Lyndsey Stonebridge

Lyndsey Stonebridge is a Professor of Humanities and Human Rights at the University of Birmingham, holding an interdisciplinary chair bridging English Literature and Law. Previously, she held roles at the University of East Anglia, including Professor of Modern Literature and History (2015–2018) and Associate Dean for Postgraduate Research (2008–2012). Her work focuses on intersections between literature, political theory, and human rights, with notable research on Hannah Arendt, trauma studies, and refugee rights.

Education: PhD (University of London), MA Critical Theory (University of Sussex), BA English (Polytechnic of North London).

Research Interests: Human rights discourses, refugee studies, modern intellectual history, trauma/memory studies, and interdisciplinary humanities. Her award-winning books include The Judicial Imagination (2011), Placeless People (2018), and We Are Free to Change the World: Hannah Arendt’s Lessons in Love and Disobedience (2025). Current projects include a book on aging (Old Women: A History of Our Future, 2027).

Awards: British Academy Rose Mary Crawshay Prize, Modernist Studies Association Prize, Fellow of the British Academy (2023), and multiple grants including AHRC-ESRC funding for refugee research. She advises international projects like Refugee Hosts.

Grants & Leadership: Led interdisciplinary initiatives on human rights narratives and global justice. Collaborates with institutions like the Wiener Holocaust Library and the Oxford Centre for Intellectual History.

Labs/Teams: Active in the University of Birmingham’s IRiS (Institute for Research into Superdiversity) and Centre for Modernist Cultures.