I'm a historian broadly interested in 20th-century liberation movements and philosophies: these include international socialism, social democracy and socialist politicians; women's and feminist movements; Black power and minority rights movements; international cooperation and activism; and exile experience. I’ve been employed as a senior lecturer in history at Malmö University since 2019, and am currently working on a Crafoord Foundation-funded research project on South Africans in exile in Sweden during the apartheid struggle. As of 2020, I’m a reviews editor of the Journal of Contemporary History alongside Dr Luc-André Brunet, and I’ve produced and co-hosted Tomorrow Never Knows - a podcast on history, politics and culture - with Dr Charlotte Lydia Riley since 2017.
I passed my doctoral examination at Birkbeck, University of London without corrections in 2015. My AHRC-funded PhD - ‘Practical Solidarity: Connections between Swedish Social Democratic women and women in the ANC, 1960-1994' (supervised by Dr Hilary Sapire & Professor Mary Hilson) - explored the historical impact of informal cross-border relationships in national and international settings, and how these have informed ideas about gender and equality. It’s available as a free download here.
Teaching
I’ve been a university teacher since 2014. Before commencing my role at Malmö University, I taught history and politics at Queen Mary University of London, Goldsmiths, Birkbeck, University College London, and King’s College London. At Malmö, I teach the freestanding short courses South Africa: From Apartheid to Democracy in a Global Perspective (online) and Populism, Nationalism & History (also online), as well as modules across degrees in history and the social sciences in the Department of Society, Culture and Identity.
My teaching interests are Europe, South Africa and southern Africa in the 20th century; Scandinavian and Nordic history; 20th century politics (including the history of socialism and Social Democracy); gender history; internationalism and transnational history; the history of activism and solidarity movements, as well as research and writing skills. I am an Associate Fellow of the British Advance HE (formerly the Higher Education Academy).
Publications & public appearances
A full list of publications is available on ORCiD: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9983-5099.
I’ve had my work published in the Journal of Southern African Studies (‘Now Is the Time!’ The Importance of International Spaces for Women’s Activism within the ANC, 1960–1976; free e-prints for non-affiliated readers here), contributed a chapter on oral history theory in Teori i historisk praktik (Lund: Studentlitteratur 2022), and reviewed books for the Journal of Contemporary History and LSE Review of Books. I researched and co-wrote Women in Westminster: The MPs Who Changed Politics (London: I.B. Tauris, 2019) with Rachel Reeves MP, and I’m currently working on Strength in Numbers: A Social History of Parliamentary Gender Quotas as well as a trade book on the history of childcare.
Some of my work as a journalist is research-adjacent - read more about that here. In the autumn of 2022, I commented on Elizabeth II’s funeral live on air for Swedish broadcaster TV4. On 1 May 2020, I was interviewed by SR P4 Radio Malmöhus on International Workers’ Day, and featured in a Swedish history TV show aimed at young teenagers in 2021 (UR: En annan sida av historien). In 2020, I was a guest on Colin Murray’s late night show on BBC 5 Live twice, and in 2018 I talked about women in politics on BBC London’s Early Morning Show. In the autumn of 2022, I was a guest on the Progressive Britain episode on that same topic.
Selected awards:
Crafoord Foundation research grant, 2021-2023
Eric Hobsbawm Scholarship 2015
AHRC PhD studentship 2012-2014
Research grant from the Tage Erlander Fund for International Cooperation, 2013
Travel grant from Birkbeck's history department, 2013
AHRC travel grant, 2013
AHRC MA studentship 2010-2011
Contact: emmaelinorlundin @ gmail.com; @emmaelinor