The renowned cultural historian Matt Cook is to become the UK’s first fully endowed professor of LGBTQ+ history in a newly created post at Mansfield College, Oxford.
Cook, who has written extensively on queer urban life, the Aids crisis and queer domesticity, will become the first Jonathan Cooper chair of the history of sexualities later this year.
It’s the first fully endowed specialist post of its kind in the UK, funded by a £4.9m donation from the Arcadia Fund, a grant-making charity that has donated millions of pounds to organisations working on human and natural diversity.
He said of his appointment: “I will be working hard to enhance our understanding of the LGBTQ past and to show how these histories matter now. I’m tremendously excited to have this opportunity to help enlarge Oxford’s reputation for cutting edge work in this burgeoning field.”
Cook has a background in literary and cultural theory, and a strong interest in queer urban, public and community history. He worked with the National Trust on their Prejudice and Pride year in 2017 and co-authored the associated LGBTQ+ guidebook.
He has also advised on community and oral history, archive and museum projects including Heritage England’s Pride of Place and the Pitt Rivers Museum’s Beyond the Binary.
Cook will take up the post in October after 18 years at Birkbeck, University of London, where he was professor of modern history and led the gender and sexuality studies MA programme.
The new chair is named after human rights lawyer Jonathan Cooper, an advocate for LGBTQ+ rights and commentator on issues such as trans rights, conversion practices and the rights of people living with HIV, who died in 2021.
Cook said: “Jonathan Cooper was a passionate advocate for LGBTQ rights, and it’s a huge honour to take up this new professorship in his name … I see it as a way of honouring and furthering Jonathan Cooper’s inspirational legacy.”
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Mansfield College’s principal, Helen Mountfield, said: “Matt will be a great fit in our proudly nonconformist college community which respects, protects and promotes a diverse range of voices and narratives. I know that Jonathan would’ve been so honoured and delighted to see his legacy commemorated by this chair.”
Rob Iliffe, the history faculty board chair, added: “[Matt’s] presence will be a source of inspiration to students and colleagues alike, and it will enhance Oxford’s reputation as a leader in the field of LGBTQ history.”
