Department of History
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Dr Rob Skinner
Teaching Fellow in Modern History
Office: Room 2.4, 27 St Michael's Park
Phone: +44 (0)117 33 17793
Email: robert.skinner@bristol.ac.uk
Research interests
The main focus of my research is the social and political history of South Africa, but I am particularly interested in the relations between South Africa and the rest of the world over the course of the past century. My recent book, The Foundations of Anti-Apartheid (Palgrave, 2010), examined the emergence of anti-apartheid in the 1950s through the creation of interlinked networks of activists that connected South Africa, Britain and the United States.
I am currently working on a study of the ways in which western peace campaigners sought to forge alliances with African nationalist leaders, leading ultimately unsuccessful attempts to enter French nuclear test sites in the Sahara in 1960. Beyond this, I am developing research that explores the history of ‘transnational’ political and social relations between the west and the post-colonial world. I am interested in the motives and strategies of individuals and groups that promoted ‘solidarity’ with the Third World.
Undergraduate teaching
My undergraduate teaching covers the history of social movements, the ideologies of difference, modern South African and modern African History.
I also teach on various Units in the History MA programme, including ‘Themes in Contemporary History’, and have in the past offered MA options on contemporary South African history.
Selected publications
The Foundations of Anti-Apartheid - Liberal Humanitarians and Transnational Activists in Britain and the United States, c. 1946-64, Palgrave, 2010.
'The Moral foundations of British anti-apartheid activism 1946-60', Journal of Southern African Studies, 35, (pp. 399-416), 2009
‘Anti-Apartheid’, in Crowson, Hilton & McKay, NGOs in Contemporary Britain (Palgrave 2009)
‘Christian Reconstruction, Secular Politics: Michael Scott and the Campaign for Right and Justice, 1943-45’ in S. Dubow & A. Jeeves (eds) South Africa’s 1940s: Worlds of Possibilities (Cape Town, 2005)
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