Staff Profile:Dr David Stack
- Name:
- Professor David Stack
- Job Title:
- Professor
- Responsibilities:
Undergraduate teaching
My teaching reflects my research interests in the inter-relationship of ideas (especially 'scientific' and medical ideas) and politics in the history of Britain and beyond. At Part One I teach an Approaches to History module, which takes John Stuart Mill's The Subjection of Women (1869) as its text; at Part Two I teach a Period in History module entitled: Birth Control, the history of an idea: from Malthus to Marie Stopes.My Special Subject, Victorian Lives, is a study of eight Victorian autobiographies and their authors: Mary Seacole, John Stuart Mill, John James Bezer, 'Walter', Charles Darwin, Annie Besant, Molly Hughes, and Edmund Gosse. My third year Topic, From Darwin to Deathcamps?, charts evolutionary and eugenic ideas in European society from 1859 to 1945.
Postgraduate supervision (Departmental Director of Research)
I have successfully supervised a number of PhD students, both full and part time, on a range of topics. I would particularly welcome research proposals relating to the interaction of science/medicine and political history, especially the history of the left.- Areas of Interest:
- I believe strongly in the need to promote both interdisciplinary understanding and public engagement with history. In 2008 and 2009 worked with the Natural History Museum's 'Nature Live' team in promoting public understanding around the Museum's Darwin200 events. Within the University I have helped to establish a Darwin Reading Group, which brings together staff and students from across the Humanities/Natural Sciences divide, and I am currently working with colleagues in English and Biological Sciences to establish a new interdisciplinary module for Part 1 students.
- Research groups / Centres:
Research statement
I have gained research funding from the British Academy, the Wellcome Trust, the AHRC, and the ESRC. In 2010 I held a Countway Fellowship in the History of Medicine, at Harvard Medical School.- Publications:
-
YNumber of items: 15.
2019
- Stack, D. (2019) The pleasures of office life: Mill at East India House. Nineteenth-Century Prose. (In Press)
- Stack, D. (2019) Charles Darwin: theory of natural selection. In: Shackelford, T. K. and Weekes-Shackelford, V. A. (eds.) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham, Switzerland. doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6
- Stack, D. (2019) Charles Darwin and the scientific mind. The British Journal for the History of Science, 52 (1). pp. 85-115. ISSN 0007-0874 doi: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0007087418000973
2018
- Stack, D. (2018) ‘Beyond the facts’: how a US sociologist made John Stuart Mill into a Neo-Malthusian. Historical Research, 91 (154). pp. 772-790. ISSN 1468-2281 doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2281.12246
- Stack, D. (2018) The hostility of William Stanley Jevons towards John Stuart Mill: the fourth dimension. History of Political Economy. ISSN 1527-1919 (In Press)
2016
- Stack, D. (2016) The afterlife of John Stuart Mill, 1874-1879. In: A Companion to Mill. Blackwell Companions to Philosophy. Wiley Blackwell, London, pp. 30-44. ISBN 9781118736524
2013
- Stack, D. and Battey, N. (2013) Reflections on designing a Biology/Humanities interdisciplinary module. Bioscience Education, 21 (1). pp. 1-11. ISSN 1479-7860 doi: https://doi.org/10.11120/beej.2013.00016
2012
- Stack, D. (2012) Charles Darwin's liberalism in 'Natural Selection as affecting civilised nations'. History of Political Thought, 33 (3). 525-554 . ISSN 0143-781X
2011
- Stack, D. (2011) The death of John Stuart Mill. The Historical Journal, 54 (1). pp. 167-190. ISSN 1469-5103 doi: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0018246X10000610
2009
- Stack, D. (2009) Labour and the intellectuals. In: Worley, M. (ed.) Foundations of the British Labour Party: identities, cultures and perspectives 1900-39. Studies in Labour History, XIV. Ashgate, pp. 113-131. ISBN 9780754667315
- Stack, D. (2009) Review: The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon. By W T Stead. Parliamentary History, 28 (2). pp. 333-334. ISSN 1750-0206 doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1750-0206.2009.00111_18.x
2008
- Stack, D. (2008) Out of "the Limbo of 'Unpractical Politics'": The origins and essence of Wallace's advocacy of land nationalization. In: Natural selection and beyond: the intellectual legacy of Alfred Russel Wallace. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 279 - 305. ISBN 9780199239160
- Stack, D. (2008) Queen Victoria's skull: George Combe and the mid-Victorian mind. Continuum, London, UK. ISBN 9781847252333
- Stack, D. (2008) Review: Jim Endersby- Imperial nature: Joseph Hooker and the practices of Victorian science. The American Historical Review, 114. pp. 485-486. ISSN 0002-8762 doi: https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr.114.2.485a
2007
- Stack, D. A., ed. (2007) Lives of Victorian political figures, part II: volume four: James Bronterre O'Brien. Pickering and Chatto, London, UK. ISBN 9781851968275
Other publications:
Blogs: