Dr Emmett Sullivan - Senior Lecturer (Teaching Focussed) in Modern History

I teach the Cold War, Modern American Political History, the History of the International Economy, the History of the Atomic Bomb and its impact on society, and the use of film adaptations as a gateway to Historical topics. I specialise in the ‘final user production’ of video for higher education and the associated pedagogy integrating video into traditional teaching practices. Currently, I am the Director of the University of London Worldwide BA in History, a programme we teach online across the globe.

I authored the Course MOOC ‘The Camera Never Lies’ (https://www.coursera.org/learn/film-images) in 2012-13, and co-authored the FutureLearn free online course on the RAF in the Cold War (with Ross Mahoney: https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/raf-cold-war) in 2015-16.  The MOOC and free online course are still running, with no fee attached to doing these online.  Ever since I produced these courses, I have been developing the skills to video and edit to supplement traditional teaching techniques, culminating in the University of London Worldwide final year unit ‘The Bomb – A History’, where the 30-60 minute introductory videos for the twenty topics all self- and internally produced. 

My initial training as an Economic Historian lives on through other distance learning courses, on Britain 1945-97 and the History of the International Economy 1901-91.  Our plans are to revise and expand the latter course to provide two yearlong courses – one on the rise and fall of Britain in the World economy, 1820-1941; and the other on American hegemony, 1941-2012.  Finally, we are looking to develop the new course on Reagan’s America into an online unit, covering Ronald Reagan’s political career and impact from his screen actor days through to the Republican Presidents who followed him.  In terms of skills for students, I taught two foundation courses (Introduction to Historical Computing and Statistics for Historians, respectively) and a study skills ‘toolkit’; and two latter-year units on research skills linked to dissertations and independent essays.  Working with Dr Catriona Cooper, this line of student engagement to enhance the tools will have to study with will be extended with a day course on Filming History for Social Media and Engagement, running for the first time in June 2020.  The Department runs a number of four-year ‘with an International Year’ programmes where students apply competitively to the College Student Exchange Programme, and this comes from my experience as the College’s Study Abroad Manager (2003-07), as well as a long-term commitment to promoting international education.

Email - Emmett.Sullivan@RHUL.ac.UK

Webpage - https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmett-sullivan-93502443/?originalSubdomain=uk