The renowned cultural historian Matt Cook is to become the UK’s first fully endowed professor of LGBTQ+ history in a newly created post at Mansfield College, Oxford.
Cook, who has written extensively on queer urban life, the Aids crisis and queer domesticity, will become the first Jonathan Cooper chair of the history of sexualities later this year.
It’s the first fully endowed specialist post of its kind in the UK, funded by a £4.9m donation from the Arcadia Fund, a grant-making charity that has donated millions of pounds to organisations working on human and natural diversity.
He said of his appointment: “I will be working hard to enhance our understanding of the LGBTQ past and to show how these histories matter now. I’m tremendously excited to have this opportunity to help enlarge Oxford’s reputation for cutting edge work in this burgeoning field.”
Cook has a background in literary and cultural theory, and a strong interest in queer urban, public and community history. He worked with the National Trust on their Prejudice and Pride year in 2017 and co-authored the associated LGBTQ+ guidebook.
