Dr Matthew Grimley
My main area of interest is the cultural, intellectual and political history of 20th-century Britain, particularly changes in religious and national identity since the First World War. My current research project looks at religion and social reconstruction in Britain during and after the Second World War.
I teach all aspects of British History since 1815, including a Special Subject on Britain in the 70s, and a Further Subject, Britain at the Movies. I also teach some undergraduate courses on historiography and political thought, and a graduate course on global religion in the twentieth century. I supervise graduate students working on twentieth-century British cultural, intellectual, and religious history, and co-convene two seminars on modern British and modern religious history.
I have published a book on religion and political thought between the wars, Citizenship, Community and the Church of England (2004) and have co-edited a book on Redefining Christian Britain: Post 1945 Perspectives (2007). More recently I have published a series of articles and book chapters on the Church of England’s responses to ethical questions such as race relations, homosexual law reform, and nuclear weapons, and on Margaret Thatcher and morality.
