moment' (Diplomacy & Statecraft, February 2013) sketches some of the parameters of this project.

Keywords: empire; anti-colonialism; nationalism; nation-state; territoriality; political economy; sovereignty; technocracy; federation.

Please see my webpage on www.academia.edu for further details of my research activities and publications.

BA teaching:

HIST6306: Britain and the Wider World: Empire, War and Decolonisation
HIST7341: London in the Twentieth Century: From Imperial to Global City

MA teaching:

HISTGM01: Advanced Skills, Concepts and Theories for MA Historians
HISTGMO1: Imperial and World History
HISTG070: Britain in the Era of Decolonisation

PhD supervision:

I am the primary supervisor of the following PhD projects:

Kevin Guyan: Masculinities and decolonisation in Postwar London, c. 1945-1965
Kieran O'Leary: The Labour Party, decolonisation and race in the 1960s
Hana Qugana: John Hargrave and radical political thought in interwar Britain
Jack Saunders: Workplace militancy and political ideas in Britain, 1964-1985
Jack Taylor: Decolonisation, oil and the Middle East, 1942-1952

I also act as second supervisor to the following students:

Charlotte Riley: British imperialism, decolonisation and development in Africa
Ben Mechen: Sex and Culture in Seventies Britain

I welcome applications from students wishing to study for a PhD in topics specifically connected to imperialism and decolonisation after 1945.