Dr Mark Dawson
Areas of expertise
- British History 210305
- North American History 210312
- European History (Excl. British, Classical Greek And Roman) 210307
Research interests
Early modern Britain and the Anglo–Atlantic world, including social inequality; the body, health, and medicine; seventeenth-century English drama and literature.
Biography
Mark Dawson was born in Christchurch (Aotearoa/New Zealand) toward the end of last century. Completing undergraduate and postgraduate degrees at the University of Auckland, he was awarded a Prince of Wales Cambridge Commonwealth Trust scholarship for doctoral study in the U.K. He was a student at Cambridge’s youngest college, Wolfson, and spent three hectic years dividing his time between the History and English Faculties. He was awarded the History Faculty’s Members’ prize for work on that famous early modern Cantabrigian, Samuel Pepys. He joined the ANU as associate lecturer in 2005.
Researcher's projects
“Living with Smallpox in Early Modern Britain, c.1600–1800”
This project will examine how people’s experiences of and responses to infection were influenced by their social status, gender, and ethnicity. It will also consider the social, cultural, and political implications of living with smallpox in the period before vaccination’s introduction.
Current student projects
Goldthorpe, F., ‘British Women of the Portocracy: Port Wine Dinastias, Family and Transcultural Lives, 1678–1807’ (PhD)
Paterson, A., 'Tobacco as a Catalyst for Socio-Cultural Change in England, c.1570–1720' (MPhil)
Past student projects
Dempsey, S.W., 'Historia Successorum Regum Britanniæ: A Study in Medieval and Early Modern English Historico-Legal Argument' (PhD, 2021).
Fitzgerald, C., ‘Female Fashion in Restoration England’ (Hons. 2020).
Goodwin, A., ‘ “We have shamefully Indianized”: Cultural and Bodily Change in the Colonial New England Environment’ (Hons. 2019).
Olearczyk, F., ‘Arthur’s Britain and Robin’s England: Uses of the Medieval Past in Seventeenth-Century England’ (Hons. 2019).
Publications
- Dawson, M 2019, Bodies complexioned. Human variation and racism in early modern English culture, c. 1600–1750 , Manchester University Press, Manchester, UK.
- Dawson, M 2016, 'Book Review: New World Drama: The Performative Commons in the Atlantic World, 1649-1849.', Theatre Survey, vol. 57, 1, pp. 139-141.
- Dawson, M 2014, 'Book Review - Renaissance Impostors and Proofs of identity by Miriam Eliav-Feldon', Parergon, vol. 31, no. 1, pp. 205-207.
- Dawson, M 2014, 'The Fate(s) of an Astrological Manuscript: Le Neve's Vindication and MS. Ashmole 418', Bodleian Library Record, vol. 27, no. 1, pp. 105-112.
- Dawson, M 2013, 'All the News That's Fit to Film? Copying the Nichols Collection of Early London Newspapers', Parergon, vol. 30, no. 2, pp. 129-138.
- Dawson, M 2013, 'Astrology and Human Variation in Early Modern England', The Historical Journal, vol. 56, no. 1, pp. 31-53.
- Dawson, M 2012, 'Book Review: Outward Appearances. The Female Exterior in Restoration London', Modern Philology, vol. 109, no. 3, pp. 184-7.
- Dawson, M 2012, 'Book Review: The Ephemeral History of Perfume: Scent and Sense in Early Modern England', Parergon, vol. 29, no. 2, pp. 235-6.
- Dawson, M 2011, 'First Impressions: Newspaper Advertisements and Early Modern English Body Imaging, 1651-1750', Journal of British Studies, vol. 50, no. 2, pp. 277-306.
- Dawson, M 2009, 'Humouring Racial Encounters in the Anglo-Atlantic, c.1580-1720', in Lisa Bailey, Lindsay Diggelmann, Kim M. Phillips (ed.), Old Worlds, New Worlds: European Cultural Encounters, c. 1000-c. 1750, Brepols Publishers, Turnhout, pp. 139-161.
- Dawson, M 2008, 'Book Review: Theater of a City. The Places of London Comedy 1598-1642, by J Howard', H-Net, vol. January 2008.
- Dawson, M 2007, 'Book Review: Savages within the Empire. Representations of American Indians in Eighteenth-Century Britain', Itinerario, European Journal of Overseas History, vol. 31, no. 1, pp. 159-161.
- Dawson, M 2007, 'Book Review: Drama at the Courts of Queen Henrietta Maria', American Historical Review, vol. 112, no. 2, p. 584.
- Dawson, M 2007, ''Cast thy humble slough, and appeare fresh': Reappraising the Advent of Early Modern English Whiteness, c.1600-1750', Historicising Whiteness: Transnational Perspectives on the Construction of an Identity, ed. University of Melbourne, University of Melbourne, web, pp. 355-362.
- Dawson, M 2006, 'Book review: Envisioning an English Empire. Jamestown and the Making of the North Atlantic World, by R. Appelbaum and J.W. Sweet (eds)', Journal of British Studies, vol. 45, no. 1, pp. 171-3.
- Dawson, M 2005, Gentility and the Comic Theatre of Late Stuart London, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge UK.
- Dawson, M 2003, 'Book Review: The Cambridge History of Early Modern English Literature Series', H-Net, vol. November, pp. http://www.h-net.org/about/.
- Dawson, M 2002, 'Book Review: Pepys: A Life', Canadian Journal of History, vol. 37, no. 2, pp. 353-354.
- Dawson, M 2000, 'Histories and Texts: Refiguring the Diary of Samuel Pepys', The Historical Journal, vol. 43, no. 2, pp. 407-31.