The British Academy welcomes 86 new Fellows in 2024

The British Academy has today elected 86 leading scholars from the humanities and social sciences to its Fellowship.

Of the new Fellows elected this year, 52 were elected from 21 universities across the UK and 30 International Fellows were elected from Universities overseas including the USA, Canada, South Africa, Japan, China, Australia, Taiwan, Switzerland, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Turkey and Israel. The Academy also elected four Honorary Fellows from the worlds of art, literature, journalism and filmmaking.

This year’s cohort of new Fellows - many of whom have received funding and support from the Academy throughout their careers - represent a diverse range of specialisms across the humanities and social sciences. The new Fellows’ areas of expertise include the contemporary study of political participation; reconstructing ancient human diets and religion, war and society in the English-speaking world.

The new Fellows join a community of more than 1700 distinguished academics. Current British Academy Fellows include the classicist Professor Dame Mary Beard, the historian and China expert Professor Rana Mitter and philosopher Professor Baroness Onora O’Neill. The Academy also counts Professor David Olusoga, Baroness Brenda Hale, and Professor Gary Younge among its Honorary Fellows.

This year, a record-setting six academics whose early careers were supported through the British Academy’s Postdoctoral Fellowship scheme have been elected to the Fellowship – bringing the total number of Fellows who previously used the scheme to 31 and demonstrating the importance of this flagship scheme.

Welcoming the new Fellows for 2024, President of the British Academy Professor Julia Black said:

“We are delighted to welcome this year’s cohort of Fellows, and I offer my warmest congratulations to each and every one. Since the Academy was created in 1902, our Fellows have been the lifeblood of the organisation, representing the very best of our disciplines – and we would not have the impact we have without their expertise, time and energy. I very much look forward to working closely with our new Fellows; the breadth and depth of their expertise adds so much to the Academy.”

Professor Daniel Goodley FBA, Professor of Disability Studies and Education, iHuman and School of Education at the University of Sheffield, said: “An individual recognition can only be understood as a collective recognition of the work of a community of colleagues in and outside of the university. This fellowship of the British Academy illuminates the wider critical disability studies research and scholarship that I and many others in iHuman and the School of Education have been able to develop in collaboration with students, activists and academics.”

Professor Helen Kennedy FBA, Professor of Digital Society at the University of Sheffield, said: “It’s a huge honour to be elected a Fellow of the British Academy, and to be in such great company, including the incredible Honorary Fellows. I’m especially pleased that my election means that digital expertise and scholarship from the north of England are represented in the British Academy Fellowship.”

Professor Kwame Anthony Appiah FBA FRS FRSL, Silver Professor of Philosophy and Law at New York University, said: "I’m so thrilled to be joining this fantastic company of distinguished intellectuals—many of them my friends already— with the opportunity for collaborations on so many fronts."

The full list of this year’s new UK, International and Honorary Fellows is:

UK Fellows

• Professor Nava Ashraf, Professor of Economics, London School of Economics
• Professor Subhabrata (Bobby) Banerjee, Professor of Sustainability, Bayes Business School, City, University of London
• Professor Peter Boxall, Goldsmiths’ Professor of English Literature, University of Oxford
• Professor Gordon Brown, Professor in Psychology, University of Warwick
• Professor Stuart Carroll, Professor of Early Modern History, University of York
• Professor Shadreck Chirikure, Edward Hall Professor of Archaeological Science, Director, Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, University of Oxford
• Professor Sara Cohen, James and Constance Alsop Chair in Music, University of Liverpool
• Professor Tim Dalgleish, Programme Leader, Medical Research Council Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, University of Cambridge
• Professor Anne Davies, Professor of Law and Public Policy, Faculty of Law and Brasenose College, University of Oxford
• Professor Norman Doe KC, Professor of Law, Director of the Centre for Law and Religion, School of Law and Politics, Cardiff University
• Professor Alex Edmans, Professor of Finance, London Business School
• Professor Esther Eidinow, Professor of Ancient History, University of Bristol
• Professor William Fitzgerald, Professor of Latin, King’s College London
• Professor Maria Cristina Fumagalli, Professor, Department of Literature, Film, and Theatre Studies, University of Essex
• Professor Katy Gardner, Professor of Anthropology, London School of Economics
• Professor David Gellner, Professor of Social Anthropology, University of Oxford; Fellow, All Souls College, Oxford
• Professor Alain George, I M Pei Professor of Islamic Art and Architecture, Director, Khalili Research Centre, Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Oxford; Fellow, Wolfson College, Oxford
• Professor Sophie Gilliat-Ray OBE, FLSW, Professor of Religious Studies and Director, Islam-UK Centre, Cardiff University
• Professor Kristian Gleditsch, Regius Professor of Political Science, University of Essex
• Professor Daniel Goodley, Professor of Disability Studies and Education, iHuman and School of Education, University of Sheffield
• Professor Toby Green, Professor of Precolonial and Lusophone African History and Culture, King’s College London
• Professor Timothy Greenwood, Professor of History, University of St Andrews
• Professor Daniel Harbour, Professor of the Cognitive Science of Language, Queen Mary University of London
• Professor Tim Harper, Professor of the History of Southeast Asia, University of Cambridge
• Professor Alvin Jackson FRSE, Hon MRIA, MAE, Sir Richard Lodge Professor of History, University of Edinburgh
• Professor Liz James, Professor of Art History, University of Sussex
• Professor David James FAcSS, FRSA, FHEA, Professor of Sociology of Education, Cardiff University
• Professor Carey Jewitt, Professor of Technology and Learning, UCL Knowledge Lab, Department of Culture, Communication and Media, IOE, University College London
• Professor Helen Kennedy, Professor of Digital Society, University of Sheffield
• Professor Justin Lewis, Professor of Creative Economy, Centre for the Creative Economy, Cardiff University
• Professor Rosalind Love, Elrington and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon, University of Cambridge
• Professor Asifa Majid, Professor of Cognitive Science, University of Oxford; Fellow, St Hugh's College, Oxford
• Professor David McCallam, Reader in French Eighteenth-Century Studies, University of Sheffield
• Professor Nasar Meer FRSE, FAcSS, Professor of Social and Political Science, University of Glasgow
• Professor Miriam Meyerhoff, Senior Research Fellow, All Souls College, University of Oxford
• Professor James Montgomery, Sir Thomas Adams’s Professor of Arabic, University of Cambridge
• Professor Janet Montgomery, Professor of Bioarchaeology, Durham University
• Professor Adrian Moore, Professor of Philosophy, University of Oxford; Fellow, St Hugh’s College, Oxford
• Professor Lydia Morris, Professor of Sociology, University of Essex
• Professor Rachael Mulheron KC (Hon), Professor of Tort Law and Civil Justice, School of Law, Queen Mary University of London
• Professor Lucy O'Brien, Richard Wollheim Professor of Philosophy, University College London
• Professor Elias Papaioannou, Professor of Economics, London Business School
• Professor Philomen Probert, Professor of Classical Philology and Linguistics, University of Oxford; Fellow, Wolfson College, Oxford
• Professor Ricardo Reis, A W Phillips Professor of Economics, London School of Economics
• Professor Jennifer Robinson, Professor of Human Geography, University College London
• Professor Rebecca Sear, Professor and Director of the Centre for Culture and Evolution, Brunel University
• Professor Alison Shell, Professor of Early Modern Studies, Department of English, University College London
• Canon Professor Michael Snape, Michael Ramsey Professor of Anglican Studies, Durham University
• Professor Elisabeth van Houts, Emeritus Honorary Professor in European Medieval History, University of Cambridge; Life-Fellow, Emmanuel College, Cambridge
• Professor Phiroze Vasunia, Professor of Greek, University College London
• Professor Lea Ypi, Professor of Political Theory, London School of Economics and Political Science
• Professor Ayṣe Zarakol, Professor of International Relations, University of Cambridge; Fellow, Emmanuel College, Cambridge

International Fellows

• Professor Sunil Amrith, Renu and Anand Dhawan Professor of History, Yale University
• Professor Kwame Anthony Appiah FRSL, Silver Professor of Philosophy and Law, New York University
• Professor Richard Aslin, Senior Research Scientist, Child Study Center, Yale School of Medicine; Senior Research Scientist, Department of Psychology, Yale University
• Professor Mauricio Avendano, Associate Professor and Co-Director Health Economics and Policy Unit, University of Lausanne
• Professor Shadi Bartsch-Zimmer, Distinguished Service Professor of Classics, The University of Chicago
• Professor Lauren Benton, Barton M Biggs Professor of History and Professor of Law, Yale University
• Professor Judith Carney, Distinguished Research Professor Emerita, Department of Geography, University of California Los Angeles
• Professor David Chalmers, University Professor of Philosophy and Neural Science, New York University
• Professor Joseph Chan, Distinguished Senior Research Fellow, Research Center for Humanities and Social Science, Academia Sinica, Taiwan
• Professor Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, Canada 150 Research Chair, Professor of Communication, Director of the Digital Democracies Institute, Simon Fraser University
• Professor Eve V Clark, Richard W Lyman Professor Emerita, Professor of Linguistics and Symbolic Systems, Stanford University
• Professor Janet Currie, Henry Putnam Professor of Economics and Public Affairs, Princeton University
• Professor Steven Feld, Distinguished Professor of Anthropology Emeritus, University of New Mexico
• Professor Gerd Gigerenzer, Director Emeritus, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin; Director, Harding Center for Risk Literacy, University of Potsdam, and Vice-President European Research Council (ERC)
• Professor Robert Grant, SDA Professor of Strategic and Entrepreneurial Management Emeritus, Bocconi University
• Professor Saidiya Hartman, University Professor, Department of English and Comparative Literature, Columbia University
• Professor Ayhan Kaya, Director, European Institute, Director, Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence, Senior Lecturer, Istanbul Bilgi University
• Professor Thomas Keymer, Chancellor Henry N R Jackman University Professor of English, University of Toronto
• Professor Catharine MacKinnon, Elizabeth A Long Professor of Law, University of Michigan Law School; The James Barr Ames Visiting Professor of Law, Harvard Law School
• Professor Koji Mizoguchi FSA, Professor, Faculty of Social and Cultural Studies, Kyushu University
• Professor Zhenzhao Nie MAE, Yunshan Chair Professor, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies; Emeritus Professor, Zhejiang University
• Professor Pippa Norris, Paul F McGuire Lecturer in Comparative Politics, HKS and Faculty Affiliate in the Government Department, Harvard Kennedy School
• Professor Francis B Nyamnjoh, Professor of Social Anthropology, University of Cape Town
• Professor Susan O’Connor, Distinguished Professor, School of Culture, History and Language, Australian National University
• Professor Jennifer Roberts, Drew Gilpin Faust Professor of the Humanities, Harvard University
• Professor Kirsi Salonen, Professor of Medieval History, Department of Archaeology, History, Cultural Studies and Religion, University of Bergen
• Professor Dr Petra Sijpesteijn, Professor of Arabic, Leiden University
• Professor Catherine Snow, John and Elisabeth Hobbs Professor of Cognition and Education, Harvard Graduate School of Education
• Professor Guy G Stroumsa, Martin Buber Professor Emeritus of Comparative Religion, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Professor Emeritus of the Study of the Abrahamic Religions, University of Oxford
• Professor David Wang, Edward C Henderson Professor of Chinese Literature and Comparative Literature, Harvard University

Honorary Fellows

• Ms Patricia Barker CBE, FRSL, British writer and novelist
• Professor Dame Sonia Boyce DBE, OBE, RA, Professor of Black Art and Design, University of the Arts London
• Sir Isaac Julien CBE, RA, Filmmaker and installation artist; Distinguished Professor of the Arts, University of California Santa Cruz
• Mr Fergal Keane OBE, Special Correspondent, BBC News