Author Asset Listing

Dr Shani D’Cruze is Honorary Reader in History at Keele University.

Her publications on gender, crime and violence include Crimes of outrage: sex, violence and Victorian working women (Routledge, 1998). She has also published articles on the social and cultural history of the family.

Alan Davies was, until recently, Professor of Mathematics at the University of Hertfordshire and has been teaching mathematics to engineers, scientists and mathematicians for more than 30 years.

Together with his wife, Dr Diane Crann, he ran the Hertfordshire Royal Institution Mathematics Masterclass series at the University of Hertfordshire.

Alan is a Trustee of the Royal Institution of Great Britain. Alan has a general interest in all areas of mathematics but his specific area is mathematics applied to engineering and the physical sciences.

Other titles by this author

An Introduction to Computational Geometry for Curves and Surfaces, Alan Davies and Philip Samuels
A Handbook of Essential Mathematical Formulae, Alan Davies and Diane Crann

Professor Jim Davis holds a BA (Hons) in English and MA from Oxford University and a PhD in Drama from Exeter University.

He joined the School of Theatre and Performance Studies at Warwick University in 2004 after eighteen years teaching Theatre Studies at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, where he was latterly Head of the School of Theatre, Film and Dance.

In Australia he was also President of the Australasian Drama Studies Association (the tertiary association of drama teachers), and member of the Board of Studies of the National Institute of Dramatic Art.

He was an assessor for the Australian National Playwrights' Conference, and co-organiser of the first conference held in Australia by the International Federation for Theatre Research. Prior to leaving for Australia he spent ten years teaching in London at what is now Roehampton University.

Mandy de Belin completed her MA and PhD studies in the Centre for English Local History at the University of Leicester, where she focused on the connection of the East Midlands with the history of hunting.

Her interest in the subject originated in a passion for the landscape and for horses.

Dr de Belin is an Honorary Visiting Fellow at the University of Leicester.

Dr Malcolm Dick is Director of the Centre for West Midlands History at the University of Birmingham, Editor-in-Chief of History West Midlands and Editor of Midland History. He has written about the history of Birmingham, Lunar Society individuals and ethnic communities.

Raјko Đurić is a Serbian Romani writer and academic. He is also politically active as the leader of one of Romani parties in Serbia - Roma Union of Serbia.

He studied philosophy at the University of Belgrade Faculty of Philosophy (1967–1972). In 1986 he obtained a Doctorate of Sociology writing the dissertation Culture of the Roma in S.F.R. Yugoslavia. In 1991 he moved to Berlin avoiding involvement in the Yugoslavian wars.

He wrote more than 500 articles and, until leaving Yugoslavia, was the chief redactor for the cultural section of the newspaper Politika in Belgrade.

He was the President of the International Romani Union and is the General Secretary of the Romani Centre of International PEN.

His literary works have been translated into more than five languages. In 2011, he co-founded a Romani academy of arts and sciences in Belgrade and has been its president since then.

Tony Doe is a Trustee of the Plume Library with a particular interest in the churchmanship of Thomas Plume.

Siobhan Dowd was a British writer and activist. The last book she completed, Bog Child posthumously won the 2009 Carnegie Medal from the professional librarians, recognising the year's best book for children or young adults published in the UK.

Christopher Dyer is Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Leicester. His research covers social and economic history, archaeology, and the study of the landscape, in the middle ages in England.

Current research interests

The main project is to complete work on ‘Peasant farming 1200-1540’ which is being funded by the Leverhulme Trust. This is intended to make a new assessment of the types of farming practised by peasants, and to evaluate their role in the economy.

In addition  publication of various projects in landscape history such as surveys of Admington, Compton Scorpion, Westcote and Bretford  in Warwickshire.

Past research interests

The economic and social history of medieval England, which includes the management of landed estates, agrarian history, peasant mentality and rebellion, standards of living (including diet and housing), consumers and consumption, relations between town and country, the role of towns, especially of smaller towns, the conditions and attitudes of wage earners, poverty, the origins of capitalism, landscape history, rural depopulation, and money and commerce.

Much of this research has been focussed on the west midland region (Gloucestershire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire and Worcestershire) but has also included the east midlands, East Anglia and Yorkshire.

Other titles by this author

• Farmers, Consumers, Innovators: The world of Joan Thirsk – with Richard Jones (Eds)
• Deserted Villages Revisited - with Richard Jones (Eds)