Justin Champion

Justin Champion

Professor

  • TW20 0EX

Personal profile

Research interests

My first book, The pillars of priestcraft shaken (Cambridge, 1992) is available in an open access form hosted by the Newton Project here. It has just been published as a paperback by CUP (2014). I am currently completing a study of the life and thought of the later Hobbes with a focus on his contribution to the early Enlightenment after 1660. An edition of Hobbes on Religion is in press for the Clarendon Press in collaboration with Mark Goldie.

Other interests include the history of scholarship; epidemics and society; eighteenth century republicanism; the history of the printed image in the eighteenth century; the nature and purpose of public history. My book on John Toland is available as an open access volume here.

Recent publications include a first edition of the works of Robert Molesworth (The Liberty Fund) and a study of Orientalist erudition in the work of Henry Stubbe (Al-Quantera) as well as contributions on Hobbes and Scripture.

In 2012 I delivered the Royal Historical Society/Gresham College Lecture on Public understanding of the past on the subject of 'Why the Enlightenment matters today'. It can be seen here

My emeritus project will be to explore the visual history of ideas of freedom and liberty from Antiquity to the Enlightenment, using the life of Thomas Hollis as a device to explore the power of visual thinking and the development of representations of freedom in the English, European and North American enlightenments.

Personal profile

Educated at King Edward VIth Grammar School, Southampton I completed undergraduate and research degrees at Churchill College, University of Cambridge.

I have taught at Royal Holloway since 1990. In recent years I have delivered lectures and papers in many universities in the UK (Cambridge, Oxford, UEA, Southampton, IHR, Kent, Sussex, Edinburgh, York, Sheffield) and Europe (Paris, Leiden, Rotterdam, Wolfenbuttel, Ferrara, Dublin, Madrid, Potsdam, Grenada) as well as a number of North American institutions (Yale University, Princeton University, UCLA, Notre Dame, The Folger, The Williams Andrew Clark, The Institute of Advanced Studies, Princeton, The University of Alberta, University of Victoria). In 2003-2004 I held the John Hinckley Chair in British History at John Hopkins University, Baltimore.

I had the privilege of serving as President of the Historical Association 2014-2017.

Other work

I have a keen interest in issues of public engagement and open access to academic knowledge. I was a member of the Public History Committee for the Historical Association (see HA) and am keen to develop relationships with publics, communities, audiences and individuals outside of the Higher education world. A debate on the nature of public history and TV held at the German Historical Institute can be heard here.

An earlier discussion held at the IHR, which connected the debate about the utility of public history and citizenship under the title Why history matters, can be heard here.

I am currently on the Advisory Board of the JISC Historic Books Project, and served on the Advisory Board for The British Library Magna Carta 2015 Exhibition.

One means of broader communication is by contributing to the representation of the past in public broadcast media. I have been involved for example in making a number of historical programmes for BBC Radio 3 and 4, including features on the Glorious Revolution (The King's nosebleed), the Execution of Charles I (Killing the King) and Pistols at Dawn on the history of duelling, as well as series on the history of friendship, the enlightenment and Elizabethan and Stuart subjects.

I have also regularly contributed to the flagship programme presented by Melvyn Bragg on BBC Radio 4, In our time on subjects such as Toleration, Miracles, Calvinism, the Trial of Charles I, the Apocalypse, divine right monarchy and John Foxe's Book of Martyrs. I have commented on a variety of historical issues for the Today Programme and Radio 5 Live as well as reviewing on Nightwaves. A recent contribution to the relationship between History and the historical novel (November 2011) can be heard here. More recent contributions to the BBC Radio 4 flagship series The Art of Monarchy can be heard here. Most recently I presented a commemorative programme for BBC Radio 4 on the legacy of ideas fermented in the Russian revolution of 1917.

Other programmes explored the history of writing in books, Terry Deary's Horrible Histories and Puritan discipline in the seventeenth century.

I am also been involved in a number of television productions: a Channel 4 production of my monograph of the Great Plague of London 1665 won a Royal Television Society Award in 2001; in 2003 I presented a series on the history of Kings and Queens; a documentary on contemporary Royal Finances (Secrets of the Palace C4 2002); and numerous contributions to programmes on Isaac Newton, Timeteam, The Enlightenment, the History of Science, and How Christianity Came to Britain.

My most recent television history was a contribution as advisor and on-screen to a BBC/PBS series Shakespeare Uncovered which placed his plays - Macbeth, Richard II, Hamlet, The Tempest, and most recently the Merchant of Venice - in historical context. Interviewing David Tennant in a Victorian cemetary about the ghost in Hamlet was a highpoint. The PBS broadcasts were accompanied by a website which included lesson plans for schools.

For a convenient description of some of these activities, see the BBC web link

Teaching

I am a keen teacher of the history of ideas, and the relationship between religion and Enlightenment. I used to teach courses on the History of Political Ideas from Plato to Rousseau; contributions to British History 1600-1700; and a Special Subject on Blasphemy and Irreligion in the English Enlightenment.

Other work

I have a keen interest in issues of public engagement and open access to academic knowledge. I was a member of the Public History Committee for the Historical Association (see HA) and am keen to develop relationships with publics, communities, audiences and individuals outside of the Higher education world. A debate on the nature of public history and TV held at the German Historical Institute can be heard here.

An earlier discussion held at the IHR, which connected the debate about the utility of public history and citizenship under the title Why history matters, can be heard here.

I am currently on the Advisory Board of the JISC Historic Books Project, and served on the Advisory Board for The British Library Magna Carta 2015 Exhibition.

One means of broader communication is by contributing to the representation of the past in public broadcast media. I have been involved for example in making a number of historical programmes for BBC Radio 3 and 4, including features on the Glorious Revolution (The King's nosebleed), the Execution of Charles I (Killing the King) and Pistols at Dawn on the history of duelling, as well as series on the history of friendship, the enlightenment and Elizabethan and Stuart subjects.

I have also regularly contributed to the flagship programme presented by Melvyn Bragg on BBC Radio 4, In our time on subjects such as Toleration, Miracles, Calvinism, the Trial of Charles I, the Apocalypse, divine right monarchy and John Foxe's Book of Martyrs. I have commented on a variety of historical issues for the Today Programme and Radio 5 Live as well as reviewing on Nightwaves. A recent contribution to the relationship between History and the historical novel (November 2011) can be heard here. More recent contributions to the BBC Radio 4 flagship series The Art of Monarchy can be heard here. Most recently I presented a commemorative programme for BBC Radio 4 on the legacy of ideas fermented in the Russian revolution of 1917.

Other programmes explored the history of writing in books, Terry Deary's Horrible Histories and Puritan discipline in the seventeenth century.

I am also been involved in a number of television productions: a Channel 4 production of my monograph of the Great Plague of London 1665 won a Royal Television Society Award in 2001; in 2003 I presented a series on the history of Kings and Queens; a documentary on contemporary Royal Finances (Secrets of the Palace C4 2002); and numerous contributions to programmes on Isaac Newton, Timeteam, The Enlightenment, the History of Science, and How Christianity Came to Britain.

My most recent television history was a contribution as advisor and on-screen to a BBC/PBS series Shakespeare Uncovered which placed his plays - Macbeth, Richard II, Hamlet, The Tempest, and most recently the Merchant of Venice - in historical context. Interviewing David Tennant in a Victorian cemetary about the ghost in Hamlet was a highpoint. The PBS broadcasts were accompanied by a website which included lesson plans for schools.

For a convenient description of some of these activities, see the BBC web link

Expertise related to UN Sustainable Development Goals

In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. This person’s work contributes towards the following SDG(s):

  • SDG 3 - Good Health and Well-being

Keywords

  • Blasphemy
  • Political Thought
  • irreligion
  • Hobbes
  • Enlightenment
  • epidemics
  • public history