Dr Stephen Bowman

Lecturer in British Political History

History D25, Pathfoot Building, Division of History, Heritage and Politics, University of Stirling, Stirling, FK9 4LA

Dr Stephen Bowman

Contact details

About me

Stephen completed his undergraduate and Masters degrees at Stirling before going on to complete his PhD at Northumbria University in Newcastle in 2014. He has worked in the early modern period but has since largely settled in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In addition to previous spells working at Stirling, he has taught at Northumbria University, Newcastle University, Durham University, and at the Centre for History at the University of the Highlands and Islands.

Broadly speaking, Stephen studies the history of modern Scotland's place in the world. His current research focuses on the historical cultural and political connections between Scotland and the US, specifically through a study of the cultural memory of the Scots-born 'Father of the US Navy' John Paul Jones and another project on the transatlantic histories and historiographies of Glasgow and New York. He also has an interest in 'creative history', and led the research, writing, and production of the unique film and article '"An Unusual Period of Unspecified Length": A Creative Oral History of the Covid-19 Pandemic', published by UCL Press and first screened at the MacRobert Arts Centre in 2024. This project was 'Highly Commended' by the British Records Association as part of its competition for the 2024 Janette Harley Prize and was highlighted in newsletters by the National Archives, Kew, and by the Scottish Library and Information Council as among the most notable developments in the archive sector in 2024.

Stephen has conducted research across Britain and the US and has published on Anglo-American relations and politics. His 2018 book with Edinburgh University Press - The Pilgrims Society and Public Diplomacy, 1895-1945 - focuses on propaganda, cultural diplomacy, and networking between British and American elites in the first half of the twentieth century. Stephen has also published with the Journal of Transatlantic Studies, the Journal of Scottish Historical Studies, and History Scotland. He was the 2013 winner of the Transatlantic Studies Association's Donald Cameron Watt Prize.

Stephen is currently working on the following projects:

Co-editing with Kieran Taylor (Queen Margaret University), and writing for, the book project 'Portable City: Glasgow’s Transatlantic Connections.' This book is under contract with Peter Lang and will be published as part of the City as Place: Emotions, Experiences and Meanings series, edited by the University of Glasgow's Rebecca Madgin and Simon Fraser University's Nicolas Kenny.

Collaborating with Gyorgy Toth on the project 'The Memory of John Paul Jones in Anglo-American Relations, c.1900s-c.1990s.' This project has in in part been supported by a grant from the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

Divisional / Faculty Contribution

Divisional Chief Examiner

External Examiners and Validations

External Examiner, Institute for Northern Studies, University of the Highlands and Islands
University of the Highlands and Islands

Other Academic Activities

Advisory Board Member, Scottish Political Archive

Founder and Co-Chair, Creative Histories Research Group, University of Stirling

History UK Steering Committee Member

Research programmes

Research themes