Dr Inge Dornan
Deputy Dean - CALSS / Reader in the History of Race and Gender

Summary

My research focuses on histories of race and gender in Britain and the Americas. I joined Brunel University London in 2003, after completing my PhD at Cambridge University, and following fixed-term lectureships at Oxford and Warwick. I'm currently Acting Deputy Dean for the College of Business, Arts and Social Sciences, having previously served as Divisional Lead of Politics and History, and Deputy Head of the Department of Social and Political Sciences. 

I have a long track record of commitment to generating research impact and sharing and disseminating historical research in the public sphere on the legacies of Empire in Britain.

In 2019, I led a series of public engagement events on the theme of 'Unlocking the Secrets of Britain's Slave Past' as part of the UK Being Human Festival of the Humanities, sponsored by the London School of Advanced Study, the AHRC and British Academy. This included walking tours to uncover the hidden narratives of British slavery in the built landscape of Hillingdon and Uxbridge; a specially curated exhibition with Brunel University London Archives on the British and Foreign School Society and the education of enslaved children in the British Caribbean; and an award-winning heritage production on the British slave trade, Breaking the Silence, which I co-wrote with theatre director and academic, Professor Holly Maples (Faculty Chair, William and Mary, Williamsburg,Virginia, US).  These events culminated in a public lecture on the forgotten history of British slavery, with Professor David Olusoga. In 2020, I was awarded Brunel University London's inaugural Research Impact Award for Public Engagement.

In 2021, Breaking the Silence attracted considerable critical acclaim on a sell-out tour of the UK, followed by two more sell-out tours in 2023 and 2024, performed by the Collisions Theatre Company, and funded by Arts Council England, Unity Theatre Trust, and East 15, Essex University, Public Engagement Fund. A final tour is planned next year and is expected to support the opening of The Fitzwilliam Museum's exhibition on the slave trade and slavery, Rise Up! Resistance, Revolution, Abolition (February-June 2025, Cambridge). 

I'm currently working on a research project with Dr Hannah Whittaker on anti-Fallism and grassroots counter-campaigns opposting the removal and toppling of imperial and slaver statues and monuments in the UK and overseas, the subject of my most recent publication. 

My research has been supported by several visiting fellowships, including Senior Fellow and Associate Fellow of the Rothermere American Institute, Oxford, where I conducted a research project on enslaved women in the British slave trade, and Visiting Fellow at Mansfield College, Oxford, where I led a research project on the education of enslaved children in the British West Indies.

I am committed to research-led teaching and I'm pleased to have been nominated by my students for the Student Led Teaching Awards for best Tutor and Dissertation Supervisor. 

I support and advocate for the study of History in the UK, through my membership of the History UK Steering Committee, and serving on the 2021 UK QAA History Subject Benchmark Statement panel.