Dr Anna Maguire

Anna Maguire is Lecturer in Public History. She is a historian of migration, war and empire in twentieth century Britain and the British Empire. She is currently working on a history of sanctuary for refugees in Britain from 1950 to 2000. She is also interested in history education and co-production and collaborative public history approaches. 

Anna joined UCL in 2022 from Queen Mary, University of London, where she was a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow. She has previously taught at King’s College London.

Major publications

• Contact Zones of the First World War: Cultural Encounters across the British Empire (CUP, 2021)
• With Santanu Das and Daniel Steinbach (eds.), Colonial Encounters in a Time of Global Conflict, 1914-1918 (Routledge, 2021). 
• With Diya Gupta, ‘Teaching Empire and War: Animating Marginalized Histories in the Classroom’, History Workshop Journal (2021). 
• 'Colonial Servicemen and their British "War Brides": First World War Marriages in the British Empire', Gender & History (2021).

For a full list of publications, see Anna’s Iris profile.

Public History/Engagement

Anna is a practitioner of public history, including work at the Imperial War Museum and with 14-18 NOW during the First World War centenary. As part of the HERA project Cultural Exchange in a Time of Global Conflict, she contributed to the team’s exhibition and digital sourcebook. In her current research, she has worked with artist Social Fabric, to capture Sanctuary Stories through print screening. She is a member of the editorial collective of RefugeeHistory.org

Anna is committed to widening participation in education. In 2019, with Diya Gupta, she ran the Teaching Empire and War project, running workshops with local schools and producing a free online learning resource.  

Teaching

• Critical Public History (MA Public History core course)
• Public History Research Project: Examining Public History (MA Public History core course)
• Public History Research Project: Creating Public History (MA Public History core course)
• Migrant City: Migration, Public History and London (MA optional module)