Dr Dan Todman
Senior Lecturer in History
email: d.w.todman@qmul.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7882 8373
Office: Arts G.25B
Dr Dan Todman took his first degree at the London School of Economics, before moving to Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he undertook his doctoral research on representations of the First World War in British popular culture from 1918-1998. He then taught in the War Studies Department of the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, before coming to Queen Mary in the summer of 2003. He was named the Times Young Academic Author of the Year 2005 for the book of his thesis, The Great War, Myth and Memory. He is an occasional contributor to the group history blog Cliopatria.
Research interests:
Dr Todman works on the military, social and cultural history of war in Britain during the twentieth century, on the remembrance of modern war, and the ‘memory boom’ in popular culture. Much of his research has focussed on the ways people form their their ideas about the past, with a focus on the myths that arise in the aftermath of war.
He is a passionate believer in the need to combine the history of combat with the history of the society and culture from which combatants came. Dr Todman is currently researching and writing a new history of Britain in the Second World War. He is also working on the impact of the internet on the remembrance of the First World War in contemporary Britain.
Postgraduate supervision:
Dr Todman is currently supervising two PhDs:
‘Harmony and discord within the English ‘Counter-Culture’, 1965-1975, with particular reference to the ‘Rock Operas’ Hair, Tommy, Godspell and Jesus Christ Superstar’
‘Cinematic representations of the maritime past and British national identity, 1918-2005’
Dr Todman would be interested to hear from potential PhDs in British social, cultural and military history 1918-1963, especially the following areas:
- The representation of the military through performance and display between the wars
- Speedway – the invention and marketing of motor sport
- The remembrance of the First World War during the Second
- The Second World War in television drama and documentary
Publications:
The Great War: Myth and Memory (London, Hambledon Continuum, 2005),
Command and Control on the Western Front: The British Army’s Experience 1914-1918 (co-editor and contributor) (Staplehurst, Spellmount, 2004),
‘‘Sans Peur et Sans Reproche’: The Retirement, Death and Mourning of Sir Douglas Haig 1918-1928’, Journal of Military History, 67, 2003, 1083-1106,
War Diaries 1939-1945: Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke (co-editor) (London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2001).
Undergraduate teaching:
The Road from 1945: Britain since the Second World War (Level 1)
Historical Writing for Undergraduates (Level 1 Course organiser)
Britain in the Second World War (Level 2)
The Great War: British Experience, Literature and Myth (Level 2)
Postgraduate teaching:
Victors to Victims: Total War in British Popular Culture 1945-2000 (MA)