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Professor Wendy Ugolini is an award-winning historian of the Second World War, specialising in ethnicities and identity formation. She is Professor of Second World War Studies at the University of Edinburgh. After reading history at Newnham College, Cambridge, Professor Ugolini gained a doctorate at the University of Edinburgh. Her Ph.D. was awarded the Ratcliff Prize and her first monograph, Experiencing War as the ‘Enemy Other’, was awarded the Royal Historical Society’s Gladstone Prize. Her latest book, Wales in England 1914-1945. A Social, Cultural, and Military History was published with Oxford University Press in 2024 and long-listed for The Society for Army Historical Research’s Templer Medal. Professor Ugolini is the co-founder of the Second World War Studies Network (Scotland) which was funded by the Royal Society of Edinburgh 2021-23. She was awarded a Visiting Scholarship at St John’s College Oxford in summer 2024. Currently, Professor Ugolini is the PI on the AHRC-funded project, Beyond Borders. The Second World War, National Identities and Empire in the UK.

Professor Ugolini’s research interests focus on the relationship between war, identities  and ethnicities in twentieth century Britain. She is particularly interested in migrant identities during the Second World War, in particular notions of dual identities, belonging and Britishness within the British Armed Forces.

Her current research looks at social, cultural, military and political expressions of Welshness in England during the two world wars. Professor Ugolini has published an article on the construction of duality within the output of the novelist, Richard Llewellyn during the Second World War.

Recent Publications

Wales in England 1914-1945. A Social, Cultural, & Military History (Oxford, 2024)

“The Band of Brothers”: The mobilization of English Welsh dual identities in Second World War Britain, Journal of British Studies, 60: 4 (2021)

https://doi.org/10.1017/jbr.2021.64

‘The “Welsh” Pimpernel: Richard Llewellyn and the Search for Authenticity in Second World War Britain’ Cultural and Social History (2019) 

https://doi.org/10.1080/14780038.2019.1585315

Co-editor, A Global Force. War, Identities and Scotland’s Diaspora (Edinburgh, 2016)

‘Untold Stories of Loss: Mourning the ‘Enemy’ in Second World War Britain’ Journal of War & Culture Studies 8:1 (2015)

Co-editor, Fighting for Britain? Negotiating Identities in Britain During the Second World War (Oxford, 2015)

‘”When are you going back?”: Memory, Ethnicity and the British Home Front’ in Lucy Noakes and Juliette Pattinson (eds.) British Cultural Memory and the Second World War (2013)

‘”The Sins of the Fathers”: The Contested Recruitment of Second-Generation Italians in the British Forces 1936–43’ Twentieth Century British History 24: 3 (2013)

‘”Spaghetti Lengths in a Bowl”? Recovering Narratives of Not ‘Belonging’ Amongst the Italian Scots’ Immigrants & Minorities 31:2 (2013)

‘The embodiment of British Italian war memory? The curious marginalization of Dennis Donnini, VC’ Patterns of Prejudice 46: 3-4 (2012)

Experiencing War as the ‘Enemy Other’. Italian Scottish Experience in World War II (Manchester, 2011)

Media Coverage

BBC Shetland (2021); BBC Scotland The Generation Frame (2019); STV The People's History Show 4/06/18, BBC Radio Scotland 21/05/15, The John Beattie Show BBC Radio Scotland 9/03/15, The Sunday Morning Programme with Ricky Ross BBC Radio Scotland 9/11/14

Social Media

Country Focus

United Kingdom

Expertise by Geography

British Isles, United Kingdom

Expertise by Chronology

20th century

Expertise by Topic

Migration & Immigration, Military, Race, World War II