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Dr Michael Reeve

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Professional biography

I joined the OU's History Department in 2022, after previously teaching at Bishop Grosseteste University and Leeds Beckett University. I completed a doctorate in History at the University of Hull in 2019 (including a Postgraduate Certificate in Heritage Research), funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC).

I have also completed an MA in Social and Cultural History at the University of Leeds (2015) and a BA in English & History at Leeds Beckett University (2014). Prior to completing these degrees, I spent four years studying Social Sciences part-time at the OU: this is where my passion for higher education and research really began.

I am a Fellow of Advance HE (Higher Education Academy), a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and a committee member of History Lab+, a network dedicated to supporting and advocating for Early Career Historians, based at the Institute of Historical Research. I am on the steering committee of the Centre for War and Peace in the Twentieth Century, which is based in the OU History Department.

Research interests

I am a historian of modern Britain, with research interests related to the social and cultural history of war, consumption and empire. I am particularly interested in the endurance and resilience of civilians and service personnel in the context of war. This interest, in endurance and resilience among ordinary people, runs like a thread throughout my work in diverse areas of modern British and European History. 

My research on smoking culture, tobacco consumption and provision has focused on British military and civilian contexts during the First World War, particularly the use of tobacco as a mild narcotic in situations of combat and war strain, as well as its symbolism in codes of martial masculinity and patriotism.

I have also published on Victorian and Edwardian urban culture and the ‘coastal-urban’ context during the First World War, focusing on the north-east coast of England and the civilian experience of naval and aerial bombardment. My first monograph, Bombardment, Public Safety and Resilience in English Coastal Communities during the First World War, was published in 2021 by Palgrave Macmillan.

My current research project focuses on the use of tobacco by military personnel and non-combatants in the context of modern wars involving Britain during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, including the Crimean War, Second Boer War, and the First and Second World Wars. As a corollary to this research, I have also initiated a 'challenge' as part of the OU's Open Societal Challenges programme: 'The 'pernicious habit': the enduring popularity of nicotine in everyday life'

Recent publications (see the full list here)

Books:

Bombardment, Public Safety and Resilience in English Coastal Communities during the First World War (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021).
REVIEWS: Northern History; Urban History.

Journal articles and book chapters:

‘Managing risk in the ‘danger zone’: Defensive infrastructure and public safety discourses on the north-east coast of England during the First World War’, Coastal Studies & Society, 1 (2-4) (2022), 180-208. Open Access.

‘‘Are we downhearted? NO!’: representing war damage and destruction following bombardment on the First World War ‘home front’’, Critical Military Studies, 7 (4) (2021), 397-417.

‘‘Something-to-smoke, at the right time, is a godsend’: voluntary action and the provision of cigarettes to soldiers during the First World War’, in Redcoats to Tommies: The Experience of the British Soldier from the Eighteenth Century, eds. Kevin Linch and Matthew Lord (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2021), 120-48.

‘‘An Empire Dock’: Place Promotion and the Local Acculturation of Imperial Discourse in ‘Britain’s Third Port’’, Northern History, 58 (1) (2021), 129-50. 

Teaching interests

I am History discipline lead on the cross-disciplinary Level 1 module Revolutions (A113) and a member of the team for the Level 3 module Europe 1914-1989: war, peace, modernity (A327). I have also contributed learning materials to the new MA in HistoryI am part of the production team for a new twentieth-century Europe module, for which work is currently in progress. I am also an Associate Lecturer on the Level 1 module Discovering the arts and humanities (A111)

Impact and engagement

PAST ACTIVITIES

2024: 1 February: 'Military Welfare History: How Welfare Impacted Warfare in Twentieth-Century Conflicts'. Online symposium (organiser). More information here.

18 January: online talk for the Durham branch of the Western Front Association: 'Tobacco, military welfare and endurance on the Western Front’.

2023: article for The Conversation (29 Dec): 'Young people took up smoking during the pandemic - how tobacco has been used for stress relief for over a century'. Read it here.

I appeared on the Ridings of Yorkshire Society podcast, ROYSCast, in April, where I discussed my recent work on coastal bombardment during the First World War, in addition to my new project on tobacco and smoking in the context of war in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Listen to the episode here.

2021: I worked as a historical consultant and interviewee on the Channel 4 documentary series Britain by Beach (presented by Anita Rani), utilising my research into the naval bombardment of Scarborough in December 1914. 

2019: I appeared on the ‘Mentioned in Dispatches’ podcast, presented by Dr Tom Thorpe of the Western Front Association. 

2017-19: I worked on public engagement and heritage research projects at the Heugh Battery Museum in Hartlepool (2018-19) and the North of England Civic Trust (now Cultura Trust) in Newcastle-upon-Tyne (2017). 

External collaborations

I have been a member of the committee of History Lab+ since 2020. HL+ is a network for Early Career Historians based at the Institute of Historical Research.

In June 2023, I joined the new Assessment Working Group at History UK to discuss trends and potential innovations in Higher Education assessment, with a view to co-producing tangible outputs for the sector.

From 2017-20, I was web editor and social media officer at the Society for the Study of Labour History (incl. membership of the Executive Committee). 

In 2017, I co-edited a special issue of the International Journal of Regional and Local History with Dr Andrew McTominey (Leeds Beckett University) on northern identity, history and heritage. More information here

I have provided manuscript peer reviews for the academic journals Urban History and First World War Studies, and have reviewed book proposals and full manuscripts for Palgrave Macmillan.

I have been awarded the following prizes for research:

  • Gordon Forster Essay Prize 2020 (awarded by the Northern History journal).
  • European Association for Urban History, Postgraduate Paper Prize, runner-up (bi-annual conference, Rome, 2018). 
  • Beresford Award, Yorkshire History Prize 2016 (awarded by the Yorkshire Society). 

My research and professional development has been funded by grants and awards from the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the Society for the Study of Labour History, the Big Lottery Fund, the University of Louvain (Historial de la Grande Guerre) and the Open University Fellowship Academy. 

Publications

[Book review] Brothers in the Great War: siblings, masculinity and emotions, by Linda Maynard (2023)
Reeve, Michael
First World War Studies, 14(1) (pp. 189-191)


Managing risk in the ‘danger zone’: Defensive infrastructure and public safety discourses on the north-east coast of England during the First World War (2022-12)
Reeve, Michael
Coastal Studies & Society, 1(2-4) (pp. 180-208)


[Book Review] Beyond Trawlertown: memory, life and legacy in the wake of the Cod Wars by Jo Byrne (2022)
Reeve, Michael
International Journal of Regional and Local History, 17(2) (pp. 115-116)


‘An Empire Dock’: Place Promotion and the Local Acculturation of Imperial Discourse in ‘Britain’s Third Port’ (2021)
Reeve, Michael
Northern History, 58(1) (pp. 129-150)


‘Are we downhearted? NO!’: representing war damage and destruction following bombardment on the First World War ‘home front’ (2021)
Reeve, Michael
Critical Military Studies, 7(4) (pp. 397-417)


[Book Review] Star shell reflections 1914-1916: the illustrated Great War diaries of Jim Maultsaid (2018)
Reeve, Michael
First World War Studies, 9(3) (pp. 367-368)


[Book Review] Brad Beaven, Karl Bell and Robert James (eds.), Port Towns and Urban Cultures: International Histories of the Waterfront, c. 1700–2000. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. (2017-05)
Reeve, Michael
Urban History, 44(2) (pp. 347-349)


Grim up North?: Northern Identity, History, and Heritage (2017)
Reeve, Michael and McTominey, Andrew
International Journal of Regional and Local History, 12(2) (pp. 65-76)


“The Darkest Town in England”: Patriotism and Anti-German Sentiment in Hull, 1914–19 (2017)
Reeve, Michael
International Journal of Regional and Local History, 12(1) (pp. 42-63)


Special Needs, Cheerful Habits: Smoking and the Great War in Britain, 1914–18 (2016)
Reeve, Michael
Cultural and Social History, 13(4) (pp. 483-501)


Bombardment, Public Safety and Resilience in English Coastal Communities during the First World War (2021)
Reeve, Michael
ISBN : 978-3-030-86850-5 | Publisher : Palgrave Macmillan | Published : Cham


'Something-to-smoke, at the right time, is a godsend': Voluntary Action and the Provision of Cigarettes to Soldiers during the First World War (2021)
Reeve, Michael
In: Linch, Kevin and Lord, Matthew eds. Redcoats to Tommies: The Experience of the British Soldier from the Eighteenth Century
Publisher : Boydell and Brewer


Smoking and Cigarette Consumption (2018)
Reeve, Michael
In: Daniel, Ute; Gatrell, Peter; Janz, Oliver; Jones, Heather; Keene, Jennifer; Kramer, Alan and Nasson, Bill eds. 1914-1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War
Publisher : Freie Universität Berlin | Published : Berlin