Philip Howell BA PhD

University Senior Lecturer and Fellow of Emmanuel College

Historical geographer with research interests primarily in nineteenth-century Britain and its Empire, with special reference to geographies of gender and sexuality.

Biography

Early in my university career I considered historical geography to be my principal focus. My PhD thesis looked at the geography of Chartism, the early Victorian popular suffrage movement, in the context of debates over national integration and regional differentiation. My interest in political geography and political theory developed in conjunction with this research. Since then I have worked on different topics, though the nineteenth century remains my main concern. The main strand of my current research examines the historical geography of the regulation of prostitution in Britain and its colonies, with relevance to geographies of gender and sexuality. I am also interested with the cultural geography of Victorian Britain more generally.

Career:

1984-1987: University of Cambridge
1987-1988: Harvard University
1989-present: Department of Geography, University of Cambridge.

Qualifications

BA 1987 University of Cambridge
PhD 1994 University of Cambridge

Research

My research interests contribute to the cultural and historical geography cluster within the department. The main strands of work are:

The regulation of prostitution in Britain and its empire - including its legacy in post-colonial Ireland
Geographies of gender and sexuality - particularly gendered and sexualised identities in the nineteenth-century city
The 'animal turn' in human geography - geographies of relations between societies and non-human animals

Publications

Selected recent publications:

P. Howell, Geographies of Regulation: Policing Prostitution in Nineteenth-Century Britain and the Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009)
P. Howell, D. Beckingham and F. Moore (2008) 'Managed zones for sex workers in Liverpool: contemporary proposals, Victorian parallels', Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 33(2): 233-50.
P. Howell (2007) 'The politics of prostitution and the politics of public health: a response to Susannah Riordan', Irish Historical Studies XXXV (140): 541-552.
P. Howell (2007) 'Foucault, Sexuality, Geography', in J. Crampton and S. Elden (eds) Foucault and Geography: Space, Knowledge, Power (Aldershot: Ashgate): 291-315.
P. Howell and D. Lambert (2006) 'Sir John Pope Hennessy and Colonial Government: Humanitarianism and the Translation of Slavery in the Imperial Network' in A. Lester and D. Lambert (Eds) Colonial Lives Across the British Empire: Imperial Careering in the Long Nineteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press): 228-56.
P. Howell (2005) 'Prostitution and the place of empire: regulation and repeal in Hong Kong and the British imperial network', in Lindsay J. Proudfoot and Michael M. Roche (Eds) (Dis)placing Empire: Renegotiating British Colonial Geographies (Aldershot: Ashgate): 175-197.
P. Howell (2004) 'Race, Space and the Regulation of Prostitution in Colonial Hong Kong', Urban History 31(2): 229-248.
P. Howell (2004) 'Sexuality, sovereignty and space: law, government and the geography of prostitution in colonial Gibraltar', Social History 29: 444-464.
P. Howell (2004) 'Industry and Identity: The North-South divide and the geography of belonging, 1830-1918', in A.R.H. Baker and M.D. Billinge (Eds) The North-South Divide: Material and Imagined Geographies of England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press): 64-87.
P. Howell (2003) 'Venereal disease and the politics of prostitution in the Irish Free State', Irish Historical Studies 33: 320-341.

Teaching

Geographical Tripos (Undergraduate level)

Part IA: Introduction to Historical Geography
Part IB: Cities
Part II: The Historical Geography of Britain during the Industrial Revolution, Cultures of the Field, The Social Engagement with Nature