Staff profiles

• Co-Founder, Second World War Studies Network (Scotland)
• https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/swwnetworkscotland/

Dr Wendy Ugolini is a social and cultural historian of the Second World War, specialising in ethnicities, race and identity formation. After reading history at Newnham College, Cambridge, Dr Ugolini worked at the BBC and in the voluntary sector for a number of years before returning to higher education. After gaining a doctorate at the University of Edinburgh, she was a postdoctoral fellow at the Centre for the Study of the Two World Wars (now the Centre for Modern & Contemporary History). Dr Ugolini's Ph.D. was awarded the Ratcliff Prize and her first monograph, Experiencing War as the 'Enemy Other', was awarded the Royal Historical Society's Gladstone Prize. In 2016, Dr Ugolini was promoted to Senior Lecturer. Her next book, Wales in England 1914-1945. A Social, Cultural, and Military History of the Two World Wars will be published with Oxford University Press.

Dr Ugolini would be delighted to hear from students interested in undertaking PhD research in the social, cultural and military history of Second World War Britain; migrant identities in Britain during the two world wars; gender identities in Britain during the two world wars and the cultural memory of war.

Member of Military Education Committee (Edinburgh Universities)

External Reviewer, MLitt Humanities Programme, University of Dundee (2020)

External Examiner, Liverpool John Moores University (2014 - 2018 )

Advisory Board, ‘Mixing It’ AHRC project in collaboration with Imperial War Museum North (2015 - 2016)

Validation Panel, MA Globalisation/MA War: History & Politics, University of Brighton (2014)

Fellow of the Royal Historical Society

Executive committee member of the UK Oral History Society (2010-2014)

Executive committee member of the Social History Society (2010-2013)

Reviewer for Bloomsbury, Manchester University Press and Routledge.

http://edinburgh.academia.edu/WendyUgolini

Research in a Nutshell video: https://media.ed.ac.uk/media/1_c44qxlch

Summary of research interests

• Britain & Ireland
• Europe
• Scotland

• Culture
• Gender
• Society

• Twentieth Century & After

My research interests focus on the relationship between war and identities in twentieth century Britain and, in particular, ethnicities within the British Armed Forces during the Second World War. My book, Experiencing War as the ‘Enemy Other’: Italian Scottish Experience in World War II, reflects my ongoing interest in migrant identities during the Second World War, in particular notions of duality, belonging and Britishness.

My current research looks at social, cultural, military and political expressions of Welshness in England during the two world wars. My monograph, Wales in England 1914-1945. A Social, Cultural, and Military History of the Two World Wars will be published by Oxford University Press. As part of this interest in the interconnections between English and Welsh identities, I have published an article on the twentieth century novelist, Richard Llewellyn and his connections with the BBC and the Welsh Guards during the Second World War. For a related blog, see:

https://socialhistory.org.uk/shs_exchange/welshness-and-britishness-the-case-of-richard-llewellyn/

My latest article, “The Band of Brothers”: The Mobilization of English Welsh Dual Identities in Second World War Britain, has been published in the Journal of British Studies as FirstView:

https://www.doi.org/10.1017/jbr.2021.64

You can watch a short video about my research interests here: Media Hopper

            The London Welsh Territorials, c.1939.  Source:  IWM `On Active Service´   Henry Kassman´s War Letters 1939-1945 © Jenny Kassman

Overall, I am interested in constructions of dual identities in wartime, especially within the British Army, and how they inform notions of pluralistic Britishness during the Second World War.

I am the co-founder of the RSE-funded Second World War Studies Network (Scotland) which formally launched in April 2021 (see Research Projects below). In 2019, I co-organised the workshop, ‘New Directions in Second World War Studies’, the first in a rolling programme of events which intends to explore, scrutinise and analyse the ways in which we discuss and commemorate the lived experience of the Second World War. From 2021, we hosted a series of online panels, Second World War Conversations, addressing a wide range of themes and geographic areas: East Asia, the Mediterranean Theatre, the Global Serviceman and the Visual Arts in Britain. We also hosted two Expert Round Tables, one on New Texts/New Themes and the other on the British Empire and the Second World War.

We aim to bring together researchers in the field to discuss their work and to flag up themes which will be of importance during the 80th anniversary commemorations of the conflict (2019-2025). In June 2022, we hosted our first PGR virtual coffee morning to bring together early career researchers.

https://www.ed.ac.uk/history-classics-archaeology/history/news-events/events/new-directions-in-second-world-war-studies

With Juliette Pattinson (Kent), I co-edited Fighting for Britain? Negotiating Identities in Britain during the Second World War which has been published by Peter Lang as part of their British Identities Since 1707 series.

My wider interest in war and society is reflected in my recent co-editing of two special issues of the Journal of War & Culture Studies. With Corinna Peniston-Bird (Lancaster) I co-edited a special issue on 'Silenced Mourning' (2015). With Juliette Pattinson (Kent) and Lucy Noakes (Brighton) I co-edited a special issue on 'Incarceration in the Second World War' (2014).

In partnership with Professor Tobias Kelly, of Social and Political Science, I have been awarded an Arts & Humanities Research Network Award by the Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) to set up a Second World War Studies Network (Scotland). The Network - which launched in April 2021 - aims to facilitate the discussion and exchange of ideas on the theme of the Second World War, with a particular focus on Scotland’s experience of the conflict. It also hopes to establish a platform from which higher education institutions, museums and cultural institutions in Scotland can identify and develop potential new partnerships addressing the Second World War. It hopes to foster a community of academics with research interests in the Second World War, incorporating both those who are well-established in the field as well as Early Career Researchers and PGR students.

The Network aims to place Scotland within a comparative and transnational perspective with the rest of the United Kingdom in terms of its Second World War history. It will act as a hub of networking activity with a potential reach across the country. As part of the award, we will be working in partnership with David Forsyth, Principal Curator of Modern and Contemporary History at National Museums Scotland.

https://www.ed.ac.uk/history-classics-archaeology/research/research-groups/second-world-war-network

In an ealier RSE-funded partnership with David Forsyth of National Museums Scotland (NMS), we undertook a joint project on Scottish diasporic military identities from 1880 to the present day, working with colleagues in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.

http://www.nms.ac.uk/collections-research/our-research/highlights-of-previous-projects/wha-bears-a-blade-for-scotland/

This collaboration culminated with the publication of an edited collection, A Global Force: War, Identities and Scotland's Diaspora (EUP, 2016), which forms part of the National Museum of Scotland's First World War Centenary Programme:

http://www.nms.ac.uk/connections/our-national-work/first-world-war-centenary/

• Gender Identities in Britain during the Two World Wars
• War and Memory in the Twentieth Century
• Britain, Ireland and Empire
• Historian's Toolkit

• MSc War and Identities in Twentieth Century Britain and Ireland
• MSc Introduction to Contemporary History (contributor)
• MSc Historical Research: Skills and Sources (Oral History)

I would be delighted to hear from students interested in undertaking PhD research in the social and cultural history of Second World War Britain; migrant identities in Britain during the two world wars; gender identities in Britain during the two world wars.