Dr James Chetwood

School of History, Philosophy and Digital Humanities

Lecturer in History and Digital Humanities

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Profile

I am a Lecturer in History and Digital Humanities in the Digital Humanities Institute (DHI). Before joining the DHI, I was a Government of Ireland Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Digital Humanities at University College Cork (2022-2024), and held teaching positions at the universities of 91直播, Nottingham and Hull.

My research incorporates history, linguistics and digital humanities and focuses on the transformation medieval society over the longue dur茅e, from the fourth century to the fourteenth.

My PhD project re-examined the transformation of the English personal naming system between c.800 and c.1300. It combined quantitative studies examining broad trends with micro-analytical studies of individual naming decisions. The results demonstrated how the transformation of personal naming patterns were linked to broader socio-cultural changes that took place across the period and repositioned the history of English personal naming in a broader European context. A monograph based on this research, The Medieval Transformation of English Personal Naming, is under contract with Amsterdam University Press.

My postdoctoral research has focused on the personal names of early medieval Britain. By identifying and mapping (chronologically and geographically) names of non-English origin across the period c.300鈥揷.850, my work explores the movement and migration of people following the fall of the western Roman Empire, and the transformation of ethnic and linguistic identities that accompanied it. Aspects of this research will be published in a trade book, The Names We Call Ourselves, under contract with Reaktion.

Outside my academic pursuits, I have also spent 10 years working in the digital learning industry, designing and managing digital learning projects on a diverse range of topics, from the principles of cell line development for biotherapeutic drugs, to preventing dust explosions in sugar factories. I am interested in both applying and researching the effectiveness of digital learning methods within higher education.

Qualifications

PhD History (91直播)

MA Medieval History (91直播)

PG Cert E-Learning Design (Sussex and Brighton)

MA Applied Linguistics (Sussex)

BA History (Sussex)

Research interests

Medieval social history: the transformation of everyday life and underlying factors that caused it

Onomastics: personal names and place-names, and how these can be used to help shed light on linguistics and social history

Historical linguistics: the transformation of language over time and the linguistic and sociolinguistic reasons behind it

Quantitative methods: the use of statistical analysis, large datasets and data visualisation to help us understand historical and linguistic change

Digital prosopography: the creation and exploitation of digital databases to record and analyse the lives, relationships and activities of historical people

Professional activities and memberships

Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy

Associate Fellow of the Royal Historical Society

Committee Member of the Society for Name Studies in Britain and Ireland

Publications

Journal articles:

鈥楻e鈥恊valuating English personal naming on the eve of the Conquest鈥, Early Medieval Europe, vol. 26, Issue 4, October 2018, pp. 518鈥547, .

鈥榃here鈥檚 Walh-y? Searching for 鈥淚nvisible Britons鈥 in early medieval England鈥, Journal of the English Place-Name Society (forthcoming, 2024).

Book chapters:

鈥楴aming and renaming: Names and the life course in early medieval England鈥 in T. Porck and H. Soper (eds), Early Medieval English Life Courses: (Brill, 2021), pp. 180鈥209, .

Books:

The Medieval Transformation of English Personal Naming, c.800鈥揷.1300 (Amsterdam University Press, in preparation).

The Names We Call Ourselves: People and Identity in Early Medieval Britain (Reaktion Books, in preparation).

Reviews:

The Emergence of the English (ARC Humanities Press, 2019) by Susan Oosthuizen, Peritia 31, (2020), .

Magazine articles:

鈥楥忙d, B忙d and Dangerous to Know鈥, History Today, vol. 73, Issue 9, September 2023, .

鈥楴ames and the Norman Conquest鈥, Modern History Review, vol. 23, Issue 4, April 2021, .

鈥楢 Noble Stone Gathers No Moss鈥, History Today, vol. 69, Issue 9, September 2015, .