Deborah Madden: 60-second interview
Where and what did you study for your degree(s)?
I read History at Oxford, where I completed my Doctorate and Post-Doctoral Research Fellowship. Before this, I studied for a BA Honours Degree in History and an MA Degree in Intellectual History – both at the University of Sussex.
What influenced you in your decision to become a University lecturer?
I’ve always possessed an active historical imagination and at school I enjoyed writing history. As a university student I had some wonderfully inspiring tutors who helped to nurture and discipline an instinctive passion for historical scholarship. Fairly early on I decided that, apart from writing about the past, there could be no better job than inspiring others to study History.
What do you teach at the Hastings campus?
As well as teaching Community History on the Joint Honours Programme, I am responsible for and teach on the Common Modules. These modules give students a set of core academic skills and research practices, irrespective of what discipline they might be studying for. I particularly enjoy this aspect of my job because it provides tools that are genuinely empowering – anything that can help people to write better is a force for good.
What do like most about working here at Hastings campus?
There’s a lot that I like about working at the Hastings campus; it has a friendly, familial atmosphere and, because of this, tutors can get to know students better. The campus has so much to offer, particularly in terms of its links with the wider local community. There’s a rich contextual hinterland to Hastings.
I love being able to work locally – I also live in Hastings. Working in a university that’s rooted in my own community is rewarding because it creates an additional layer of meaning, purpose and wellbeing.
What is the most surprising thing you have found about working here?
Actually, it’s everything that I expected it to be: a friendly, ‘student-centred’ campus, where staff collaborate with one another for the best educational outcomes. What’s impressed me most, however, is the very tangible ways in which effective programme design and course content can really engage with the locality. The positive synergistic result of this is more apparent in Hastings. When you see this working well, and it’s yielding real achievement, it’s very exciting.
What do you like about living in Hastings?
What I like most about living in Hastings is its authentic and living sense of a community that’s distinctive. More importantly, there’s a willingness to preserve and protect specific communities, like the fishing community, for example. But there are many others.
It almost goes without saying that the natural resources available here are stunning: Hastings’ Country Park, the West Hill and, of course, the seaside.
What do you like to do in your free time?
Free time is a nebulous concept when you’re teaching and researching as an academic in higher education. I’d say that most of my ‘free’ time is spent writing. When I’m not doing this, I’m usually reading. I’m not keen on competitive sport, but I really like walking and swimming because I can do these with my family. It’s good for my kids to see that I’m at least willing and capable of undertaking more outdoorsy pursuits.
Who is your favourite author and why?
This is always a tricky question because I have different authors depending on mood and purpose. It also changes with the appearance of new and interesting contemporary writers. If I had to choose one ‘desert island’ text, it would be James Joyce’s Ulysses. Its depth, structure and crackling prose-style, combined with Joyce’s ingenious facility for language, means that this novel is endlessly compelling. It also has a personal resonance because I grew up in Dublin and so descriptions of the city, along with the novel’s colloquialisms and slang, take me back to childhood – you can hear the Dublin drawl and smell the city’s brewery when you read Joyce’s novel.
Who is your favourite band/singing artist and why?
Again, this rather depends on mood and purpose. Ultimately, it would have to be the Russian composer, Shostakovich, but, in particular, his Symphony No. 7. He composed and performed this in 1941 as a show of resistance against the Nazi invasion of Leningrad. But it’s also a critique of Soviet totalitarianism. Its poignancy lays bare the very condition of humanity – in all its extremes – from altruism to tyranny.
On a much less profound note, I’m painfully aware that my need for logical coherency separates my taste in pop music from what’s current. This is why I’ll always prefer the story-telling songs of the 1980s.