Visiting researchers of the Centre for history- may

Visiting researchers at the Centre for History: Alice Figes, Filippos Toskas, Victoria Glavin

In May, the Centre for History welcomes three new researchers

Alice Figes
Alice is a PhD student at Christ's College, Cambridge, studying political philosophy and historical sociology with the department of POLIS (Politics and International Affairs), under the supervision of historian Gary Gerstle and political theorist Duncan Bell. Her research delves into the history of utopian theorizing and its impact on the organization of social movements in a transnational context, particularly during the age of neoliberalism. Alice has a special interest in the Atlantic transnational connections between Europe, North America, and South America.

• 28 April to 30 June 2025 

Filippos Toskas
Filippos (Fil) Toskas is a doctoral candidate in Modern British History at the University of Oxford. His research focuses on London’s emerging queer press in the 1970s—specifically aiming to explore how lesbian and gay publications positioned themselves within Britain’s political discourse, how they contributed to the shaping of queer communities, and what was their impact within and beyond these communities. He is supervised by Prof Sian Pooley, Prof Matt Cook, and Dr Aurelia Annat. Prior to his DPhil, Fil was awarded an MA in Architectural History from UCL and an MPhil in Architecture and Urban Studies—with a focus on social and political histories of urban environments—from the University of Cambridge. Before his postgraduate studies, he completed his architectural training at the University of Cyprus (BSc and DipArch).

• 27 April to 21 June 2025
   

Victoria Glavin
Victoria Glavin is a Doctoral Candidate in Critical and Cultural Studies at the University of Pittsburgh. Her dissertation intervenes in contemporary post-colonial readings of the Haitian Revolution and Black radical tragedy that render its history, figures, and politics in terms of foreclosure as tragic. It provides an alternative account of Black radical tragedy as a mode of anti-colonial critique and an expression of the revolutionary humanism that emerges out of the Haitian Revolution and is expressed in Article 14 of Jean-Jacques Dessalines's 1805 Constitution that refers to a collectivity of independent sovereign beings by the « dénomination génériques de noirs ». Through a comparative analysis of early Haitian theater and twentieth-century Haitian Revolutionary plays by Aimé Césaire, Édouard Glissant, and C.L.R. James, the project aims to demonstrate how the conceptualization of tragedy that arises in the Black Radical Tradition troubles longstanding debates in Western discourse about the relationship between tragedy, myth, legend, and nation. She holds an M.A. in Literature (University of Pittsburgh, 2023), an M.A. in Literary and Cultural Studies (Carnegie Mellon University, 2017), and a B.A. in Literature and American Studies (Emmanuel College, 2016)

• 28 April to 19 September 2025