Research Interests
Open to PhD applications in the fields of:
- Public history in divided societies
- Difficult and traumatic public histories
- Community co-production
- Urban poverty and welfare 1850-1930
- Working-class lives
- Urban development and public health
Public outreach & key achievements
Professor Purdue is Director of the Centre for Public History at Queen's. She works closely with cultural and heritage organisations locally and internationally, for example as member of the Advisory Board of the Ulster Museum, historical advisor to Titanic Belfast and as a member of the Board of Directors of the Irish Museums Association (2018-22). She has hosted the Secretary of the Smithsonian, Dr Lonnie G. Bunch lll at Queen's, has organised and spoken at a number of events with the Smithsonian and the US Holocaust Memorial Museum and has delivered talks on public history in divided societies at universities across the US.
She is currently QUB lead on two funded projects. 'Historic Houses: Global Crossroads' reimagines Ireland's historic houses and estates as spaces where marginalised histories might be amplified and entangled local and global identities explored. 'Our Place, Our Stories' is a community-based oral history and archiving project in which communities on either side of west Belfast's peace walls are working together to create an oral history archive of everyday life in the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland.
Professor Purdue sits on the Council of the Royal Historical Society and chairs the Research Support Committee.
Research students
| PhD Title | Ireland's lost property: an exploration of the Anatomy Act in London,1828-1907 |
| Name | Julie Mathias |
| Years of Study | 2022 - 2025 |
| Country | UK |
| PhD Title | Quite capable of being Governor...herself": the Northern Irish Governorship and the influence of the Governors' Wives |
| Name | Katie Tate |
| Years of Study | 2020 - 2023 |
| Country | UK |
| PhD Title | "A Curse of a Disease": Remembering the history and lived experience of type one diabetes through patient memory |
| Name | Lauren Young |
| Years of Study | 2019 - 2022 |
| Country | UK |
Alumni: Where are they now
| PhD Title | The Photographer and the City: The work of A.R. Hogg in representing everyday life in early twentieth-century Belfast |
| Name | Dr Lucy Wray |
| Years of Study | 2018 - 2021 |
| Country | UK |
| Current Position | Faculty Fellow, Glucksman Ireland House, New York University. Formerly Senior Research Associate, University of Bristol |
| PhD Title | Leisure, memory and class in post-war Belfast: a case study of the Templemore Avenue Baths |
| Name | Dr Rhianne Morgan |
| Years of Study | 2019 - 2022 |
| Country | UK |
| Current Position | Assistant Professor, University of North Georgia', USA. Formerly Research Fellow, University of Luxembourg |
Discover More
- Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Science
- School of History, Anthropology, Philosophy and Politics
- Centre for Public History
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