I've spent the last several years developing a diverse research, writing and teaching profile. Below, you'll find information about my research, publishing and teaching activities.

I'm primarily, I'd say, a 'cultural historian', since what connects the various specific projects I'm working on is an interest in what people thought: about themselves, about what they were doing, and about the world around them. On the other hand, I feel uncomfortable with the tendency, too often, to treat 'culture' as a collection of free-floating, endlessly changeable and essentially textual social constructions.

Hence, my interest in connecting 'culture' to both social context and human psychology. In the former case, my influences include the social historians of 'experience' such as E.P. Thompson (and the work he inspired) and historical sociologists such as Norbert Elias (ditto). In the latter, I'm interested in both understanding how the mind works (so, neuroscience and cognitive psychology above all) as well as why it does so (which brings us to evolutionary psychology).

More concretely, I currently have three main areas of research.

• 1. The cultural history of inter-war Britain.
• 2. Religious and secular responses in Britain to plans for, and later processes of, European unification, along with related issues such as nationalism, pacifism and the international order.
• 3. The history of crime, violence and policing.

Departmental webpage, Institut für Europäische Geschichte.

Departmental webpage, The Open University.

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• [UPCOMING] British Crime Historians Symposium (The Open University, Milton Keynes, England)
'"Unimaginable Agonies and Degradations and Cruelties": Criminal Justice and the "Martyrdom" of Beatrice Pace, 1928' (6-7 September 2012)


• [UPCOMING] International Association for Media and History Conference: Perception, Reception: The History of the Media in Society (Aberystwyth, Wales)
'Christian Intellectuals and the Mass Media in 1930s and 1940s Britain' (4-6 July 2012)


• [UPCOMING] Zwischen Verehrung und Verachtung? Der Transfer der Kulturmorphologie Oswald Spenglers ins Europa der Zwischenkriegszeit (1919-1939) (Leibniz Institut of European History, Mainz)
'Oswald Spengler und die britische Presse in der Zwischenkriegszeit' ('Oswald Spengler and the inter-war press in Britain') (20-21 June 2012)


• [UPCOMING] European Social Science History Conference (Glasgow, Scotland)
(Panel organiser: 'Crime Stories: Justice, Criminality, Policing and the Inter-War Press'): 'The Constables and the "Garage Girl": The Inter-war Press, the Metropolitan Police and the Case of Helene Adele' (11-14 April 2012)


• Religion und Kapitalismus/Religion and Capitalism (Società, Forum für Ethik, Kunst und Recht, Vienna, Austria)
'Zwischen Mammon und Marx: Christliche Kapitalismuskritik in Großbritannien 1930-39' ('Between Mammon and Marx: Christian Critiques of Capitalism in Britain 1930-39') (17-19 November 2011)


• West-Östlicher Ideentransfer. Ordnungsentwürfe transnationaler Querdenker für Europa in der ersten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts (Institut für Europäische Geschichte, Mainz, Germany) '"Planning for Freedom": Karl Mannheim, Joseph Oldham und "The Moot"' (16 November 2011)
  
  
• Making Sense of Violence? Interdisciplinary Approaches to Violence Past and Present (University of Bern, Switzerland)
'A part of us or apart from us? The cultural, social and psychological sense of violence' (8-10 September 2011)


• Forschungskolloquiuim, Institut für Europäische Geschichte (Mainz, Germany)
'Kriminalitätsgeschichte als Kulturgeschichte' (12 April 2011)


• Crime and Punishment in Modern Europe, 1870-1990 (German Historical Institute, Washington DC, USA)
'''Heroic Doses of Being Left Alone": Criminal Justice, the Press and Civil Liberties in Inter-war Britain' (10-12 March 2011)


• Social Science History Association Conference (Chicago, USA)
Participation in a roundtable discussion of American Homicide by Randolph Roth (20 November 2010)


• Social Science History Association Conference (Chicago, USA)
'Police Powers and Parliamentary Politics in Late 1920s Britain' (18 November 2010)


• Drink in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries: Consumers, Cross-Currents, Conviviality (University of Bonn, Germany)
'Alcohol and Violence in Nineteenth-Century England' (5-7 November 2010)


• XXI. Polizeihistorische Kolloquium (University of Cologne, Germany)
'Police Powers and their Limits in 1920s Britain' (15-17 July 2010)


• Ethnicity, Crime and Justice; Contemporary and Historical Perspectives (The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK)
'Prejudice and Practice. The Experience of Black Offenders and Victims in the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries' (June 2010)


• European Social Science History Conference (Ghent, Belgium)
'A Change of Perspective: Integrating Evolutionary Psychology Into the Historiography of Violence.' (13-16 April 2010)


• Policing, Media and Civil Liberties in Inter-war Britain (The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK)
'The "Third Degree": The Cultural History of an American Phrase in Britain, 1900-1939' (26 February 2010)


• Reading British Spaces (University of Paderborn, Germany)
'Reading Spaces and Reading Violence in Nineteenth-Century Britain' (19-21 November 2009)


• Social Fears and Moral Panics (University of Aberystwyth, Wales)
'The Press, the "Third Degree" and Police Powers in Late-1920s Britain' (8-11 July 2009)


• Violence in Public Places and Institutions (University of Central Lancashire, UK)
'And Never the Twain Shall Meet?: Evolutionary psychology meets the history of violence' (25-27 June 2009)


• Justice and Public Space(s) in the Western World, from Antiquity to the Present (Montreal, Canada: Centre interuniversitaire d'études québécoises (CIEQ) and the Centre d'histoire des régulations sociales (CHRS))
'Police Powers and Public Opinion in Late-1920s Britain' (5-7 May 2009)


• Women and Crime in Britain and North America since 1500 (University Lyon 2 and University Lyon 3, France)
'Police Powers and the Celebrity Female Victim in Mid-Interwar Britain' (11-13.9.2008)


• Symposium on New Directions in the History of Crime (Leeds Metropolitan University, UK)
'Cultural and Biological Approaches to the History of Violence: An End to Splendid Isolation?' (4-5.9.2008)


• 'From Shanghai to Shepperton': An International Conference on J. G. Ballard (University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK)
'"Going mad is their only way of staying sane": The Civilised Violence of J. G. Ballard' (5.5.2007)


• Crime, Violence and the Modern State Conference (University of Rethymnon, Crete, Greece)
'Violence and Victimisation in Interwar Britain: The "Martyrdom" of Mrs. Pace' (10.3.2007)


• Policing and Violence Between and After Wars seminar (The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK)
'A Study in Interwar Victimisation: Police, Press, Public and the "Tragic Widow of Coleford"' (16.2.2007)


• 'Assaulting the Past' - Placing Violence in Historical Context Conference (Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, UK)
'Locating Violence: Space and the Construction of Physical Aggression' (7.7.2005)


• Fourth York Cultural History Conference (York, UK)
'Conceptualising Cultures of Violence and Cultural Change' (April, 2005)


• Workshop Gender- und Frauenforschung (Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, Germany)
'What a Man's Got To Do: Historical Perspectives on Violence, Culture and Masculinity' (22.1.05)


• Second Transdisciplinary Forum Magdeburg, 'Diskurse der Gewalt - Gewalt der Diskurse' (Otto-von-Guericke-Universität, Magdeburg, Germany)
'The Process of Civilization (and its Discontents): Violence, Discourse and History' (7.2004)


• British Society of Criminology (BSC) Conference (Keele, UK)
'The Civilising Bargain: Mentality, Protection and Delegated Violence in Britain' (17.7.2002)


• Comparative Histories of Crime Conference, in association with the British Academy (Keele, UK)
'It's a Small World After All?: Reflections on Violence in Cross-national Perspectives' (16.7.2002)


• International Conference on the History of Violence (Liverpool, UK)
'"Speakable" Violence: Narrative, Mentality and Violence in Nineteenth-Century England' (5.7.2001)


• Victorian Studies Reading Group (Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA)
'A Useful Savagery: Violence, Civilization and Middle-Class Identity' (28.9.2000)


• History Workshop Seminar (London, UK)
'Custom, Law, and Violence in Nineteenth-Century England' (10.1.2000)


• Royal Geographic Society-Institute of British Geographers (RGS-IBG) (Brighton, UK)
'"The Wrongdoing of the Poor Man is as Open as Day": Violence and Working-Class Social Space in Nineteenth-Century England' (6.1.2000)


• Group for Early-Modern Cultural Studies (GEMCS) (Coral Gables, FL, USA)
'''The Brave Old English Custom": Dispute, Sport and Ritual Fighting Among Working-Class Men in Nineteenth-Century England' (9.10.1999)

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Forthcoming Monograph

• The Most Remarkable Woman in England: Poison, Celebrity and the Trials of Beatrice Pace (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2011/12)

Monograph

• Violence and Crime in Nineteenth-Century England: The Shadow of Our Refinement (Routledge, 2004).
  
  From the reviews:

  '[This book] provides the closest and most careful analysis yet done of just what violence meant in the everyday life of ordinary Englishmen for much of the nineteenth century. Wood has added a new dimension to our understanding of the history of violence and of the textures and processes of nineteenth-century English society.'
  

  --Martin Wiener, Rice University, Journal of Social History
  
  

  'The popular success of Sarah Wise's The Italian Boy: Murder and Grave-Robbery in 1830s (London, 2004) demonstrates that there is considerable interest in the more nefarious aspects of nineteenth-century English life. J. Carter Wood's book demonstrates that there are also social and cultural historians who are not afraid to contextualize and probe the stated understandings of that era. The period 1820-70, although much researched and enriched with primary sources, is a difficult and ambiguous period on which to write well. Wood writes well and he does us all a service when he reminds us that as far as the narrative on the history of violence is concerned, the past has only just happened.'
  

  --Jack Anderson, Queens University Belfast, British Journal of Criminology
  
  

  'In particular, Wood makes fascinating use of trial depositions to reconstruct the elaborate rituals surrounding early nineteenth-century plebeian street fights. In doing so, he brilliantly demonstrates how the conduct of such fights often closely mirrored the rituals of prize-fighting.'
  

  --Jon Lawrence, University of Cambridge, Journal of Victorian Culture
  
  

  'Some historians of the eighteenth century and earlier may dispute the contention that violence as a social issue was an invention of the early nineteenth century. In the same vein, it might be argued that the impact of civilization has been overdrawn. Aside from this, Violence and Crime in Nineteenth-century England successfully crystallizes something essential about the nineteenth century. The complexity of the hypothesis and analysis will make this a difficult read for most undergraduates. However, this sophisticated, scholarly and impressive book will no doubt become indispensable reading for all interested in social order and disorder.'
  

  --Alyson Brown, Edge Hill University, Social History
  
  

  'This book is the product of an impressive and energetic intelligence.'

  --Simon Devereaux, University of Victoria, Law and History Review
  
  

  'Violence and Crime in Nineteenth-Century England is theoretically informed by the ideas of Elias and Foucault and empirically grounded in first-hand accounts of violent acts. This combination of strengths makes it a useful addition to the growing body of work that attempts to explain long-term trends in violence.'
  

  --Ian O'Donnell, University College Dublin, Figurations

Articles

• 'Between Mammon and Marx: Christian Critiques of Capitalism in Britain 1930-39' (article in progress).
  
  
• 'The Constables and the Garage Girl: The Police, the Press, and the Case of Helene Adele' (article in progress).
  
  
• 'The Press and the Criminal Trial: Britain in the 1920s' (article in progress).
  
  
• 'Drinking, Fighting and Working-Class Sociability in Nineteenth-Century Britain' (article in progress).
  
  
• 'The Press and the Criminal Trial: Britain in the 1920s'
  
  
• 'Watching the Detectives (and the Constables): Fearing the Police in 1920s Britain', in Moral Panics, Social Fears, and the Media: Historical Perspectives, ed. Sian Nicholas and Tom O'Malley (Forthcoming: Routledge, 2013)
  
  
• 'Press, Politics and the "Police and Public" Debates in Late 1920s Britain' (forthcoming, Crime, Histoire & Sociétés/Crime, History and Societies, 2012).
  
  
• 'Public Opinion and the Rhetoric of Police Powers in 1920s Britain,' in Justice et espaces publics en Occident de l'Antiquité à nos jours, ed. Pascal Bastien, Donald Fyson, Jean-Philippe Garneau and Thierry Nootens (Forthcoming, 2012).
  
  
• '"Going mad is their only way of staying sane": Norbert Elias and the Civilised Violence of J. G. Ballard', in J. G. Ballard: Visions and Revisions , ed. Jeannette Baxter and Rowland Wymer (London: Palgrave, 2011), 198-214.
  
  
• 'A Change of Perspective: Integrating Evolutionary Psychology into the Historiography of Violence,' British Journal of Criminology 51 (2011): 479-98. (Available here).
  
  
• 'Reading Spaces and Reading Violence in Nineteenth-Century Britain,' Journal for the Study of British Cultures 17, 2 (2010): 133-43.
  
  
• "'The Third Degree': Press Reporting, Crime Fiction and Police Powers in 1920s Britain', Twentieth Century British History, 21, no. 4 (2010): 464-85. (Available here.)
  
  
• (with Anja Müller-Wood) 'How Is Culture Biological? Violence: Real and Imagined,' Politics and Culture (2010, Issue 1, Bioculture: Evolutionary Cultural Studies).
  
  
• '"Those Who Have Had Trouble Can Sympathise with You": Press Writing, Reader Responses and a Murder Trial in Interwar Britain', Journal of Social History 43, no. 2 (2009): 439-462. (Available here.)
  
  
• '"Mrs. Pace" and the Ambiguous Language of Victimisation', in (Re)Interpretations: The Shapes of Justice in Women's Experience, ed. Lisa Dresdner and Laurel Peterson (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009), 79-93.
  
  
• 'Recent work on Elias and Violence: History, Evolutionary Psychology and Literature', Figurations 28, (December 2007): 6-8.
  
  
• (with Anja Müller-Wood) 'Bringing the Past to Heel: History, Identity and Violence in Ian McEwan's Black Dogs', Literature and History16, no. 2 (2007): 43-56. (Available here.)
  
  
• 'Evolution, Civilization and History: A Response to Wiener and Rosenwein', Cultural and Social History 4, no. 4 (2007): 559-65. (Available here.)
  
  
• 'The Limits of Culture? Society, Evolutionary Psychology and the History of Violence', Cultural and Social History 4, no. 1 2007: 95-114. (Available here.)
  
  
• 'Locating Violence: The Spatial Production and Construction of Physical Aggression', in Assaulting the Past: Violence and Civilization in Historical Context, ed. Katherine D. Watson (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2007)
  
  
• 'Conceptualising Cultures of Violence and Cultural Change', in Cultures of Violence: Interpersonal Violence in Historical Perspective, ed. Stuart Carroll (London: Macmillan, 2007): 79-96.
  
  
• 'Criminal Violence in Modern Britain', History Compass 4, no. 1 (2006): 77-90.
  
  
• 'The Process of Civilization (and its Discontents): Violence, Narrative and History', in Discourses of Violence - Violence of Discourses: Critical Interventions, Transgressive Readings and Post-National Negotiations ed. Dirk Wiemann, Agata Stopinska, Anke Bartels, Johannes Angermüller (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2005): 117-128. (Review -- in German -- available here.)
  
  
• 'A Useful Savagery: The Invention of Violence in Nineteenth-Century England,' The Journal of Victorian Culture 9, no. 1 (2004): 22-42. (Available here.)
  
  
• 'It's a Small World After All?: Reflections on Violence in Comparative Perspectives,' in Comparative Histories of Crime, edited by Barry Godfrey, Clive Emsley and Graeme Dunstall (Willan, 2003): 36-52.
  
  
• 'Self-Policing and the Policing of the Self: Violence, Protection and the Civilising Bargain in Britain,' Crime, Histoire & Sociétés/Crime, History and Societies 7, no. 1 (2003): 109-28.
  
  

Reviews

• Review of Monica Flegel, Conceptualizing Cruelty to Children in Nineteenth-Century England in Nineteenth-Century Prose (Forthcoming, 2012/13)
  
  
• Review of Joanne Klein, Invisible Men: The Secret Lives of Police Constables in Liverpool, Manchester, and Birmingham, 1900-1939 in the Journal of British Studies 50, No. 4 (2011): 1016-17 .
  
  
• Review of David Taylor, Hooligans, Harlots, and Hangmen: Crime and Punishment in Victorian Britain in the Journal of Social History 45, no. 1 (2011): 310-312.
  
  
• Review of Lisa Rosner, The Anatomy Murders in the Journal of British Studies 49 (2010): 919-21.
  
  
• Review of Shani D'Cruze and Louise Jackson, Women, Crime and Justice in England since 1660 in the Economic History Review 63, no. 3 (2010): 814-15.
  
  
• Review of Pieter Spierenburg, A History of Murder: Personal Violence in Europe from the Middle Ages to the Present in the Journal of Social History 44, no. 1 (2010): 288-90.
  
  
• Review essay on Anne-Marie Kilday, Women and Violent Crime in Enlightenment Scotland and Gregory Durston, Victims and Viragos: Metropolitan Women, Crime and the Eighteenth-Century Justice System in the Journal of Social History 43, no. 4 (2010): 1086-90.
  
  
• Review of Richard Mc Mahon, ed., Crime, Law and Popular Culture in Europe, 1500-1900 in the Economic History Review 62, no. 2 (2009): 496-97.
  
  
• Review of Gregory Hanlon, Human Nature in Rural Tuscany: An Early Modern History in Cultural and Social History 6, no. 1 (2009): 122-24.
  
  
• Review of Dan Vyleta, Crime, Jews and News, Vienna 1895-1914 in Cultural and Social History 5, no. 2 (2008): 253-55.
  
  
• Review of Stephen Kern, A Cultural History of Causality: Science, Murder Novels and Systems of Thought in Cultural and Social History 4, no. 4 (2007): 588-89.
  
  
• Review of Clive Emsley, Hard Men: Violence in England since 1750 in the Journal of Social History 40, no. 3 (Spring 2007): 766-68.
  
  
• Review of Jennine Hurl-Eamon, Gender and Petty Violence in London, 1680-1720 in the Journal of Social History 40, no. 2 (Winter 2006): 508-510.
  
  
• Review of Martin Wiener, Men of Blood: Violence, Manliness and Criminal Justice in Victorian England in the Journal of Social History, 39, no. 1 (Fall 2005): 266-68.
  
  
• Review of Jeannie Duckworth, Fagin's Children in Albion 36, no.2 (Summer 2004): 309-11.
  
  
• Review essay on Haia Shpayer-Makov, The Making of a Policeman: A Social History of a Labour Force in Metropolitan London, 1829-1914 and David Taylor, Policing the Victorian Town: The Development of the Police in Middlesbrough, c. 1840-1914in the Journal of Victorian Culture 9, no. 1 (Spring 2004): 128-33.
  
  
• Review of Louis A. Knafla, ed., Policing and War in Europe in Albion 35, no. 3 (Summer 2003): 511-13.
  
  
• Review of Thomas W. Gallant, Experiencing Dominion: Culture, Identity and Power in the British Mediterranean in the Journal of Social History 37, no. 1 (Fall 2003): 242-44.
  
  
• Review of Shani D'Cruze, ed., Everyday Violence in Britain 1850-1950: Gender and Class in the Journal of Social History 36, no. 3 (Spring 2003): 813-15.
  
  
• Review of Julius R. Ruff, Violence in Early Modern Europe, 1500-1800 in the Journal of Social History 36, no. 2 (Winter 2002): 479-81.

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My approach to teaching has always combined my scholarly interests in history and culture, a commitment to teaching with primary sources, and the application of information technology to the learning environment. As an assistant teacher I managed discussion-oriented seminars on British, European and Jewish history, and I was nominated for an assistant teaching award in 1996. For the University of Maryland, College Park, I developed a broad historical survey course in British history. Student evaluations for this course were overwhelmingly positive.

While teaching English at the University of Bayreuth (2002-2005), I developed courses introducing German law students to the British legal system, criminal law and civil law. These courses combined content-oriented sections on the law as well as featuring throughout a focus on the language of the law. In addition, I taught content-based languages courses on American culture and Transatlantic issues.

In the Winter Semester 2010/11, I taught a course entitled 'Don't Mention the War! British Images of Germany since the 1940s'.

In August 2011 I developed and taught a seminar with Prof. Dr. Anja Müller-Wood at the 'Sommerakademie Rot an der Rot' of the 'Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes' on the topic 'Rache: Realität, Ritual, Recht und Repräsentation' ('Revenge: Reality, Ritual, Law, and Representation')

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