Department of History
Prospective students
Current students
About the department
Research
Lifelong Learning
Dr Rob Skinner
Visiting Lecturer in Modern History
Office: Room 1.1, 27 St Michael's Park: Consultation hours
Tel: 0117 928 8118
Email: robert.skinner@bristol.ac.uk
Research Interests
Dr Skinner joined the department in September 2005 as an ESRC Postdoctoral Research Fellow and was appointed a full-time Teaching Fellow in History from September 2007 - June 2009. He remains heavily involved in the department's undergraduate teaching, coordinating four units in 2009/10.
His doctoral research was on the role of religious activists in the formation of the British Anti-Apartheid Movement during the 1950s. These activists played a crucial role in the development of a particular discourse of opposition to white supremacy and provided moral authority for anti-apartheid campaigns as they emerged at the end of the 1950s. While they drew upon a long tradition of humanitarian concern, they began to articulate a new way of speaking about colonial affairs that prioritsed an "African point of view" and thus helped to lay the ideological foundations for a "post-imperial" world-view.
This work reflects a general interest in the relationship between the colonial experience and British society and culture, particularly during the period of post-war decolonisation. His wider research interests focus on popular attidues towards Africa and the development of international solidarity networks.
Undergraduate Teaching
- Coordinator: Introduction to the History of the British Empire
- LRU2: Social Protest in Modern Britain
- Workshop Tutor: Second-year Group Project
- Special Subject: Race and Resistance in South Africa
- Reflective History: Describing Difference
Selected Publications
‘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)
‘The wartime roots of anti-apartheid: pastoral duty, local activism and international politics’ in South African Historical Journal, vol. 50 (2004), pp. 12-26.