Students are listed alphabetically under their respective degrees.

History PhD candidates

Rachel Boddy

Thesis title: 'Passion and Eroticism in Eighteenth-Century British Political Celebrity'

Supervisors: Valerie Wallace and Steve Behrendt

Dean Broughton

Thesis title: 'Working Seafarers as immigrants to NZ, 1945-1965'

Supervisors: Steve Behrendt and Anna Green

Anna Czerwińska

Thesis title: 'Inter-dominion relationships between Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa during the Great War'

Supervisors: Kate Hunter and Jim McAloon

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 PhD in New Zealand appeared in my mind. Thanks to my ethnological studies, I started being interested in personal perspective of historical events, how common people remember historical happenings but also how contemporary people think about their local history and family's one. My main research area is not only World War One but also migration in the 19th and 20th century, history of Polish Jews and history of Polish diaspora especially in New Zealand, where I had privilege to meet and work with children from Pahiatua.

Mark Dunick

Thesis title: 'Continental European Migrants to New Zealand in the 1870s'

Supervisors: Jim McAloon and Steve Behrendt

Clare Gleeson

Thesis title: 'Owner Bound Music: a study of popular sheet music selling and music making in the New Zealand home 1840-1940'

Supervisors: Charlotte Macdonald and Sydney Shep (Wai-te-ata Press)

Rachel Jaquiery

Thesis title: 'The Scottish Community in Georgian Liverpool'

Supervisors: Stephen Behrendt and Valerie Wallace

Christianna Kay

Thesis title: 'Prerogative and Patronage: Noble Marriages in the Reigns of Elizabeth I and James VI/I, 1558-1625'

Supervisors: Valerie Wallace, Catherine Abou-Nemeh and Kate Hunter

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

About: My PhD looks into the multi-layered worlds of the Calcutta leather industry workers with the help of a historical and oral history methodology. Untangling the ethnic, migrant, caste, community and gender identities, this work aims to bring out the workers’ voices that were so long lost in statist history of the industry.

I have completed my Bachelor and Masters in History from Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India. I specialise in Modern and Social history of India with a special interest in labour, caste, community, gender and migration studies.

Sucharita Sen

Thesis title: 'European Perception of Indian Women in Travelogues'

Supervisor: Sekhar Bandyopadhyay

Aaron Smale

Thesis title: 'NZ'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 & 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 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 2-year-old daughter.

Contact: Hayden.thorne@vuw.ac.nz

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'

Supervisors: Cybele Locke and Jim McAloon

History MA students

Maggie Blackburn

Thesis title: 'Entertaining Prospects: Garrison and Gold Field Theatre in Nineteenth-Century New Zealand c.1850-1870'

Supervisor: Charlotte Macdonald

Tommy Boyd

Thesis title: 'Crime, Sensation, and Empire: a case study of two 19th-century British criminal trials and their popular impact in Australia and New Zealand'

Supervisor: Valerie Wallace

Karly Garnock-Jones

Thesis title: 'Constructing a society: the fortunes of Amelia Thompson passengers in the settlement of New Plymouth, 1841-1860'

Supervisors: Charlotte Macdonald and Jim McAloon

Elizabeth Gibbons

Thesis title: 'American Occupation and the "Hunger Years" of Post War Germany'

Supervisor: Dolores Janiewski

Bethany Swanson

Thesis title: 'Anglican Girls' Schools and the role of class in New Zealand, 1880-1975'

Supervisors: Charlotte Macdonald and Jim McAloon

Lydia Whiting

Thesis title: 'Memory, Obsolescence and new Histories at the turn of the 20th Century: James Cavan, Edith Stratham, Horatio G. Robley and the cultural creation of a NZ nation'

Supervisor: Charlotte Macdonald