PhD students in History
See a list of current PhD candidates in the History programme, along with their topics and supervisors.
Current PhD candidates
Students are listed alphabetically.
- Rachel Boddy
- Elizabeth Bowyer
- Dean Broughton
- Anna Czerwinska
- Jane Donald
- Mark Dunick
- Rachel Jaquiery
- Josh King
- Gillian Marie
- Sneha Pal
- Sucharita Sen
- Aaron Smale
- Anton Sveding
- Hayden Thorne
- Michelle Walmsley
- Ross Webb
Rachel Boddy
Thesis title
‘Passion and Eroticism in 18th-Century British Political Celebrity’
Supervisors
Valerie Wallace and Steve Behrendt
Elizabeth Bowyer
Thesis title
TBA
Supervisors
TBA
Dean Broughton
Thesis title
‘Working Seafarers as Immigrants to New Zealand, 1945–1965’
Supervisors
Anna Czerwinska
Thesis title
‘Inter-Dominion Relationships between Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa during the Great War’
Supervisors
About
Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa during the Great War, as dominions, were all fighting for the same king. But, on the other hand, each of them was facing different local problems. How close were the dominions during wartime?
My interests can be divided into three main paths/areas: a) What were the relations and attitudes between soldiers from each of dominions? Did official newspapers’ statements regarding other dominions sounded the same as private letters sent right from the field of fight? b) How did inter-dominion perceptions differ in terms of certain themes such as freedom of travel and trade or its restriction, leadership, conscription? c) Did the “white dominions” learn from each other how to cope with wartime problems? Did they implement similar solutions? Or did they criticize the other Siblings’ actions?
I studied history and ethnology at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, Poland. During my MA I started to be interested in New Zealand and Australian history, which was quite difficult due to the lack of resources available in Poland. In 2017 I was able to study for one trimester at Victoria University.
Thanks to classes about the Great War (but also Māori culture and New Zealand politics), as well as feedback which I received from VUW staff, the idea of a PhD in New Zealand appeared in my mind. Thanks to my ethnological studies, I started being interested in a personal perspective of historical events—how common people remember historical happenings but also how contemporary people think about their local history and their family's. My main research area is not only World War I, but also migration in the 19th and 20th century, the history of Polish Jews, and the history of Polish diaspora especially in New Zealand, where I have had the privilege to meet and work with children from Pahiatua.
Jane Donald
Thesis title
TBA
Supervisors
TBA
Mark Dunick
Thesis title
‘Continental European Migrants to New Zealand in the 1870s’
Supervisors
Jim McAloon and Steve Behrendt
Rachel Jaquiery
Thesis title
‘The Scottish Community in Georgian Liverpool’
Supervisors
Valerie Wallace and Steve Behrendt
Josh King
Thesis title
‘New Zealanders and the Mediterranean during the Second World War’
Supervisors
Kate Hunter and Giacomo Lichtner
Gillian Marie
Thesis title
‘The Missionary’s Wayward Daughter: How Sarah Henry Bland Passed through the Pacific 1797–1843’
Supervisors
Charlotte Macdonald and Adrian Muckle
Sneha Pal
Thesis title
‘Hidden in Hides: The Worlds of the Calcutta Leather Industry Labour, 1905–1996’
Supervisors
Sekhar Bandyopadhyay and Cybele Locke
Sucharita Sen
Thesis title
‘European Perception of Indian Women in Travelogues’
Supervisor
Aaron Smale
Thesis title
‘New Zealand’s Stolen Generations: The Impact of Maori Children in State Custody’
Supervisors
Cybele Locke and Richard Hill (Stout Research Centre)
Anton Sveding
Thesis title
‘The Making of a “Forest conscious” public in New Zealand, 1920–1934’
Supervisors
Jim McAloon and James Beattie (Science and Society)
Hayden Thorne
Thesis title
‘The Influence of Lawyers and Legal Strategy on Decisions of the United States Supreme Court’
Supervisors
Dolores Janiewski and Jim McAloon
About
My research is focussed on understanding how lawyers and other legal actors are able to influence the outcome of decisions made by the United States Supreme Court. I am conducting a close study of four cases: Mapp v. Ohio (1961), Gideon v. Wainwright (1963), Miranda v. Arizona (1966), and Furman v. Georgia (1972). Through these four cases I seek to complicate existing understandings of Supreme Court decision making by demonstrating that in some situations the arguments made and presented to the Court do indeed have a substantial impact on the outcome of the case.
My academic specialty lies in the study of the U.S. Supreme Court, and I have a general interest in most areas of American Legal History—and I am always on the lookout for others who share this interest to discuss current events with.
I am a Wellingtonian born and bred, and I completed my LLB, BA, BA(Hons), and MA at Victoria University. Outside of academia, I spend far too much time watching sport and playing golf, as well as finding new adventures to share with my wife and two-year-old daughter.
Contact
Michelle Walmsley
Thesis title
‘Not Normal: Embodied Narratives of Physical Disability and Gender Nonconformity in Post-WWII New Zealand, 1945–2000’
Supervisors
Charlotte Macdonald and Cybele Locke
Ross Webb
Thesis title
‘Organised Labour, Politics in Recession and Reform, 1875–1996’