Professor Julia Moses
B.A. (Barnard/Columbia), M.Phil. (Oxon.), Ph.D. (Cantab.)
School of History, Philosophy and Digital Humanities
Professor in Modern History
+44 114 222 2612
Full contact details
School of History, Philosophy and Digital Humanities
9 Mappin Street
Sheffield
S1 4DT
- Profile
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I studied at Barnard College/Columbia University (New York), Oxford and Cambridge (as a Gates Scholar).
Before joining History at Sheffield in September 2011, I was a lecturer at Pembroke and Brasenose Colleges, Oxford.
I have been a visiting scholar at the Berlin Collegium for the Comparative History of Europe at the Free University; a professeur invit矇e at the cole des Hautes tudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris; an International Guest Lecturer at the University of Bielefeld; a Research Associate at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin; and, a Marie Curie Fellow at the Institute of Sociology at the University of G繹ttingen.
- Research interests
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My work analyses the relationship between government, law and civil society in Western Europe in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
It stands at the intersection of history, politics, sociology and law. I have especially sought to understand recent issues from historical comparative and transnational perspectives.
These interests have led to investigations of the welfare state and ideas about risk; private law on the family and torts; and, the global diffusion of legal and social norms.
I am currently Principal Investigator on the AHRC-funded project : Work in East Africa and Western Europe, 1880 to the Present. Working with co-investigators Professor Emma Hunter (Edinburgh), Dr Max Chuhila (University of Dar es Salaam) and Professor Stefan Berger (Ruhr University Bochum), and my team is investigating how ideas about social rights related to work have taken on different meanings in different historical and local contexts, from international organisations like the ILO and UN to grassroots activists and policy makers in our four case studies (the UK, Germany, Tanzania and Kenya).
I am also currently completing a book titled Civilizing Marriage: Family, Nation and State in the German Empire.
This study, which has been generously funded by the Marie Curie Fellowship scheme of the European Commission, an AHRC Early Career Fellowship and a DAAD Research Stay, investigates dynamics of religious and cultural diversity in the German Empire in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by focusing on the legal and administrative treatment of marriage and the family.
Combining history and sociology, my research sheds historical light on recent European debates about global migration, human rights and legal pluralism. A related book, Marriage Law and Modernity: Global Histories (Bloomsbury, 2017), and special issues of The History of the Family (2019) on intermarriage and Gender & History on women's rights as human rights (2023) have also stemmed from this research.
I have recently published The First Modern Risk: Workplace Accidents and the Origins of European Social States (Cambridge University Press, 2018). The comparative study charts the changing conceptions of risk and responsibility that lay at the origins of modern European welfare policy.
A related book, The Impact of Ideas on Legal Development (co-ed. with Michael Lobban; Cambridge University Press, 2012; pbk, 2014) and special issues in The Journal of Global History (2014), Social Science History (2015) and Contemporanea (2020) on risk, war and welfare and the global diffusion of social policy also emerged from this project.
Beyond my current work on social rights and on family law, I am continuing research towards an intellectual biography of the British sociologist T. H. Marshall.
The project sheds important new light on his work by highlighting the intersection of thinking about the modern welfare state and the shifting domestic, imperial and international landscapes which informed it.
- Publications
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- Books
- Edited books
- Journal articles
- Book chapters
- Book reviews
- Conference proceedings
- Digital content
- Other
Books
- . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Edited books
- Human Rights, the Family and Internationalism since the Nineteenth Century. Palgrave Macmillan.
- Women's Rights as Human Rights: Global Contestations in the Longue Duree (Forum in Gender & History 35/3)..
- Intimate Relationships across Boundaries. London: Routledge.
- Warfare and Welfare: Special Issue of Contemporanea..
- Marriage, Law and Modernity. London: Bloomsbury Academic.
- Marriage, Law and Modernity: Global Histories. London: Bloomsbury.
- The Impact of Ideas on Legal Development. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
- The Impact of Ideas on Legal Development. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Journal articles
- . Gender & History, 35(3), 773-779.
- . JMIR Dermatology, 6.
- . The American Historical Review, 127(4), 1940-1941.
- . Werkstatt geschichte, 84(2), 49-66.
- . Contemporanea, 23(4), 507-518.
- . The History of the Family, 24(3), 439-465.
- . The History of the Family, 24(3), 466-493.
- . Modern Intellectual History, 16(1).
- . Social Science History, 39(1), 25-37.
- . Mouvement Social, 249, 187-204.
- . Journal of Global History, 9(2), 177-188.
- Foreign Workers and the Emergence of the Minimum International Standards for the Compensation of Workplace Accidents, 1880-1914. Journal of Modern European History, 7(2), 219-239.
- Accidents at Work, Security and Compensation in industrialising Europe: The Cases of Britain, Germany and Italy, 1870-1925. Annual Review of Law and Ethics, 17, 237-258.
- Unhelpful social media use? Investigating the role of upwards comparisons and self-compassion on stigma in people with acne. Frontiers in Medicine.
Book chapters
- Social Citizenship and Economic and Social Rights In Young KG & Langford M (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Economic and Social Rights
- , Human Rights, the Family, and Internationalism Since the Nineteenth Century (pp. 1-22). Springer Nature Switzerland
- , The European Experience (pp. 483-494). Open Book Publishers
- , The European Experience (pp. 473-482). Open Book Publishers
- , The European Experience (pp. 219-228). Open Book Publishers
- , The European Experience (pp. 209-218). Open Book Publishers
- , European Experience A Multi Perspective History of Modern Europe (pp. 219-227).
- Das Jahrhundert des Unfalls: Risiko, Arbeit und Transnationalitaet (1838-1918) In Caruso A & Metzger B (Ed.), Grenzen der Sicherheit Unf瓣lle, Medien und Politik im deutschen Kaiserreich (pp. 34-54).
- Comparison and the Welfare State in Modern Europe, c. 1880-1945 In Steinmetz W (Ed.), The Force of Comparison (pp. 193-215). New York: Berghahn.
- The Reluctant Planner: T. H. Marshall and Political Thought in British Social Policy In Goldman L (Ed.), Welfare and Social Policy in Britain Since 1870: Essays in Honour of Jose Harris (pp. 127-45). oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Making Marriage Modern In Moses JM (Ed.), Marriage, Law and Modernity: Global Histories London: Bloomsbury.
- The politics of recognition and its limitations a transnational process?, Silicosis A World History (pp. 105-139).
- Introduction: Making Marriage Modern (pp. 1-24).
- In Doumanis N (Ed.) Oxford University Press
- Defining the Social Question and Making Society in the Long Nineteenth Century, Das Glarner Fabrikgesetz und der Arbeiterschutz im 19. Jahrhundert (pp. 147-176). N瓣fels: K羹ng Druck.
- Policy communities and exchanges across borders: The case of workplace accidents at the turn of the twentieth century In Struck B, Rodogno D & Vogel J (Ed.), Shaping the Transnational Sphere: Experts, Networks and Issues from the 1840s to the 1930s (pp. 60-81). Oxford and New York: Berghahn.
- Contesting Risk: Specialist Knowledge and Workplace Accidents in Britain, Germany and Italy, 1870-1920 In Br羹ckweh K, Schumann D, Wetzell R & Ziemann B (Ed.), Engineering Society: The Scientification of the Social in Comparative Perspective, 1880-1990 (pp. 59-78). Basingstoke: Palgrave.
- Introduction In Lobban M & Moses J (Ed.), The Impact of Ideas on Legal Development (pp. 1-35). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Contesting Risk: Specialist Knowledge and Workplace Accidents in Britain, Germany, and Italy, 1870-1920, ENGINEERING SOCIETY: THE ROLE OF THE HUMAN AND SOCIAL SCIENCES IN MODERN SOCIETIES, 1880-1980 (pp. 59-78).
- Risk, Humanity and Injuries to the Body Politic: Governmental Representations of The Industrial Accident Problem in Britain, Germany and Italy, 1870-1900 In Smit C & Wolffram DJ (Ed.), Imagination and Commitment: Representations of the Social Question (pp. 209-232). Leuven: Peeters.
Book reviews
- . EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY, 26(1), 663-667.
- . The English Historical Review, 132(558), 1379-1381.
- . The English Historical Review, 132(557), 1032-1034.
- . Medical History, 61(3), 447-449.
- . SOCIAL HISTORY OF MEDICINE, 29(3), 645-647.
- . English Historical Review, 128(533), 993-995.
- Thomas Sokoll, ed., Soziale Sicherungssysteme und demographische Wechsellagen. Historisch-vergleichende Perspektiven (1500-2000) (Muenster, 2011). English Historical Review, 128(531), 505-506.
- . Social History of Medicine, 25(4), 913-915.
- . GERMAN HISTORY, 29(3), 522-523.
- Jamie L. Bronstein, Caught in the Machinery: Workplace Accidents and Injured Workers in Nineteenth-Century Britain (Stanford UP, 2008). SOCIAL HISTORY, 35(1), 117-118.
Conference proceedings
- APPEARANCE COMPARISONS AS MEDIATOR AND RISK FACTOR FOR ACNE-RELATED STIGMA. ACTA DERMATO-VENEREOLOGICA, Vol. 97(7) (pp 880-880)
Digital content
- The Marrying Kind? Marriage, Freedom and the State.
- Foreign Ideas about 'Child Marriage'?.
- 28 de Abril: el largo camino hacia las pol穩ticas de seguridad laboral en todo el mundo.
- Workplace Accidents, Occupational Illness and the Long Road to Workers Compensation and Safety Policies around the World.
- In the Name of the Family, Past and Present.
- The State of Marriage Progress or Decay?.
- Family politics moves centre stage in Germany ahead of election.
Other
- , 157-167.
- Risk, Security, and the Social in Twentieth-Century Europe, 39/1.
- Social Policy across Borders, 9/2.
- Research group
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Research supervision
I supervise students in nineteenth- and twentieth-century British, European and global history, in particular on the history of the welfare state and social problems and policy more broadly, including questions related to national, international and transnational regulation; government and bureaucracy; legal history; labour history; marriage and the family; philosophies, practices and policies related to social rights; and, the history of the social sciences.
- Current Students
Primary Supervisor
Secondary Supervisor
- Accordion title
Accordion content.
- Accordion title
Accordion content.
- Completed Students
- Chris Locke - GPs and the Politics of Health Insurance in Britain, c.1900 to 1939
- Sabine Hanke - National identity and cultural difference in the British and German circus, 1920-1945
- Lauren Butler - A Community of Masters and Servants? Chatsworth, 1811-1914.
- Kate Adkins (second supervisor) - Stigmatisation, media and acne: A mixed methods interdisciplinary approach.
- Eleanor Bland (second supervisor) - The Identification of Criminal Suspects by Policing Agents in London, 1780-1850.
- Lucy Huggins (second supervisor) - Crime and Economies of Makeshift: Experiences of Poverty in the Old Bailey, 1750-1799.
- Brendan Murphy (second supervisor) - Killing in the German Army: Organising and Surviving Combat in the Great War.
- Grants
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- AHRC Standard Grant, 2024-27
- European Commission/Horizon 2020 Marie Curie Individual Fellowship (2016-2019)
- Leverhulme International Academic Fellowship (2017-2018; declined)
- DAAD Research Stay (2016)
- AHRC Early Career Fellowship (2013)
- Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship (2011-14; declined)
- Teaching activities
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Undergraduate:
- HST248 - Politics, Culture and National Identity in Britain, 1867-1918
- HST2040 - Culture Wars: Nationalism, Religion and Violence in Europe, 1870-1918
- HST2519 - Empire, Sexuality and the Family in Modern Europe
- HST3122/23 - Britains Social Revolution: Welfare, State and Society, c. 1870-1914
- HST3304 - Debt, Money and Morality
Postgraduate:
- HST6049 - Policing the Family: Welfare, Eugenics and Love in Early 20th Century Britain
- Professional activities and memberships
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- Senior Fellow, Higher Education Academy
- Fellow, Royal Historical Society
- Member, Scientific Committee, International Commission on Occupational Health, triennial history conferences
- Editor, Palgrave New Directions in Welfare History
- Editorial board member and former co-editor, Gender & History; editorial board member: History (the journal of the Historical Association); The History of the Family; le Mouvement Social; Journal of Occupational Medicine and Toxicology.
- Member, Executive Committee, Council for European Studies (2018-22)
- Co-Chair, Political Economy and Welfare Research Network, Council for European Studies (2011-2019)
- Co-Convenor, Risk, Policy and Law research cluster, Centre for Medical Humanities, University of Sheffield
- Co-Director, Nineteenth-Century Studies Centre, University of Sheffield (2011-16)
Administrative roles:
Julia is currently the REF Lead for History at Sheffield, Chair of the University of Sheffield AHRC Internal Review Panel and a member of the University Senate's Research and Innovation Committee.
Previous duties at Sheffield have included Director of Research and Deputy Director of Research in History; Impact, Knowledge Exchange and Public Engagement Lead in History; Pathway Leader for Social History, ESRC White Rose Doctoral Training Centre; Level-3 Tutor; Admissions Tutor.
Beyond Sheffield, she has served as external examiner at Cambridge, Bristol, and King's College London.
- Public engagement
As principal investigator on the AHRC project, I am working together with local partners and collaborators around the world, from the Rockefeller Archive Centre to Sheffield Council, to unearth and make publicly accessible oral history interviews and archival sources related to the history of workers' rights through a new digital exhibition and oral-history database. My research group regularly publishes on the history of social rights via our and participates in outreach initiatives with local schools and through festivals such as the ESRC Festival of Social Science. Working with our partner History & Policy, we will contribute new policy papers and hold a series of policy labs on aspects of social rights and work. We aim to inform current policy agendas and public understanding in this area by drawing on more than a century of historical evidence from around the world.
As principal investigator for the AHRC-funded Marriage and the State in Imperial Germany research project and the Marie Curie Individual Fellowship on Marriage and Diversity in the German Empire, I have written for a number of popular and expert periodicals, including , and . I have also taken part in public roundtables with academics and external stakeholders and policymakers in Germany and the UK.
My work on occupational health and the welfare state has also led to my involvement with the , as a member of the Scientific Committee for its triennial historical conferences. It has also led to membership in the , which has combined historical and medical expertise in an effort to learn more about and combat a widespread and fatal occupational illness, and to membership in the AHRC-funded , where I co-directed a team of historians and lawyers who sought to uncover the history of ideas behind tort law and make them more accessible to the broader public.
More broadly, I regularly give public lectures and participate in public panel discussions, both in the UK and internationally, on the history of work, rights related to the family and social welfare.