Professor Julian Wright

Professor

Department: Humanities

Julian is interested in the ideas and experiences of time, and in history, culture and music. He has published widely on European history, particularly the history of France. His recent volume with the Proceedings of the British Academy, Time on a Human Scale, puts the human present back into the cultural, philosophical and literary history of Europe between 1860 and 1930.

Julian is working on a book about how people living in the era of the Second World War wrote themselves back into time. He is fascinated by the time-experiences of people living under siege, prisoners in camps or people living in secrecy in occupied Europe. Looking ahead, he is developing a new project that will ask how music and history might speak to and listen to one another more deeply.

Julian was Head of Humanities at Northumbria from 2017 to 2022 with a period as Deputy Head of Faculty during that time. After a Junior Research Fellowship at Christ Church Oxford, he taught at Durham University for thirteen years. He has held a visiting professorship at the École des hautes Études en Sciences sociales, Paris and a Leverhulme Fellowship.

Julian has previously served as co-editor of French History and as a Council Member and Secretary for Professional Engagement of the Royal Historical Society.

Campus Address

Office: Lipman 108

Email Julian

Research Themes and Scholarly Interests

The author of two books with Oxford University Press, on regionalism and socialism, Julian is particularly fascinated by the idea and experience of time in the present. Working with colleagues from many other institutions and disciplines, his project 'Time on a Human Scale' which puts the human present back into the cultural, philosophical and literary history of Europe between 1860 and 1930.

Julian's project on the experience of ordinary people who were living 'outside of time' in the era of the Second World War demands a focus on the practices of the everyday, from writing to performing to familial relationships, and how people tried to reconstruct these ordinary temporal rhythms in difficult conditions, from those living under siege to prisoners in camps or people living in secrecy in occupied Europe.

Key Publications

Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
Time on a Human Scale: Experiencing the Present in Europe, 1860-1930, Wright, J., Fryxell, A. 7 Oct 2021
Introduction: Time on a Human Scale, 1860-1930, Wright, J. 7 Oct 2021, Time on a Human Scale, Oxford, Oxford University Press
Socialism and the Experience of Time: Idealism and the Present in Modern France, Wright, J. 6 Jul 2017
Jean Jaurès and the Democratic Present, Wright, J. 7 Oct 2021, Time on a Human Scale, Oxford, Oxford University Press
Pluralism and the Idea of the Republic in France, Wright, J., Jones, H. 2012
Socialism and political identity: Eugene Fourniere and intellectual militancy in the Third Republic, Wright, J. Jul 2013, In: French Historical Studies
Vision and reality: Joseph Paul-Boncour and Third Republic pluralism, Wright, J. Jul 2012, Pluralism and the Idea of the Republic, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan
After the Affair: the Congrès de la Jeunesse and intellectual reconciliation in 1900, Wright, J. Dec 2009, In: French History
One mind at Locarno? Aristide Briand and Gustav Stresemann, Wright, J., Wright, J. 2008, Mental Maps in the Era of Two World Wars, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan
Regionalism and the state in France and Prussia, Wright, J., Clark, C. 2008, In: European Review of History/Revue Europeenne d'Histoire