Professor Joanna Bourke FBA

Social and cultural history of modern Britain and America; history of war and violence; medical humanities; history of the emotions; masculinity; sexual violence; what it means to be human

Elected 2014

Fellow type
UK Fellow
Year elected
2014
Honours
OBE

Joanna Bourke is Professor Emerita of History at Birkbeck, University of London, and Professor Emerita at Gresham College. She is the prize-winning author of 15 books and over 120 academic articles. She writes on sexual violence, modern warfare, psychology and psychiatry, the emotions, 'evil', Higher Education, and what it means to be human.

She is currently writing a history of female cultures of drinking. Among others, she is the author of 'An Intimate History of Killing' (1999, which won the Wolfson Prize and the Fraenkel Prize), 'Fear' (2005), 'Rape' (2007), 'What it Means To Be Human' (2011), 'The Story of Pain' (2014), 'Wounding the World: How Military Violence and War-Play are Invading our Lives' (2014)and 'Loving Animals' (2019).

In 2022, Reaktion Books published 'Disgrace: Global Reflections on Sexual Violence' (also published by Chicago University Press and as an audiobook) and OUP published 'Birkbeck: 200 Years of Radical Education for Working People'. Her books have been translated into  Chinese, Russian, Spanish, Catalan, Italian, Portuguese, Czech, Turkish, Korean, and Greek. She is a frequent contributor to TV and radio shows, and a regular correspondent for newspapers.

10-Minute Talks: Domestic and sexual violence during COVID-19

11 Nov 2020 Professor Joanna Bourke FBA

In this talk, Joanna Bourke outlines how the pandemic has exacerbated, not created, the problem of domestic and sexual violence in our society.

Current post

Professor of History, Birkbeck, University of London

Past appointments

Birkbeck College University of London Professor of History

1970 -

Publications

Birkbeck: 200 Years of Radical Learning for Working People

Published in 2022 by Oxford University Press

Disgrace: Global Reflections on Sexual Violence

Published in 2022 by Reaktion Books and Chicago University Press

Loving Animals: On Bestiality, Zoophilia and Post-Human Love

Published in 2020 by Reaktion Books

War and Art: A Visual History of Modern Conflict

Edited by Joanna Bourke - Published in 2017 by Reaktion Books

Edited volume

Wounding the World: How Military Violence and War-Play Are Invading Our Lives

Published in 2014 by Virago and Counterpoint

250pp

The Story of Pain: From Prayer to Painkillers

Published in 2014 by Oxford University Press

It has been translated into Turkish (Koe University Press).

What It Means To Be Human, Historical Reflections 1791 to the Present

Published in 2011 by Virago and Counterpoint

Rape: A History from 1860s to the Present

Published in 2007 by Virago and Shoemaker and Hoard

It has been translated into Italian, Spanish, Czech, Russian, Chinese, and Greek.

Fear: A Cultural History

Published in 2005 by Virago and Shoemaker and Hoard

It has been translated into Italian, Spanish, Chinese, Russian, and Greek. It was on the final shortlist for the Mind Book of the Year.

The Second World War: A People’s History

Published in 2001 by Oxford University Press

It has been translated into Italian, Spanish, and Catalan.

The Penguin Atlas of British and Irish History. From Earliest Times to the Present Day

Edited by Barry Cunliffe, Robert Bartlett, John Morrill, Asa Briggs, and Joanna Bourke - Published in 2001 by Penguin

The Misfit Soldier

Edward Casey [pseud. John William Roworth]introduction by Joanna Bourke - Published in 1999 by Cork University Press

An Intimate History of Killing: Face-to-Face Killing in Twentieth Century Warfare

Published in 1999 by Granta and Basic

It has been translated into Chinese, Czech, Russian, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Catalan, Greek, and Turkish. It won the 2000 Wolfson History Prize as well as the 1998 Fraenkel Prize in Contemporary History. It was in the final shortlist for the W. H. Smith Literary Prize in 2000.

Dismembering the Male: Men's Bodies, Britain, and the Great War

Published in 1996 by Reaktion Press, and University of Chicago Press

Working-Class Cultures in Britain, 1890-1960: Gender, Class and Ethnicity

Published in 1994 by Routledge

Husbandry to Housewifery: Women, Economic Change and Housework in Ireland, 1890-1914

Published in 1993 by Clarendon Press

It won the Ronald Tress Prize.

10-Minute Talks: Domestic and sexual violence during COVID-19

11 Nov 2020 Professor Joanna Bourke FBA

In this talk, Joanna Bourke outlines how the pandemic has exacerbated, not created, the problem of domestic and sexual violence in our society.

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