King’s College London: Juliette Pattinson Appointed Professor of War Studies

Professor Pattinson is a distinguished scholar and academic with an extensive background in Modern History, specialising in socio-cultural aspects of warfare focused on the Second World War. Graduating from the University of Lancaster, she has held positions at the University of Wales, Bangor and the University of Strathclyde before joining the University of Kent in 2013.

Professor Pattinson expressed enthusiasm about her appointment: “I am delighted to have been appointed as Professor of War Studies. This provides an exciting opportunity to be a part of this world-leading interdisciplinary Department and I look forward to meeting colleagues and exploring research and teaching synergies. I have long thought about a project on diversity in the contemporary armed forces and am keen to bring this to fruition, so if anyone is interested in this, please do get in touch.”

Professor Pattinson recently applied for a comparative project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), focusing on polio in Britain and East Germany from 1945 to 1990. The study aims to explore how medical perspectives, policies, and practices were influenced by factors including gender, class, race, nationality, region, disability and age.

As a social and cultural historian of war, with expertise in gender studies and personal testimonies, Professor Pattinson’s collaborations include work with the University of Oxford and University of Essex. She has also recently applied for AHRC funding with Professor Ashley Jackson from the King’s Defence Studies Department to examine archived materials from crowd-sourcing projects on the First and Second World Wars over the past 18 years.

At King’s, I will be working on a number of projects. I will be producing a couple of articles on women who donned martial uniform in the Edwardian period and served as ambulance drivers in the First World War and an article examining the portrayal of civilian men during the war. I will also be exploring the experiences of women who joined the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry Corps (FANY) during the Second World War and were seconded to the Special Operations Executive (SOE) to serve as coders, wireless operators and secretaries in the base stations in Britain, North Africa, Italy and Ceylon, using 44 interviews I conducted with veterans.

Professor Juliette Pattinson

I am delighted to welcome Professor Pattinson to the Department of War Studies. Juliette is an internationally renowned sociocultural historian whose expertise in war, gender and oral history will add an exciting new dimension to our research and teaching.

Professor Matt Moran

Professor Pattinson will officially start her new role in the Department in August 2024.