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:
Post a Comment