Kieran Connell

All Disciplines Scholar Award, New York University - Modern History

I am a Lecturer in Contemporary British History at Queen’s University Belfast who looks at issues such as race, immigration and sexuality. I previously worked at the University of Birmingham and the Open University and have curated three major public exhibitions of artwork and photography. While writing my first book, Black Handsworth: race in 1980s Britain, I became interested in the way in which debates around ‘race relations’ in the United States influenced academics, politicians and activists in Britain, in the context of growing immigration from its colonies and former colonies. My Fulbright project therefore examines more fully the role that American researchers and funding bodies played in shaping British attitudes towards ‘race relations’ in the years after the Second World War. From my base at New York University, I will examine archival records held by institutions across East Coast – both from individual researchers who made trips to Britain in the 1950s and 60s, as well as those of the American funding bodies that often sponsored them. I also am interested in sport, music and literature. In my free time am looking forward to retracing the road trips that inspired some of my favourite novelists and musicians, as well as – just maybe – getting my head around baseball.