Professor Tom Lawson

Deputy Vice-Chancellor

Department: Not available

Tom joined Northumbria University in 2013 as Professor of History. He was appointed Associate Dean Academic in May 2014 and then been Faculty Pro Vice Chancellor for Arts, Design and Social Sciences in 2016. Before coming to Northumbria Tom was Professor of Holocaust Studies at the University of Winchester where was also Head of Research in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. He was appointed as Deputy Vice Chancellor in April 2021.

As Deputy Vice Chancellor Tom has strategic oversight of the University’s academic portfolio and the four faculties. Tom is also responsible for leading the annual planning and budget setting process in order to deliver against our strategic priorities. Tom was responsible for leading Northumbria’s submission to the Research Excellence Framework (REF) and is leading the University’s work towards recognition under the Race Equality Charter.

Tom is a historian of the Holocaust and more recently of colonial genocides. He is the author and editor of several books on these subjects including The Church of England and the Holocaust (2006); with James Jordan, The Memory of the Holocaust in Australia (2008); with Stephen Parker, God and War (2010); Debates on the Holocaust (2010) and The Last Man: A British Genocide in Tasmania (2014). Tom was previously a Mid-Career Fellow of the British Academy and am co-editor of Holocaust Studies: a journal of culture and History. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

Tom has recently published (with Andy Pearce from University College London) an edited collection on Britain and the Holocaust. He is currently working on a book project provisionally titled Empire of Genocide: The Extermination of Peoples in the British World.

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Key Publications

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Truganini: Journey Through the Apocalypse: By Cassandra Pybus. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2020. Pp. 315. A$32.99 paper., Lawson, T. 2 Oct 2022, In: Australian Historical Studies
The Palgrave Handbook of Britain and the Holocaust, Lawson, T., Pearce, A. 20 Feb 2021
Britain’s promise to forget: some historiographical reflections on What Do Students Know and Understand about the Holocaust?, Lawson, T. 3 Jul 2017, In: Holocaust Studies: a Journal of Culture and History
Introduction, Cohen, B., Lawson, T. 3 Apr 2015, In: Holocaust Studies
‘We have exterminated the race in Van Diemen’s Land’: Remembering colonial genocide in 19th century British culture, Lawson, T. Mar 2015, Aftermath: Genocide, Memory and History, Monash University
Coming to terms with the past: Reading and writing colonial genocide as a Holocaust historian, Lawson, T. 2014, In: Holocaust Studies: a Journal of Culture and History
Memorializing colonial genocide in Britain: the case of Tasmania, Lawson, T. 15 Dec 2014, In: Journal of Genocide Research
The Last Man: A British Genocide in Tasmania, Lawson, T. 30 Jan 2014
The Holocaust and Colonial Genocide at the Imperial War Museum, Lawson, T. Nov 2013, Britain and the Holocaust: Remembering and Representing War and Genocide, Basingstoke, Macmillan
‘The Only Thing to be Deplored is the Extraordinary Mortality’: Flinders Island and the Imagination of the British Empire, Lawson, T. 31 Dec 2013, Monstrous Geographies: Places and Spaces of the Monstrous, Interdisciplinary Press

Professional Activity

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Invited talk: Universal Basic Income and public health crises: RSA North Report launch 2022

PGR Supervision

Roseanna Ramsden Rereading Women's Holocaust Testimonies Against the Grain: Gendered Narratives, Representation and Identity Start Date: 01/10/2017 End Date: 02/04/2021
Lisa Peatfield Capturing Belson: Photographs of the liberation of Bergen Belsen camp held within English museums and archives Start Date: 01/10/2018 End Date: 04/07/2025
Diana Packer Britain and Rescue: Government Policy and the Jewish Refugees 1942-43 Start Date: 07/10/2014 End Date: 01/06/2018

Qualifications

History PhD September 01 1998

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