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Staff Profiles

Dr Willow Berridge

Senior Lecturer in History

Background

I am a historian of 20th century African and Muslim societies, with a particular interest in Sudanese history and the dynamics of Islamist ideology.

My early research focused on policing and prisons in 20th century Sudan. It compared colonial, nationalist and Islamist penal ideologies and policing strategies, exploring important continuities and disconnects between each of three.

My first book, Civil Uprisings in Modern Sudan, was inspired by my experience of living in the country during the Arab Spring. I was curious as to why the debates about civil protest and authoritarianism in the Middle East and North Africa region overlooked Sudan's proud record of having been the only country in the region before 2011 to have witnessed civil protests that facilitated a transition from military rule to parliamentary democracy. In particular, the book responded to post-2011 debates about the respective roles of Islamism and secular ideologies in the Arab Spring by highlighting the extent to which 'Islamist' or other religiously-orientated groups were willing to collaborate with secularists within the student unions and professional associations that led the protests.

In 2017 I published a text on the controversial Sudanese Islamist Hasan al-Turabi. This text explores a number of important themes related to broader analyses of Islamist ideology: charismatic leadership (and its limitations); Islamism as a fusion of Western and Islamic ideologies; Islamism as 'post-colonial'; the importance of local political contexts in shaping religious ideology; as well as Islamist concepts of the Islamic state, democracy and jihad.

I am currently finalizing a text with Professor Alex De Waal, Research Professor and Executive Director of the World Peace Foundation on the role of the African Union High Level Implementation Panel in Sudan and South Sudan between 2009 and 2013; this involved working with the United States Institute for Peace. I am regularly consulted for my expertise on by the US and UK governments.


I have developed a research interest in the historical dynamics underpinning the emergence of homophobic, queerphobic, transphobic and cisheterosexist discourses in British and Sudanese History.


Qualifications

BA, MA, PHD (University of Durham)




Research

My research interests include:

20th century Sudanese History

Islamist ideology

British colonial history and particularly the history of colonial law and penal strategies

The history of transphobia in Britain and its empire


I am happy to supervise PhD students interested in exploring these themes.

I recently completed a project on the Sudanese Islamist intellectual Hasan al-Turabi (1932-2016). This was supported by a British Academy Small Grant (£6,226).

Now that I have published my text on Hasan al-Turabi with Cambridge University Press, I am planning an additional article exploring Dr al-Turabi's controversial attitudes towards Islam and gender and working on a separate piece on the role of South Sudanese in Dr al-Turabi's Islamic Movement. I have also recently published a separate piece on early Sudanese Islamism in the late colonial period, exploring colonial attitudes towards the nascent Muslim Brotherhood movement in the country and the role of colonial education in shaping Islamist worldviews.




Teaching

I am module leader for the following modules:

HIS3365: British Colonialism in Sudan: Violence, Gender and Race, 1899-1956

HIS2322: Diversities of Sexuality and Gender in History


I teach on the following modules


HIS2027: Africa: History of a Continent





 

Publications