The history, politics, philosophy and science team are excited to introduce some of the new tutors who will be teaching at City Lit from September. We are happy to welcome, Jaffer, Natasha, Daniel, Qiuyang, Simone, Hugo, Maísa, David, Roberta, Terrence, and Ingrid to the department, and hope you will get to meet them on their courses in the coming term and beyond.
Read on for a brief introduction and details of courses our new tutors will be teaching.
Jaffer Abid
Jaffer is a historian who specializes in the history of Islam in nineteenth and twentieth century India and focuses on the intersections of intellectual and political history.
Specifically, his work contributes to scholarship on the colonial and postcolonial history of Muslims in South Asia, Islamic reform and anticolonial modernisms in the global Muslim world. More broadly, it engages with debates in the humanities and social sciences on questions of nationalism and cosmopolitanism, modernity and secularism, and social identity and cultural difference.
His current research draws on nineteenth- and twentieth-century Urdu history writing, examining the ways in which history writing became a means for colonized intellectuals to assert their cosmopolitan notions of community and self-determination and generate alternate ideologies of anticolonialism.
Jaffer's courses
Muslim cosmopolitan thinkers in the age of empire
Partition in India and Pakistan
India and Pakistan: The histories, memories and legacies of Partition
Natasha Ashman-Banks
Natasha has a degree in Politics and International Relations and a background in secondary school teaching. She has taught A levels in UK Government and Politics and US Politics, has experience as an examiner, and has also worked with trainee teachers, helping to develop their teaching skills in history and politics.
In her own teaching, she possesses an uncanny ability to demystify complex concepts, explaining them in a manner all can understand. She has also dabbled in stand-up comedy, performing in various venues in and around London. Naturally, her comedic wit crosses over into her teaching style!
Natasha's course
Dr. Daniel Barnes-Bineid
Daniel joins us from City Lit’s Essential Skills Department, where he teaches and co-ordinates English and ESOL courses. With a PhD on aesthetic realism and MA, from Nottingham University, and first degree in philosophy from Cardiff University, he has taught undergraduates and tutored A level philosophy students, as well as teaching philosophy at the London School of Philosophy.
He is the author of The Value Industry (2019), a philosophical reflection on the relationship between art and money, and has published articles on contemporary art, architectural theory and popular culture. His new courses at City Lit will focus on introducing some of the key questions in metaphysics and aesthetics.
Daniel's courses
What is art? An introduction to philosophical aesthetics
What there is and how we know it's there: an introduction to metaphysics
Dr. Qiuyang Chen
Qiuyang is a PhD researcher at the University of Warwick and specialises in Chinese history, oral history, and gender history. She completed her MA in World History and Cultures at King’s College, London. She has taught late imperial Chinese history at Warwick and will teach modern Chinese history at the University of Birmingham. At City Lit, her classes will explore topics including British-Sino relations, the history of Chinese diasporas, gender history, and oral history. In her leisure time, Qiuyang enjoys visiting museums and galleries, as well as doing outdoor activities such as rock-climbing, hiking and mountaineering
Qiuyang’s courses
Britain, the Qing Empire and the impact of the Opium Wars
China in the World Wars and the World Wars in China
Simone Chisena
Simone Chisena gained a BA in Classics from the University of Pavia and an MSc in Archaeology from the University of Rome "La Sapienza". After moving to the UK, his research has focused on prehistoric art of the Upper Palaeolithic (35k-10k years ago), on which he is completing his PhD at the University of York. Alongside teaching for the University of York's Department of Archaeology, he has taught courses on prehistoric art at the Centre for Lifelong Learning and, since 2022, at City Lit.
A natural eclectic, his current research focuses on the transmission of artistic skills in European prehistory, but he has not forgotten his Classics background and has never stopped cultivating his interests in Ancient Greek and Roman art. Their new courses include the beginning of human life in Europe and the political role archaeology can play in the aftermath of dictatorship and genocide.
Simone's courses
The politics of memory and archaeology after dictatorship
Homo sapiens: a journey through the ice age
Dr. Maísa Edwards
Dr. Maísa Edwards holds a Joint International Relations PhD from King’s College London and the University of São Paulo. Her doctoral research focused on Brazil, the Zone of Peace and Cooperation of the South Atlantic and the South Atlantic region. She also has an MSc in Brazil in Global Perspective from King’s College London and a first degree in French and Spanish from University College London. Maísa also has a keen interest in multilingual and multicultural literature and has run the Talk Books With Me (@talk_books_with_me) project since February 2021.
Dr. Maísa Edwards' courses
Global maritime trade from 1500 to the present
Dr. David M. Fowler
Dr David M. Fowler teaches Modern History and Sociology at the University of Cambridge and is a Life Member of Clare Hall, Cambridge. He has published two widely acclaimed books on the history of Youth Culture in twentieth century Britain. His new book, Oxford and Revolution: Student Power, “1968” and a British Cultural Revolt is under contract with Oxford University Press and due out in 2023.
David joins us to teach two online evening courses on twentieth-century Britain between 1900 and 1960, focusing on politics, culture and society.
Roberta Marin
Roberta is an expert in Islamic art and architecture with special focus on the Fatimid and Mamluk periods, commercial and artistic relations between East and West, Carpet and textile production in the Islamic world, Modern and Contemporary Art from the Arab world, Iran and Turkey.
She has worked at the Khalili Collection of Islamic art in London, taught, lectured and given talks at the VA, SOA, Birkbeck, the British Museum, The Arab British Centre and several other museums and galleries across Europe and the US.
Additionally, Roberta has also been a visiting scholar in Portugal and had fellowships in the US and Italy. At City Lit, Roberta teaches the history of the Islamic world and Islamic and Byzantine art.
Roberta's courses
The capital of the Safavid Empire: Shah Abbas I and the transformation of Isfahan (1501-1736)
Terence Maxwell
Terence holds master’s degrees from Cambridge in both history and science communication, specialising in physics, as well as a bachelor’s degree in astronomy. He is currently studying for a PhD at the University of East Anglia, focusing on Irish indentured servitude on Barbados, an interdisciplinary research area which sits across history and archaeology. Previously, Maxwell also worked for Queens University Belfast, the University of Cambridge and the University of Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.
Terrence's course
Big history: From the Big Bang to the emergence of homo sapiens
Dr. Ingrid Aguiar Schlindwein
Ingrid holds a joint International Relations PhD from King's College London and the University of São Paulo. Her focus is on international political economy, international organisations and international financial institutions.
In her doctoral research she explored the role of major middle-income emerging countries in the World Bank’s strategies, with a focus on the institution’s knowledge power. She has been teaching seminars for undergraduate students at King's College London on topics related to history, economics, political science, and sociology.
Prior to coming to the United Kingdom, she worked as an International Development Cooperation analyst in the public sector in Brazil.
Ingrid's courses
A taste of economics: South America in the global economy
The Portuguese Empire; establishment, world-making, demise and legacies
The African diaspora in Europe: Migration, community and resistance
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