Miranda Clare Kaufmann (born 1982) is a British historian, journalist and educator, whose work has focused on Black British history. She is the author of the 2017 book Black Tudors: The Untold Story, which was shortlisted for the 2018 Nayef Al-Rodhan Prize and the Wolfson History Prize. She is a senior research fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies (part of the School of Advanced Study at the University of London), where since 2014 she has co-convened the workshop series "What's Happening in Black British History?" with Michael Ohajuru.[1]
Miranda Kaufmann | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | Miranda Clare Kaufmann 1982 (age 41–42) London, England |
| Alma mater | Christ Church, Oxford |
| Occupation(s) | Historian, journalist and educator |
| Notable work | Black Tudors: The Untold Story (2017) |
| Website | www |
Biography edit
Miranda Kaufmann was born in 1982 in a Jewish family in London, about which she has said: "I think it gave me an international outlook and curiosity about other people and cultures. It was also a hugely intellectually stimulating place to grow up. I benefited from all the museums, galleries and theatres; and just walking down a London street is often a history lesson in itself.[2] She read history at Christ Church, Oxford, becoming interested in Black history as a research topic during her final undergraduate year,[2] and going on to complete in 2011 her doctoral thesis entitled "Africans in Britain, 1500–1640".[3][4]
Since 2014, Kaufmann has been co-convenor, together with art and cultural historian Michael Ohajuru,[5] of the workshop series "What's Happening in Black British History?" at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies.[1] Kaufmann along with Stephen B. Whatley inspired the "John Blanke Project",[6] an art and archive initiative of which Ohajuru is the founder and director;[7] the Project celebrates and is linked to images of John Blanke, the Black trumpeter to the courts of Henry VII and Henry VIII.[8][9][10]
Kaufmann has written articles for a range of publications, including The Times Literary Supplement, The Times, The Guardian, and BBC History magazine,[11] has contributed to features about Black British History on radio, television and video,[12][13] as well as appearing on Sky News, Al Jazeera and BBC Television.[14] Additionally, Kaufmann has participated in and spoken at many educational institutions, conferences, festivals and seminars internationally.[3][15] She advised on the Tudor episode of David Olusoga's 2016 BBC Television documentary series Black and British: A Forgotten History.[16]
Her first book, Black Tudors: The Untold Story, was published in 2017 by Oneworld Publications.[17] As Bidisha observed in The Guardian, the book "debunks the idea that slavery was the beginning of Africans’ presence in England, and exploitation and discrimination their only experience. [...] Along with writers such as David Olusoga, Paul Gilroy and Sunny Singh, and institutions such as the University of York, which has launched a project investigating medieval multiculturalism, historians such as Miranda Kaufmann are bringing England to a necessary reckoning with its true history."[18] Black Tudors was shortlisted for the 2018 Nayef Al-Rodhan Prize for Global Cultural Understanding[19] and for the Wolfson History Prize,[20][21] and was also nominated as "Book of the Year" by the Evening Standard and The Observer.[14]
Kaufmann is an Honorary Fellow of the University of Liverpool, a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and of the Royal Society of Arts.[1]
Books edit
- Black Tudors: The Untold Story, Oneworld, 2017, hardback ISBN 9781786071842; paperback ISBN 9781786073969.
- Heiresses: The Caribbean Marriage Trade, Oneworld, forthcoming.[22]