JOANNA BOURKE
About me
I am an historian who works on some rather ‘edgy’ topics in cultural history.
You can find out more about me by scrolling down this page.
I am a Fellow of the British Academy (FBA) and Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (FRHistS).
Currently, I am Professor of History (Emerita) at Birkbeck, University of London, as well as Professor of Rhetoric (Emerita) at Gresham College.
My most recent research project was as the Principal Investigator of SHaME (Sexual Harms and Medical Encounters), a Wellcome Trust funding project exploring medical and psychiatric aspects of sexual violence.
I am Professor Emerita of History at Birkbeck, University of London, Professor Emerita of Rhetoric at Gresham College, and a Fellow of the British Academy. I am the Principal Investigator on a Wellcome Trust-funded project entitled ‘SHaME’ (Sexual Harms and Medical Encounters: October 2018 to April 2024). I am the prize-winning author of fifteen books, as well as over 120 articles in academic journals. Among others, I am the author of From Husbandry to Housewifery: Women, Economic Change and Housework in Ireland, 1890-1914 (1993), Dismembering the Male: Men’s Bodies, Britain, and the Great War (1996), An Intimate History of Killing (1999), Fear: A Cultural History (2005), Rape: A History from the 1860s to the Present (2007), and What it Means To Be Human: Reflections from 1791 to the Present was published in 2011. In 2014, I published The Story of Pain: From Prayer to Painkillers as well as Wounding the World: How Military Violence and War-Play are Invading our Lives. In 2019, I published Loving Animals. In 2022, Reaktion Books published Disgrace: Global Reflections on Sexual Violence (also published by Chicago University Press and is an audiobook) and Oxford University Press published Birkbeck: 200 Years of Radical Education for Working People. I am currently writing a book entitled Evil Women.
My books have been translated into Chinese, Russian, Spanish, Catalan, Italian, Portuguese, Czech, Turkish, Korean, and Greek. An Intimate History of Killing won the Wolfson Prize and the Fraenkel Prize. My 40-CD audio history of Britain, entitled “Eyewitness” won the Gold for the Best Audio Production for Volume 1910-1919, Gold for the Best Audio Production for Volume 1940-1949, and the Gold for the Most Original Audio for all 10 volumes.
I am a frequent contributor to TV and radio shows, and a regular correspondent for newspapers.
Professional background
Personal Life
People often ask me about my background. I was born in New Zealand. As a young child, I lived in New Zealand, Zambia, Solomon Island, and Haiti. My parents were medical missionaries. I went to Auckland University (New Zealand) to do my BA and MA. My teachers in Auckland inspired me in women’s history. From there, I went to the Australian National University in Canberra to complete a doctorate on women in nineteenth-century Ireland. After posts in the 1980s and early 1990s at the Australian National University and Emmanuel College, Cambridge, I was appointed to Birkbeck College in 1992. The college provided me with a supportive environment to engage in the histories of violence, the body, and sexuality. My partner is Costas Douzinas, Professor of Law at Birkbeck, critical legal theorist, and radical politician. We live in London and Greece.