David Hopkin

Professor David Hopkin is a Tutorial Fellow in History at Hertford College, University of Oxford, specializing in European social and cultural history. His academic journey began at the University of Cambridge (BA 1988), continued with a PhD under Peter Burke and Bob Scribner (awarded 1997), and included a Junior Research Fellowship at Churchill College before joining the University of Glasgow (1999-2005). Since 2005, he has taught modern European history, focusing on tutorials in General History, French Revolution, and Mediterranean banditry studies, while supervising undergraduate theses and bridge essays.

His research investigates oral culture and popular traditions in 19th-century France, Flanders, and Catalonia, analyzing songs, tales, and ballads as sources for understanding marginalized groups like lacemakers, fishermen, and servants. Key projects include Lacemakers: Poverty, Religion and Gender in a Transnational Work Culture (2016-17 Leverhulme Fellowship) and co-editorship of Rhythms of Revolt (2017), examining oral memories of European social conflicts. He collaborates with institutions like the Centre de recherche bretonne et celtique (Brest) and BEROSE (Paris).

Recent publications explore lace-making songs as cultural resistance, Napoleonic war memory, and folklore in dictionaries. Awards include the Royal Historical Society Gladstone Prize (2003) and Katharine Briggs Prize (2012). He serves as President of the Folklore Society, co-edits the Manchester University Press Studies in Modern French and Francophone History series, and leads the Lace in Context digital project.

• Academic Roles: Professor of European Social History (2017-), Tutorial Fellow at Hertford College (2005-), Senior Lecturer at University of Glasgow (1999-2005)
• Editorial Roles: Editor of Cultural and Social History (2007-12), committee member of Society for the Study of French History