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About Me

I am a historian of education and of gender and sexuality in nineteenth and twentieth century Britain. I am also interested in the intellectual and cultural history of Britain and Europe more widely, from the early modern period to the present; and in the history of higher education around the world.

I am currently working on two book projects: the first, The Politics and Culture of Gender in British Universities, 1860–1935, about the interrelated inventions of a modern British gender order and a modern British higher education system; and the second, a new intellectual history of homosexuality in Britain, c. 1850–1967.

Recent Publications

Academic Publications

“Arthur Sidgwick’s Greek Prose Composition: Gender, Affect, and Sociability in the Late-Victorian University,” Journal of British Studies 56, no. 1 (Jan 2017), 91-116

“Impossible Love and Victorian Values: J.A. Symonds and the Intellectual History of Homosexuality,” Journal of the History of Ideas 75, no. 4 (Oct 2014), 605-27

Recent Selected General-audience Publications

“What’s Missing in Naomi Wolf’s ‘Outrages: Sex, Censorship, and the Criminalization of Love’,” Public Seminar, June 25, 2019

“‘Never in the Presence of Any Woman’: Male Homoeroticism and Elite Education,” History Workshop Online, January 21, 2019

“The 1970s Gay Sex Scandal That Enthralled Britons Is Back” [on the Jeremy Thorpe scandal and A Very English Scandal (BBC)], Public Seminar, June 26, 2018

“Dare to Speak its Name: Pederasty in the Classical Tropes of Call Me By Your Name,” Eidolon, February 2018

Media Coverage

Social Media

@echomikeromeo

Country Focus

United Kingdom

Expertise by Geography

Atlantic, British Isles, England, United Kingdom, Western Europe

Expertise by Chronology

19th century, Modern, 20th century

Expertise by Topic

Book History, Gender, Higher Ed, Literary History, Politics, Religion, Sexuality, Women, World War I