Tuesday, October 16, 2012

New Zealand’s London: A Colony and its Metropolis



Dr Felicity Barnes is a New Zealand historian, especially interested in British imperial connections and settler culture, who teaches in the Department of History at The University of Auckland.

She previously worked in marketing and management in the recruitment, advertising and not-for-profit sectors from which she ‘took a break’ to raise her children. She also took the opportunity during that period to return to university as a part-time history student and she has never left. As an undergraduate at The University of Auckland, she was taught by eminent scholar Sir Keith Sinclair, whose work, she says, ‘was critical in defining New Zealand history, hitherto the very poor relation of proper “British” history, as a field of study in its own right.’ 
It was his encouragement to continue studying history that kept her in the field. As a postgraduate, Dr Barnes worked with another renowned historian, Professor James Belich, who was interested in bringing New Zealand history to the world, using it to illuminate broader patterns in global history.

Dr Barnes has just published her first book, New Zealand’s London: A Colony and its Metropolis, with Auckland University Press. Her book is based on her PhD thesis, the research for which was supported by a University of Auckland Doctoral Scholarship, an Eric and Myra McCormick Scholarship in History and University of Auckland Research Grants Committee funding. Dr Barnes then won a Vice-Chancellor’s Award for best doctoral thesis for ‘New Zealand’s London: The Metropolis and New Zealand’s Culture, 1890–1940’.

No comments: