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Role:
Department staff:
Teaching staff:
- Youth and Youth Culture in Britain
- British History from the Black Death to the Peterloo Massacre
- Modern British History
- History in Practice
- Crime and Protest
- Sex and the Social Order: Gender and Sexuality in Modern Britain
- Exploring the slum: poverty and urban society in nineteenth and twentieth century Britain

- Qualifications:MA (Hons), University of Glasgow; MA, University of York; PhD, University of Leeds
- Position:Senior Lecturer in Modern History & Programme Leader for History
- Department:Faculty of Arts, Creative Industries, and Education (ACE)
- Telephone:+4411732 84521
- Email:Laura2.Harrison@uwe.ac.uk
About me
Laura is a social and cultural historian, with a particular interest in the histories of youth and youth culture, and young people's experiences of urban and rural environments.
Laura is a Fulbright scholar, and began teaching at UWE in 2016 following her Fulbright year at Westminster College, Fulton, Missouri, as the 2015-16 Fulbright-Robertson Visiting Professor in British History.
Laura completed her PhD in History at the University of Leeds in 2015, and her doctoral research focused on regulation, resistance, and young working-class behaviour in public space.
Laura completed her PhD in History at the University of Leeds in 2015, and her doctoral research focused on regulation, resistance, and young working-class behaviour in public space.
Laura has published on urban poverty and the attempts made by reformers to understand and 'map' the slums of the Victorian and Edwardian city, and institutional attempts to informally police young women's behaviour in public. Her latest article for Rural History looks at memories of growing up in the countryside in the early twentieth century, as recalled in memoirs and oral history interviews. Laura is currently revising her doctoral research for publication as her first monograph.
Dangerous Amusements: Leisure, the young working class, and urban space in Britain, c.1870-1939 traces the beginnings of a distinct youth culture in streets and neighbourhoods across Britain, and will be published by Manchester University Press in 2021.
Laura is one of the editors of the Routledge History of the Working Class in the West, currently under contract.
You can hear Laura speaking to Jane Garvey on BBC Radio 4's 'Woman's Hour' about the history of the school summer holiday here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0007k5n
Laura also recently spoke to Doctor Who and Broadchurch actor Jodie Whittaker about her family history as part of the BBC series Who Do You Think You Are? You can see further details about the episode here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000nh4f
Area of expertise
- Nineteenth and twentieth century British social and cultural history
- Histories of young people and youth culture
- Urban history and social geography
- Working-class history in Britain
- History of women, sexuality and gender relations
- History of leisure
Publications
