Introducing: Alistair Kefford
Alistair Kefford is an Assistant Professor at the Institute for History since August 2020. He introduces himself.
Alistair Kefford
Starting a new job in a new country can be a complicated business just now. I joined Leiden’s Institute for History in August, relocating here from the UK in the midst of a summer of lockdowns and travel restrictions. Throwing myself into a new culture, a new country, and a new academic system has been somewhat surreal after so many months of 2020 where I spent holed up at home in lockdown. In many ways it’s been a breath of invigorating fresh air. There is lots to learn of course, but lots of exciting prospects opening up at the same time.
I joined Leiden from the Centre for Urban History at the University of Leicester, where I had a long and luxurious period of working as a research fellow for almost three years. Prior to that I was a Lecturer in the History Department at the University of Manchester. After a long while away from teaching it has been nice to get stuck back into the day-to-day business of semesters and seminars here at Leiden. I have even managed to negotiate the digital classroom without too much difficulty, although it is nice that we also have some face-to-face sessions with students. I am afraid that having taught groups of students in classrooms so much pre-pandemic, one of the things I’ve found most challenging (much more than all the digital platforms and webcam communication) is the socially distanced classroom. As an urban historian – with a keen interest in the social dynamics of space – I find that the strictly regimented, individually spaced corona classroom can be a bit atomised and anti-social. Space matters, and can play such a positive role in stimulating interaction and exchanges. I am always impressed and encouraged, though, by the students’ adaptability in what must be such a frustrating time for many young people.
Pandemics aside, I am delighted to be joining the Urban Studies programme here at Leiden, where a lot of my teaching is focused. The Urban Studies programme is a lovely fit for me and my research, which sits somewhere between modern history and contemporary urban studies. I am interested in planning, urban regeneration and redevelopment, and in tracing the genealogies of our present-day urban condition back through the fascinating histories of the twentieth-century city. I have just finished a major research project on the historical emergence and explosive expansion of the modern property development sector since the 1950s. I am also interested in the role of consumption and the consumer economy in shaping the forms and fortunes of the modern city, and have a book coming out shortly exploring the urban dynamics of affluence and mass consumerism from the 1940s to the 1990s. For me history is always about providing new windows on the present as much as on the past, and I am thrilled to be able to combine my passion for history with my keen interest in the urban challenges of today and tomorrow as part of this new role.