Peter Leese

Primary fields of research

• Cultural and social history.
• Britain and Europe in the 19th and 20th c.
• Historical Trauma Studies
• The Great War: society, combat and memory; shell shock 
• Migrant Memory: life-stories, investigations, pictures
• Britain: film, music and the visual arts in society; local and regional identities, including East London. 

Current research

Migrant Memory: life-stories, investigations, pictures

Historical Trauma Studies, especially 20th century

Methodologies, including life story / oral history analysis and use of visual sources in historical analysis (especially photographs, and film) 

Teaching

I have planned, compiled materials, and taught the following courses:

University of Copenhagen. Department of English, Germanic and Romance Studies, Copenhagen, Denmark. 2009-

MA level courses:
The British Migrant Experience 1800-2000
The Great War: society, experience, memory

BA level courses:
British culture and the two World Wars
Film and Society in postwar Britain

Jagiellonian University. Institute of English Philology, Krakow, Poland. 1992-2009.

•MA thesis Seminar (two years, full-time): successful supervision of over fifty individual Masters theses, the final year study written by students under the five-year university first degree programme;

• Diploma Seminar (1 year, full-time): successful supervision of over sixty diploma papers written by students under the three-year state teacher training programme

•Specialist seminars, tutorials and introductory lecture classes (including British and European survey courses, current affairs, and more specialised teaching on
social and cultural history).

Masters (2 year) and Diploma (1 year) Thesis Seminars:
•London 1800-2000 (2006-9)
•Identity, Locality and Culture in the British Isles (1998-2004)
•British Literature and History in the 20th century (1996-8)

Compulsory (Introductory) Courses:
•The Isles: from pre-history to the 21st century (A 2-semester British history survey course which I teach to at least two groups every year at both Teacher Training College and University Level) (1997-2009)

Elective Courses:
•Global Migration Since 1750 (2006-)
•The British Migrant Experience 1800-2000 (2004-)
•Britain Since 1945: Society and the Arts (2007-)
•Britain and the Two World Wars (2002-)
•The First World War: Society, Culture and Memory (1998-)
•Europe in the 20th century (2004-)
•Ireland: History and Memory in the 20th century (1995-8)
•Scotland: History, Literature and Tradition (1995-8)
•European Intellectuals 1800-2000 (1996-8)
•European Arts 1800-2000 (1996-8)
•International Relations 1800-2000 (2004-5)

English Language-related Course:
•Creative non-fiction Writing (2007-)
•Reading, writing and text analysis (1995-)

Other Teaching Activities
•Two weeks undergraduate and post-graduate (Ph.D.) teaching as Visiting Professor at Šafárik University, Košice, Slovakia (2009)
•I have recently started teaching distance learning courses in creative non-fiction writing for Academic staff and for students at Högskolan Dalarna University, Falun, Sweden (2007-9)
•I also teach various courses on British history to adult learners on summer courses at the Institute of Continuing Education, University of Cambridge (2004-7)

Office hours: Monday 13-14

Knowledge of languages

English: native speaker.

Polish: working knowledge / Phd second language exam. Pass

Danish: level 1 elementary Danish exam. Pass.