Contact
Biography
Sarah is a first year PhD candidate in the School of History at the 海角黑料, funded by an AHRC-M4C doctoral studentship award. Her research focuses on the politics of memory in the British Labour Party, analysing how understandings of the party's historic leaders fluctuate through the passage of time.
Before commencing her doctoral studies, Sarah received both a BA (Hons) and an MA from the 海角黑料 in 2023 and 2024 respectively. Sarah's research interest in Labour has been constant throughout her studies, researching the relationship between New Labour and the party's past during her BA, and the politics of memory of Harold Wilson for her MA.
In the year between completing an MA and starting her PhD studies, Sarah lived and worked in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, and Arras, France. During Sarah's time in Arras, she worked for the Commonwealth War Graves Foundation as a Tour Guide at the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme.
Expertise Summary
The Labour Party, memory studies, modern British history
Research Summary
Sarah's research project is entitled Heroes and Traitors: Labour Leaders and the Politics of Memory.
This research centres on how the Labour Party interprets its past, with a particular focus on understandings of historic Labour leaders. In its history, Labour has endured a relative lack of electoral success; since the party's foundation, only four of the eighteen Labour leaders have achieved parliamentary majorities. In part due to their scarcity, these individuals have frequently been at the forefront of the Labour tendency to cultivate individual cults of personality. However, electoral success comprises merely one component of how party actors are subsequently perceived, a perception consisting of layers of interpretation and reinterpretation. As a result of this continual revisionism, the boundary between exaltation as a 'hero' and denunciation as a 'traitor' can converge. The contemporary understandings of historic Labour leaders are frequently conditioned by the strategic ends of the party, with Labour actors offering reinterpretations of their predecessors for the purpose of political gain. This research will explore how memories of Labour leaders have crossed the frontier of 'hero' and 'traitor'.
Sarah's supervisors are Dr Dean Blackburn, Dr Sarah Kenny, and Dr Matthew Francis.
Past Research
MA thesis: The Many Afterlives of Harold Wilson: The Politics of Memory in the British Labour Party (supervised by Dr Dean Blackburn)
BA (Hons) thesis: Did New Labour reject or refashion its history?: A study of how New Labour defined itself against the history of the Labour Party (supervised by Dr Dean Blackburn)