Professor Callum Brown
- Honorary Senior Research Fellow (History)
email:
Callum.Brown@glasgow.ac.uk
School of Humanities, University of Glasgow, University of Glasgow
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5729-0297Research interests
I am a social and cultural historian with special research interests in the social and cultural history of humanism, atheism and secularisation, and the history of community ritual, all in the post 1750 period and more especially in the 20th and 21st centuries. I publish on Scotland, Britain, Canada and the USA. I have published four books and many articles on the 1960s, as well as ten books on other subjects (see my Publications tab). I am an advocate of combining document-based research, oral history, quantitative methods and discourse analysis to write the strongest multi-dimensional cultural history.
My research in the late 2010s and early 2020s has taken several tacks:
- The Humanist Network 1930 to 1980: This is a book I am researching and writing, based on a two-year Leverhulme Research Fellowship Project during September 2021-2023, entitled "Humanists and Reform of British Medical and Social Ethics 1945-1980" In this, I explore a network of around 40 humanist scientists and intellectuals who formed what H.G. Wells envisaged in 1929 as “an Open Conspiracy” of experts to erect a world-wide utopia founded on ethical social and medical policy and internationalism. It follows on from work for a general history of the British humanist movement due to appear in 2022.
- The Humanist Movement 1896-2021: Ethicists, Humanists and Rationalists in Modern Britain, with David Nash and Charlie Lynch (book submitted and scheduled to appear in 2022). Commissioned by Humanists UK, this book provides a detailed account of how humanism overtook secularism and rationalism as the focus of British organised nonreligionism, emerging in the 2000s and 2020s as close to a mass movement.
- MI5 and British Intellectuals c.1930-c.1960: colliding patriotisms:- This research is in its infancy. It envisages the Cold War starting in the thirties as a domestic mass surveillance, by the security service and Special Branch, of UK research scientists, social scientists and atheists in an ethical collision of opposing deep-rooted loyalties.
- “The Curse: Film and the Churches in the Western Isles 1945 to 1980” (Northern Scotland 2020). Co-written with Ealasaid Munro, this is an article on the interaction between religious culture and film in the Hebrides. It was part of a wider 3-year AHRC-funded project with colleagues Ian Goode, Sarah Neely and Ealasaid Munro with a focus upon the impact of the Highlands & Islands Film Guild and its travelling vans and projectors.
- The Battle for Christian Britain 1945-1980 (Cambridge University Press, 2019): - This, my fourth book on the 1960s, examines the dominance of conservative Christianity in the cultural and civic life of Britain in the “long 1950s” (with case studies of London, Sheffield, Blackpool, Glasgow and the Western Isles), then its collapse in the mid-1960s with a “liberal hour” of social reform movements led by humanists and atheists. The book challenges an existing historiography that emphasises the role of liberal Christians in transforming Britain from a “Christian country into a civilised country”.
- Becoming Atheist: Humanism in the Secular West (Bloomsbury 2017) This was an eight-year project interviewing men and women of the “sixties generation” from Estonia to San Francisco who lost religious faith. Now published in a book from Bloomsbury and two book chapters, I discuss how men and women recalled losing religion in different ways, how many respondents claimed to have lost religion in middle childhood, and how the manner of losing religion differed greatly between ethnic groups. An article, 'The Necessity of Atheism: Making Sense of Secularisation' (Journal of Religious History 2017), follows up on the need to listen to atheist voices and their distinctive narratives in the social history of religion.
- Religion in Scots Law (Humanist Society Scotland 2016). Jane Mair (School of Law), Thomas Green (School of Law) and I were commissioned by HSS to produce this comprehensive guide to the place of religion Scots law, now published free to download. Jane and I continue to provide advice to our research partners on the shaping of Scots law in regard to belief and unbelief.
Publications
2024
Abrams, L. and Brown, C. (2024) 'Is du da Man': Male violence and ritual in Shetland. In: Smith, Mark and Tait, Ian (eds.) History Maker: Essays in Honour of Brian Smith. Shetland Times Ltd.: Lerwick, pp. 194-202. ISBN 9781910997598
2023
Brown, C. G. , Nash, D. and Lynch, C. (2023) The Humanist Movement in Modern Britain: A History of Ethicists, Rationalists and Humanists. Bloomsbury Academic. ISBN 9781350136601 (pbk), 9781350136618 (hbk), 9781350136625 (ebk PDF), 9781350136632 (ebk)
2022
Brown, C. G. (2022) The agency of women in secularization. Religion, Brain and Behaviour, 12(4), pp. 401-406. (doi: 10.1080/2153599X.2021.2023616)
2020
Brown, C. (2020) Special Issue: The Media and Modernity in the Hebrides [Guest Editor]. Northern Scotland, 11(1),
Brown, C. G. and Munro, E. (2020) The individual, the community and the impact of touring film: interviews with Jim Hunter and others. Northern Scotland, 11(1), pp. 11-22. (doi: 10.3366/nor.2020.0202)
Goode, I. , Neely, S. , Brown, C. and Munro, E. (2020) The media of modernity: film and new media in the Highlands & Islands 1946-1971: introduction. Northern Scotland, 11(1), pp. 1-10. (doi: 10.3366/nor.2020.0201)
Munro, E. and Brown, C. (2020) The Curse: Film and the churches in the Western Isles 1945 to 1980. Northern Scotland, 11(1), pp. 60-79. (doi: 10.3366/nor.2020.0205)
2019
Brown, C. G. (2019) The Battle for Christian Britain: Sex, Humanists and Secularisation, 1945-1980. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge. ISBN 9781108421225 (doi: 10.1017/9781108367592)
Brown, C. G. (2019) Secularisation and law in modern societies. In: Sandberg, Russell, Doe, Norman, Kane, Bronach and Roberts, Caroline (eds.) Research Handbook on Interdisciplinary Approaches to Law and Religion. Edward Elgar Publishing: Cheltenham, pp. 94-109. ISBN 9781784714840
2017
Brown, C. G. (2017) The necessity of atheism: making sense of secularisation. Journal of Religious History, 41(4), pp. 439-456. (doi: 10.1111/1467-9809.12448)
Brown, C. G. (2017) Becoming Atheist: Humanism and the Secular West. Bloomsbury Academic: London. ISBN 9781474224529
2016
Brown, C. (2016) How Anglicans lose religion: an oral history of becoming secular. In: Day, Abby (ed.) Contemporary Issues in the Worldwide Anglican Communion: Powers and Pieties. Series: Ashgate contemporary ecclesiology. Ashgate: Farnham. ISBN 9781472444134
Brown, C. , Green, T. and Mair, J. (2016) Religion in Scots Law: Report of an Audit at the University of Glasgow. [Research Reports or Papers]
Brown, C. , Green, T. and Mair, J. (2016) Religion in Scots Law: Report of an Audit at the University of Glasgow. [Research Reports or Papers]
2014
Brown, C. (2014) Unfettering religion: women and the family chain in the late twentieth century. In: Doran, John, Methuen, Charlotte and Walsham, Alex (eds.) Religion and the Household. Studies in Church History vol. 50. Series: Studies in Church History (50). Boydell & Brewer: Woodbridge, pp. 469-491. ISBN 9780954681029
2013
Brown, C. G. (2013) The twentieth century. In: Bullivant, Stephen and Ruse, Michael (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Atheism. Oxford University Press: Oxford, pp. 229-244. ISBN 9780199644650
Brown, C. (2013) Gender, christianity and the rise of no religion: the heritage of the sixties in Britain. In: Christie, N. and Gauvreau, M. (eds.) The Sixties and Beyond: Dechristianization in North America and Western Europe, 1945-2000. University of Toronto Press: Toronto, Canada, pp. 39-59. ISBN 9781442644755
Brown, C. (2013) Men losing faith: the making of modern no religionism in the UK 1939-2010. In: Delap, L. and Morgan, S. (eds.) Men, Masculinities and Religious Change in Twentieth-century Britain. Series: Genders and sexualities in history. Palgrave Macmillan: New York, NY, USA, pp. 301-325. ISBN 9781137281746 (doi: 10.1057/9781137281753)
Brown, C.G. (2013) Knight, Margaret Kennedy (1903–1983). In: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press: Oxford, UK. (doi: 10.1093/ref:odnb/104779)
2012
Brown, C. (2012) 'The unholy Mrs Knight' and the BBC: secular humanism and the threat to the christian nation, c.1945-1960. English Historical Review, 127(525), pp. 345-376. (doi: 10.1093/ehr/ces001)
Brown, C. and Lynch, G. (2012) From religion to ‘non-religion’? A cultural explanation of the changing religious landscape of Britain since 1945. In: Woodhead, L. and Catto, R. (eds.) Religion in Contemporary Britain. Routledge: London, UK, pp. 329-351. ISBN 9780415575805
Brown, C.G. (2012) Religion and the Demographic Revolution: Women and Secularisation in Canada, Ireland, UK and USA Since the 1960s. Series: Studies in modern British religious history (29). Boydell Press: Woodbridge. ISBN 9781843837923
2011
Brown, C. (2011) Sex, religion and the single woman c.1950-1975: the importance of a ‘short’ sexual revolution to the English religious crisis of the sixties. Twentieth-Century British History, 22(2), pp. 189-215. (doi: 10.1093/tcbh/hwq048)
Brown, C. (2011) Masculinity and secularisation in twentieth-century Britain. In: Werner, Y.M. (ed.) Christian Masculinity: Men and Religion in Northern Europe in the 19th and 20th Centuries. Leuven University Press: Leuven, Belgium, pp. 47-59. ISBN 9789058678737
Brown, C. (2011) Masculinity and secularization in twentieth-century Britain. In: Werner, Y.M. (ed.) Christian Masculinity: Men and Religion in Northern Europe in the 19th and 20th Centuries. Series: KADOC studies on religion, culture and society (8). Leuven University Press: Leuven, Belgium, pp. 47-59. ISBN 9789058678737
Brown, C. (2011) The people of no religion: the demographics of secularisation in the English-speaking world since c.1900. Archiv für Sozialgeschichte, 51, pp. 37-61.
2010
Brown, C.G. (2010) What was the religious crisis of the 1960s? Journal of Religious History, 34(4), pp. 468-479. (doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9809.2010.00909.x)
Abrams, L. and Brown, C. (2010) A day in the life: conceiving the everyday in the twentieth century. In: Abrams, L. and Brown, C. (eds.) A History of Everyday Life in Twentieth-Century Scotland. Series: A history of everyday life in Scotland (4). Edinburgh University Press: Edinburgh, UK. ISBN 9780748624300
Abrams, L. and Brown, C.G. (2010) A History of Everyday Life in Twentieth-century Scotland. Series: A history of everyday life in Scotland. Edinburgh University Press: Edinburgh, UK. ISBN 9780748624300
Brown, C. (2010) Charting everyday experience. In: Abrams, L. and Brown, C. (eds.) A History of Everyday Life in Twentieth-Century Scotland. Series: A history of everyday life in Scotland (4). Edinburgh University Press: Edinburgh, UK, pp. 19-47. ISBN 9780748624300
Brown, C. (2010) Gendering secularisation: locating women in the transformation of British christianity in the 1960s. In: Stedman Jones, G. and Katznelson, I. (eds.) Religion and the Political Imagination. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, UK, pp. 275-294. ISBN 9780521766548
Brown, C. (2010) Spectacle, restraint and the twentieth-century Sabbath wars: the "everyday" Scottish Sunday. In: Abrams, L. and Brown, C. (eds.) A History of Everyday Life in Twentieth-Century Scotland. Series: A history of everyday life in Scotland (4). Edinburgh University Press: Edinburgh, UK, pp. 153-80. ISBN 9780748624300
Brown, C. (2010) Women and religion in Britain: the autobiographical view of the fifties and sixties. In: Brown, C., Snape, M. and McLeod, H. (eds.) Secularisation in the Christian World: Essays in Honour of Hugh McLeod. Ashgate Publishing Limited: Farnham, UK, pp. 159-173. ISBN 9780754661313
Brown, C.G. and Fraser, H. (2010) Britain Since 1707. Pearson Education Ltd: Harlow, UK. ISBN 9780582894150
Brown, C.G. and Snape, M.F. (2010) Secularisation in the Christian World c.1750-c.2000: Essays in Honour of Hugh McLeod. Ashgate: Farnham, UK. ISBN 9780754661313
2009
Brown, C.G. (2009) The Death of Christian Britain: Understanding Secularisation 1800-2000. Series: Christianity and society in the modern world. Routledge: London, UK. ISBN 9780415471336
2007
Brown, C.G. (2007) Secularisation, the growth of militancy and the spiritual revolution: religious change and gender power in Britain 1901-2001. Historical Research, 80(209), pp. 393-418. (doi: 10.1111/j.1468-2281.2007.00417.x)
Brown, C. (2007) How religious was Victorian Britain? In: Boyd, K. and McWilliams, R. (eds.) The Victorian Studies Reader. Series: Routledge readers in history. Routledge: London, UK, pp. 244-251. ISBN 9780415355780
Brown, C. (2007) The Kirk and the word: meanings in the ecclesiastical terminology of Scotland. In: Hölscher, L. (ed.) Baupläne der Sichtbaren Kirche. Sprachliche Konzepte Religiöser Vergemeinschaftung in Europa [Concepts of Religious Bodies in Modern European Societies]. Wallstein-Verlag: Göttingen, Germany, pp. 151-167. ISBN 9783835300927
2006
Brown, C. (2006) Religion. In: Abrams, L., Gordon, E., Simonton, D. and Yeo, E.J. (eds.) Gender in Scottish History since 1700. Edinburgh University Press: Edinburgh, UK, pp. 84-110. ISBN 9780748617609
Brown, C. (2006) The unconverted and the conversion: gender relations in the salvation narrative in Britain 1800-1960. In: Bremmer, J.N., van Bekkum, W.J. and Molendijk, A.L. (eds.) Paradigms, Poetics and Politics of Conversion. Series: Groningen studies in cultural change (19). Peeters: Leuven, Belgium, pp. 183-199. ISBN 9789042917545
Brown, C.G. (2006) Religion and Society in Twentieth-Century Britain. Series: Religion, politics, and society in Britain. Pearson Longman: Harlow, UK. ISBN 9780582472891
2005
Brown, C.G. (2005) Postmodernism for Historians. Pearson/Longman: Harlow, UK. ISBN 9780582506046
2004
Brown, C.G. , McIvor, A. and Rafeek, N.C. (2004) The University Experience 1945-1975: An Oral History of the University of Strathclyde. Edinburgh University Press: Edinburgh, UK. ISBN 9780748619320
2003
Brown, C. (2003) The secularisation decade: what the 1960s have done to the study of religious history. In: McLeod, H. and Ustorf, W. (eds.) The Decline of Christendom in Western Europe, 1750-2000. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, UK, pp. 29-46. ISBN 9780521814935
2001
Brown, C. (2001) The myth of the Established Church of Scotland. In: Kirk, J. (ed.) The Scottish Churches and the Union Parliament 1707-1999. Scottish Church History Society: Edinburgh, UK, pp. 48-74. ISBN 9780953491612
Brown, C. and Johnson, A. (2001) The bayonet, the customs collector and the "parcel of strolling players": Shetland's first theatre of 1811. New Shetlander, 2001(Summer), pp. 4-8.
Brown, C.G. (2001) The Death of Christian Britain: Understanding Secularisation 1800-2000. Series: Christianity and society in the modern world. Routledge: London, UK. ISBN 9780415181495
1999
Brown, C. (1999) Piety, gender and war in Scotland in the 1910s. In: MacDonald, C.M.M. and McFarland, E.W. (eds.) Scotland and the Great War. Tuckwell Press: East Linton, Scotland, UK, pp. 172-191. ISBN 9781862320567
Brown, C.G. (1999) Sport and the Scottish Office in the twentieth-century: the control of a social problem. European Sports History Review, 1, pp. 164-182.
Brown, C.G. (1999) Sport and the Scottish Office in the twentieth-century: the promotion of a social and gender policy. European Sports History Review, 1, pp. 183-202.
1998
Brown, C. (1998) Religion. In: Cooke, A., Donnachie, I., MacSween, A. and Whatley, C.A. (eds.) Modern Scottish History 1707 to the Present: Volume 2: The Modernisation of Scotland 1850 to the Present. Tuckwell Press: East Linton, UK, pp. 142-160. ISBN 9781862320734
Brown, C. (1998) Religion. In: Cooke, A., Donnachie, I., MacSween, A. and Whatley, C.A. (eds.) Modern Scottish History 1707 to the Present: Volume I: The Transformation of Scotland 1707-1850. Tuckwell Press: East Linton, UK, pp. 63-85. ISBN 9781862320680
Brown, C.G. (1998) Up-Helly-Aa: Custom, Culture and Community in Shetland. Manchester University Press: Manchester, UK. ISBN 9780719053320
1997
Brown, C. (1997) Essor religieux et sécularisation. In: McLeod, H., Mews, S. and Haussy, C. 'd. (eds.) Histoire Religieuse de la Grande-Bretagne: XIXe-XXe Siècle. Series: Histoire religieuse de l'Europe contemporaine (1). Editions du Cerf: Paris, France, pp. 315-337. ISBN 9782204054553
Brown, C.G. (1997) Religion and Society in Scotland since 1707. Edinburgh University Press: Edinburgh, UK. ISBN 9780748608867
1996
Brown, C.G. (1996) Religion in the city. Urban History, 23(3), pp. 372-379. (doi: 10.1017/S0963926800016916)[Book Review]
Brown, C. (1996) Popular culture and the continuing struggle for rational recreation. In: Devine, T.M. and Finlay, R.J. (eds.) Scotland in the Twentieth Century. Edinburgh University Press: Edinburgh, Scotland, UK, pp. 210-229. ISBN 9780748608393
Brown, C. (1996) Religion and national identity in Scotland since the Union of 1707. In: Brohed, I. (ed.) Church and People in Britain and Scandinavia. Lund University Press: Lund, Sweden. ISBN 9789179663872
Brown, C. (1996) ‘To be aglow with civic ardours’: the Godly Commonwealth in Glasgow, 1843-1914. Records of the Scottish Church History Society, 26, pp. 169-195.
1995
Brown, C. (1995) Mechanism of religious growth in urban societies: British cities since the eighteenth century. In: McLeod, H. (ed.) European Religion in the Age of the Great Cities, 1830-1930. Series: Christianity and society in the modern world. Routledge: London, UK, pp. 239-262. ISBN 9780415095228
1993
Brown, C. (1993) The People in the Pews: Religion and Society in Scotland since 1780. Economic and Social History Society of Scotland: Glasgow. ISBN 0951604422
1992
Brown, C. (1992) A revisionist approach to religious change. In: Bruce, S. (ed.) Religion and Modernization: Sociologists and Historians Debate the Secularization Thesis. Clarendon Press: Oxford, UK, pp. 31-58. ISBN 9780198273691
Stephenson, J. and Brown, C. (1992) 'Sprouting wings?' Working-class women and religion in Scotland c.1890-c.1950. In: Breitenbach, E. and Gordon, E. (eds.) Out of Bounds: Women in Scottish Society 1800-1945. Series: Edinburgh education and society series. Edinburgh University Press: Edinburgh, Scotland, UK, pp. 95-120. ISBN 9780748603725
1991
Brown, C. (1991) 'Each take off their several way?' The Protestant churches and the working classes in Scotland. In: Walker, G. and Gallagher, T. (eds.) Sermons and Battle Hymns: Protestant Popular Culture in Modern Scotland. Edinburgh University Press: Edinburgh, Scotland, UK, pp. 69-85. ISBN 9780748602179
Brown, C. (1991) Religion and secularisation. In: Dickson, T. and Treble, J. (eds.) People and Society in Scotland, Volume 3: 1914 to the Present. John Donald: Edinburgh, UK, pp. 48-79. ISBN 9780859762120
1990
Brown, C. (1990) Protest in the pews: interpreting religion and society in fracture during the Scottish economic revolution. In: Devine, T.M. (ed.) Conflict and Stability in Scottish Society, 1700-1860. John Donald: Edinburgh, UK, pp. 83-105. ISBN 9780859762960
Brown, C. (1990) Religion, class and church growth. In: Fraser, W.H. and Morris, R.J. (eds.) People and Society in Scotland, Volume 2: 1830-1914. John Donald: Edinburgh, UK, pp. 310-335. ISBN 9780859762113
Brown, C. and Stephenson, J.D. (1990) The view from the workplace: women and work in Stirling, 1900-1950. In: Gordon, E. and Breitenbach, E. (eds.) The World is Ill Divided: Women's Work in Scotland in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. Series: Edinburgh education and society series. Edinburgh University Press: Edinburgh, Scotland, UK, pp. 7-28. ISBN 9780748601165
1989
Brown, C. (1989) Religion. In: Pope, R. (ed.) Atlas of British Social and Economic History Since c. 1700. Routledge: London, UK, pp. 211-223. ISBN 9780415019194
Brown, C. (1989) Urbanisation and social conditions. In: Pope, R. (ed.) Atlas of British Social and Economic History Since c. 1700. Routledge: London, UK, pp. 170-182. ISBN 9780415019194
1988
Brown, C.G. (1988) Did urbanization secularize Britain? Urban History Yearbook, 15, pp. 1-14. (doi: 10.1017/S0963926800013882)
Brown, C. (1988) Religion and social change. In: Devine, T.M. and Mitchison, R. (eds.) People and Society in Scotland, Volume 1: 1760-1830. John Donald: Edinburgh, UK, pp. 143-162. ISBN 9780859762106
Brown, C. (1988) 'Religion' and 'Education'. In: Hood, J. (ed.) The History of Clydebank. Parthenon: Carnforth, UK. ISBN 9781850701477
1987
Brown, C.G. (1987) The costs of pew-renting: church management, church-going and social class in nineteenth-century Glasgow. Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 38(3), pp. 347-361. (doi: 10.1017/S0022046900024957)
Brown, C.G. (1987) The Social History of Religion in Scotland Since 1730. Series: Christianity and society in the modern world. Methuen: London, UK. ISBN 9780416369809
1981
Brown, C. G. (1981) The Sunday-school movement in Scotland 1780-1914. Records of the Scottish Church History Society, 21, pp. 3-26.
Articles
Brown, C. G. (2022) The agency of women in secularization. Religion, Brain and Behaviour, 12(4), pp. 401-406. (doi: 10.1080/2153599X.2021.2023616)
Brown, C. (2020) Special Issue: The Media and Modernity in the Hebrides [Guest Editor]. Northern Scotland, 11(1),
Brown, C. G. and Munro, E. (2020) The individual, the community and the impact of touring film: interviews with Jim Hunter and others. Northern Scotland, 11(1), pp. 11-22. (doi: 10.3366/nor.2020.0202)
Goode, I. , Neely, S. , Brown, C. and Munro, E. (2020) The media of modernity: film and new media in the Highlands & Islands 1946-1971: introduction. Northern Scotland, 11(1), pp. 1-10. (doi: 10.3366/nor.2020.0201)
Munro, E. and Brown, C. (2020) The Curse: Film and the churches in the Western Isles 1945 to 1980. Northern Scotland, 11(1), pp. 60-79. (doi: 10.3366/nor.2020.0205)
Brown, C. G. (2017) The necessity of atheism: making sense of secularisation. Journal of Religious History, 41(4), pp. 439-456. (doi: 10.1111/1467-9809.12448)
Brown, C. (2012) 'The unholy Mrs Knight' and the BBC: secular humanism and the threat to the christian nation, c.1945-1960. English Historical Review, 127(525), pp. 345-376. (doi: 10.1093/ehr/ces001)
Brown, C. (2011) Sex, religion and the single woman c.1950-1975: the importance of a ‘short’ sexual revolution to the English religious crisis of the sixties. Twentieth-Century British History, 22(2), pp. 189-215. (doi: 10.1093/tcbh/hwq048)
Brown, C. (2011) The people of no religion: the demographics of secularisation in the English-speaking world since c.1900. Archiv für Sozialgeschichte, 51, pp. 37-61.
Brown, C.G. (2010) What was the religious crisis of the 1960s? Journal of Religious History, 34(4), pp. 468-479. (doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9809.2010.00909.x)
Brown, C.G. (2007) Secularisation, the growth of militancy and the spiritual revolution: religious change and gender power in Britain 1901-2001. Historical Research, 80(209), pp. 393-418. (doi: 10.1111/j.1468-2281.2007.00417.x)
Brown, C. and Johnson, A. (2001) The bayonet, the customs collector and the "parcel of strolling players": Shetland's first theatre of 1811. New Shetlander, 2001(Summer), pp. 4-8.
Brown, C.G. (1999) Sport and the Scottish Office in the twentieth-century: the control of a social problem. European Sports History Review, 1, pp. 164-182.
Brown, C.G. (1999) Sport and the Scottish Office in the twentieth-century: the promotion of a social and gender policy. European Sports History Review, 1, pp. 183-202.
Brown, C. (1996) ‘To be aglow with civic ardours’: the Godly Commonwealth in Glasgow, 1843-1914. Records of the Scottish Church History Society, 26, pp. 169-195.
Brown, C.G. (1988) Did urbanization secularize Britain? Urban History Yearbook, 15, pp. 1-14. (doi: 10.1017/S0963926800013882)
Brown, C.G. (1987) The costs of pew-renting: church management, church-going and social class in nineteenth-century Glasgow. Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 38(3), pp. 347-361. (doi: 10.1017/S0022046900024957)
Brown, C. G. (1981) The Sunday-school movement in Scotland 1780-1914. Records of the Scottish Church History Society, 21, pp. 3-26.
Books
Brown, C. G. , Nash, D. and Lynch, C. (2023) The Humanist Movement in Modern Britain: A History of Ethicists, Rationalists and Humanists. Bloomsbury Academic. ISBN 9781350136601 (pbk), 9781350136618 (hbk), 9781350136625 (ebk PDF), 9781350136632 (ebk)
Brown, C. G. (2019) The Battle for Christian Britain: Sex, Humanists and Secularisation, 1945-1980. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge. ISBN 9781108421225 (doi: 10.1017/9781108367592)
Brown, C. G. (2017) Becoming Atheist: Humanism and the Secular West. Bloomsbury Academic: London. ISBN 9781474224529
Brown, C.G. (2012) Religion and the Demographic Revolution: Women and Secularisation in Canada, Ireland, UK and USA Since the 1960s. Series: Studies in modern British religious history (29). Boydell Press: Woodbridge. ISBN 9781843837923
Brown, C.G. and Fraser, H. (2010) Britain Since 1707. Pearson Education Ltd: Harlow, UK. ISBN 9780582894150
Brown, C.G. (2009) The Death of Christian Britain: Understanding Secularisation 1800-2000. Series: Christianity and society in the modern world. Routledge: London, UK. ISBN 9780415471336
Brown, C.G. (2006) Religion and Society in Twentieth-Century Britain. Series: Religion, politics, and society in Britain. Pearson Longman: Harlow, UK. ISBN 9780582472891
Brown, C.G. (2005) Postmodernism for Historians. Pearson/Longman: Harlow, UK. ISBN 9780582506046
Brown, C.G. , McIvor, A. and Rafeek, N.C. (2004) The University Experience 1945-1975: An Oral History of the University of Strathclyde. Edinburgh University Press: Edinburgh, UK. ISBN 9780748619320
Brown, C.G. (2001) The Death of Christian Britain: Understanding Secularisation 1800-2000. Series: Christianity and society in the modern world. Routledge: London, UK. ISBN 9780415181495
Brown, C.G. (1998) Up-Helly-Aa: Custom, Culture and Community in Shetland. Manchester University Press: Manchester, UK. ISBN 9780719053320
Brown, C.G. (1997) Religion and Society in Scotland since 1707. Edinburgh University Press: Edinburgh, UK. ISBN 9780748608867
Brown, C. (1993) The People in the Pews: Religion and Society in Scotland since 1780. Economic and Social History Society of Scotland: Glasgow. ISBN 0951604422
Brown, C.G. (1987) The Social History of Religion in Scotland Since 1730. Series: Christianity and society in the modern world. Methuen: London, UK. ISBN 9780416369809
Book Sections
Abrams, L. and Brown, C. (2024) 'Is du da Man': Male violence and ritual in Shetland. In: Smith, Mark and Tait, Ian (eds.) History Maker: Essays in Honour of Brian Smith. Shetland Times Ltd.: Lerwick, pp. 194-202. ISBN 9781910997598
Brown, C. G. (2019) Secularisation and law in modern societies. In: Sandberg, Russell, Doe, Norman, Kane, Bronach and Roberts, Caroline (eds.) Research Handbook on Interdisciplinary Approaches to Law and Religion. Edward Elgar Publishing: Cheltenham, pp. 94-109. ISBN 9781784714840
Brown, C. (2016) How Anglicans lose religion: an oral history of becoming secular. In: Day, Abby (ed.) Contemporary Issues in the Worldwide Anglican Communion: Powers and Pieties. Series: Ashgate contemporary ecclesiology. Ashgate: Farnham. ISBN 9781472444134
Brown, C. (2014) Unfettering religion: women and the family chain in the late twentieth century. In: Doran, John, Methuen, Charlotte and Walsham, Alex (eds.) Religion and the Household. Studies in Church History vol. 50. Series: Studies in Church History (50). Boydell & Brewer: Woodbridge, pp. 469-491. ISBN 9780954681029
Brown, C. G. (2013) The twentieth century. In: Bullivant, Stephen and Ruse, Michael (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Atheism. Oxford University Press: Oxford, pp. 229-244. ISBN 9780199644650
Brown, C. (2013) Gender, christianity and the rise of no religion: the heritage of the sixties in Britain. In: Christie, N. and Gauvreau, M. (eds.) The Sixties and Beyond: Dechristianization in North America and Western Europe, 1945-2000. University of Toronto Press: Toronto, Canada, pp. 39-59. ISBN 9781442644755
Brown, C. (2013) Men losing faith: the making of modern no religionism in the UK 1939-2010. In: Delap, L. and Morgan, S. (eds.) Men, Masculinities and Religious Change in Twentieth-century Britain. Series: Genders and sexualities in history. Palgrave Macmillan: New York, NY, USA, pp. 301-325. ISBN 9781137281746 (doi: 10.1057/9781137281753)
Brown, C.G. (2013) Knight, Margaret Kennedy (1903–1983). In: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press: Oxford, UK. (doi: 10.1093/ref:odnb/104779)
Brown, C. and Lynch, G. (2012) From religion to ‘non-religion’? A cultural explanation of the changing religious landscape of Britain since 1945. In: Woodhead, L. and Catto, R. (eds.) Religion in Contemporary Britain. Routledge: London, UK, pp. 329-351. ISBN 9780415575805
Brown, C. (2011) Masculinity and secularisation in twentieth-century Britain. In: Werner, Y.M. (ed.) Christian Masculinity: Men and Religion in Northern Europe in the 19th and 20th Centuries. Leuven University Press: Leuven, Belgium, pp. 47-59. ISBN 9789058678737
Brown, C. (2011) Masculinity and secularization in twentieth-century Britain. In: Werner, Y.M. (ed.) Christian Masculinity: Men and Religion in Northern Europe in the 19th and 20th Centuries. Series: KADOC studies on religion, culture and society (8). Leuven University Press: Leuven, Belgium, pp. 47-59. ISBN 9789058678737
Abrams, L. and Brown, C. (2010) A day in the life: conceiving the everyday in the twentieth century. In: Abrams, L. and Brown, C. (eds.) A History of Everyday Life in Twentieth-Century Scotland. Series: A history of everyday life in Scotland (4). Edinburgh University Press: Edinburgh, UK. ISBN 9780748624300
Brown, C. (2010) Charting everyday experience. In: Abrams, L. and Brown, C. (eds.) A History of Everyday Life in Twentieth-Century Scotland. Series: A history of everyday life in Scotland (4). Edinburgh University Press: Edinburgh, UK, pp. 19-47. ISBN 9780748624300
Brown, C. (2010) Gendering secularisation: locating women in the transformation of British christianity in the 1960s. In: Stedman Jones, G. and Katznelson, I. (eds.) Religion and the Political Imagination. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, UK, pp. 275-294. ISBN 9780521766548
Brown, C. (2010) Spectacle, restraint and the twentieth-century Sabbath wars: the "everyday" Scottish Sunday. In: Abrams, L. and Brown, C. (eds.) A History of Everyday Life in Twentieth-Century Scotland. Series: A history of everyday life in Scotland (4). Edinburgh University Press: Edinburgh, UK, pp. 153-80. ISBN 9780748624300
Brown, C. (2010) Women and religion in Britain: the autobiographical view of the fifties and sixties. In: Brown, C., Snape, M. and McLeod, H. (eds.) Secularisation in the Christian World: Essays in Honour of Hugh McLeod. Ashgate Publishing Limited: Farnham, UK, pp. 159-173. ISBN 9780754661313
Brown, C. (2007) How religious was Victorian Britain? In: Boyd, K. and McWilliams, R. (eds.) The Victorian Studies Reader. Series: Routledge readers in history. Routledge: London, UK, pp. 244-251. ISBN 9780415355780
Brown, C. (2007) The Kirk and the word: meanings in the ecclesiastical terminology of Scotland. In: Hölscher, L. (ed.) Baupläne der Sichtbaren Kirche. Sprachliche Konzepte Religiöser Vergemeinschaftung in Europa [Concepts of Religious Bodies in Modern European Societies]. Wallstein-Verlag: Göttingen, Germany, pp. 151-167. ISBN 9783835300927
Brown, C. (2006) Religion. In: Abrams, L., Gordon, E., Simonton, D. and Yeo, E.J. (eds.) Gender in Scottish History since 1700. Edinburgh University Press: Edinburgh, UK, pp. 84-110. ISBN 9780748617609
Brown, C. (2006) The unconverted and the conversion: gender relations in the salvation narrative in Britain 1800-1960. In: Bremmer, J.N., van Bekkum, W.J. and Molendijk, A.L. (eds.) Paradigms, Poetics and Politics of Conversion. Series: Groningen studies in cultural change (19). Peeters: Leuven, Belgium, pp. 183-199. ISBN 9789042917545
Brown, C. (2003) The secularisation decade: what the 1960s have done to the study of religious history. In: McLeod, H. and Ustorf, W. (eds.) The Decline of Christendom in Western Europe, 1750-2000. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, UK, pp. 29-46. ISBN 9780521814935
Brown, C. (2001) The myth of the Established Church of Scotland. In: Kirk, J. (ed.) The Scottish Churches and the Union Parliament 1707-1999. Scottish Church History Society: Edinburgh, UK, pp. 48-74. ISBN 9780953491612
Brown, C. (1999) Piety, gender and war in Scotland in the 1910s. In: MacDonald, C.M.M. and McFarland, E.W. (eds.) Scotland and the Great War. Tuckwell Press: East Linton, Scotland, UK, pp. 172-191. ISBN 9781862320567
Brown, C. (1998) Religion. In: Cooke, A., Donnachie, I., MacSween, A. and Whatley, C.A. (eds.) Modern Scottish History 1707 to the Present: Volume 2: The Modernisation of Scotland 1850 to the Present. Tuckwell Press: East Linton, UK, pp. 142-160. ISBN 9781862320734
Brown, C. (1998) Religion. In: Cooke, A., Donnachie, I., MacSween, A. and Whatley, C.A. (eds.) Modern Scottish History 1707 to the Present: Volume I: The Transformation of Scotland 1707-1850. Tuckwell Press: East Linton, UK, pp. 63-85. ISBN 9781862320680
Brown, C. (1997) Essor religieux et sécularisation. In: McLeod, H., Mews, S. and Haussy, C. 'd. (eds.) Histoire Religieuse de la Grande-Bretagne: XIXe-XXe Siècle. Series: Histoire religieuse de l'Europe contemporaine (1). Editions du Cerf: Paris, France, pp. 315-337. ISBN 9782204054553
Brown, C. (1996) Popular culture and the continuing struggle for rational recreation. In: Devine, T.M. and Finlay, R.J. (eds.) Scotland in the Twentieth Century. Edinburgh University Press: Edinburgh, Scotland, UK, pp. 210-229. ISBN 9780748608393
Brown, C. (1996) Religion and national identity in Scotland since the Union of 1707. In: Brohed, I. (ed.) Church and People in Britain and Scandinavia. Lund University Press: Lund, Sweden. ISBN 9789179663872
Brown, C. (1995) Mechanism of religious growth in urban societies: British cities since the eighteenth century. In: McLeod, H. (ed.) European Religion in the Age of the Great Cities, 1830-1930. Series: Christianity and society in the modern world. Routledge: London, UK, pp. 239-262. ISBN 9780415095228
Brown, C. (1992) A revisionist approach to religious change. In: Bruce, S. (ed.) Religion and Modernization: Sociologists and Historians Debate the Secularization Thesis. Clarendon Press: Oxford, UK, pp. 31-58. ISBN 9780198273691
Stephenson, J. and Brown, C. (1992) 'Sprouting wings?' Working-class women and religion in Scotland c.1890-c.1950. In: Breitenbach, E. and Gordon, E. (eds.) Out of Bounds: Women in Scottish Society 1800-1945. Series: Edinburgh education and society series. Edinburgh University Press: Edinburgh, Scotland, UK, pp. 95-120. ISBN 9780748603725
Brown, C. (1991) 'Each take off their several way?' The Protestant churches and the working classes in Scotland. In: Walker, G. and Gallagher, T. (eds.) Sermons and Battle Hymns: Protestant Popular Culture in Modern Scotland. Edinburgh University Press: Edinburgh, Scotland, UK, pp. 69-85. ISBN 9780748602179
Brown, C. (1991) Religion and secularisation. In: Dickson, T. and Treble, J. (eds.) People and Society in Scotland, Volume 3: 1914 to the Present. John Donald: Edinburgh, UK, pp. 48-79. ISBN 9780859762120
Brown, C. (1990) Protest in the pews: interpreting religion and society in fracture during the Scottish economic revolution. In: Devine, T.M. (ed.) Conflict and Stability in Scottish Society, 1700-1860. John Donald: Edinburgh, UK, pp. 83-105. ISBN 9780859762960
Brown, C. (1990) Religion, class and church growth. In: Fraser, W.H. and Morris, R.J. (eds.) People and Society in Scotland, Volume 2: 1830-1914. John Donald: Edinburgh, UK, pp. 310-335. ISBN 9780859762113
Brown, C. and Stephenson, J.D. (1990) The view from the workplace: women and work in Stirling, 1900-1950. In: Gordon, E. and Breitenbach, E. (eds.) The World is Ill Divided: Women's Work in Scotland in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. Series: Edinburgh education and society series. Edinburgh University Press: Edinburgh, Scotland, UK, pp. 7-28. ISBN 9780748601165
Brown, C. (1989) Religion. In: Pope, R. (ed.) Atlas of British Social and Economic History Since c. 1700. Routledge: London, UK, pp. 211-223. ISBN 9780415019194
Brown, C. (1989) Urbanisation and social conditions. In: Pope, R. (ed.) Atlas of British Social and Economic History Since c. 1700. Routledge: London, UK, pp. 170-182. ISBN 9780415019194
Brown, C. (1988) Religion and social change. In: Devine, T.M. and Mitchison, R. (eds.) People and Society in Scotland, Volume 1: 1760-1830. John Donald: Edinburgh, UK, pp. 143-162. ISBN 9780859762106
Brown, C. (1988) 'Religion' and 'Education'. In: Hood, J. (ed.) The History of Clydebank. Parthenon: Carnforth, UK. ISBN 9781850701477
Book Reviews
Brown, C.G. (1996) Religion in the city. Urban History, 23(3), pp. 372-379. (doi: 10.1017/S0963926800016916)[Book Review]
Edited Books
Abrams, L. and Brown, C.G. (2010) A History of Everyday Life in Twentieth-century Scotland. Series: A history of everyday life in Scotland. Edinburgh University Press: Edinburgh, UK. ISBN 9780748624300
Brown, C.G. and Snape, M.F. (2010) Secularisation in the Christian World c.1750-c.2000: Essays in Honour of Hugh McLeod. Ashgate: Farnham, UK. ISBN 9780754661313
Research Reports or Papers
Brown, C. , Green, T. and Mair, J. (2016) Religion in Scots Law: Report of an Audit at the University of Glasgow. [Research Reports or Papers]
Brown, C. , Green, T. and Mair, J. (2016) Religion in Scots Law: Report of an Audit at the University of Glasgow. [Research Reports or Papers]
Key Findings
Brown, C. , Green, T. and Mair, J. Religion and Scots law: Key findings. [Key Findings]
Supervision
Though retired from September 2023, I am able to offer supervision as a secondary supervisor, principally in the area of secularisation, atheism and humanism largely in Britain after 1900. Here are my current and past students.
- Russell Smith, 'Black Caribbeans in the RAF c.1939-1950'. (PhD current)
- Emma Partridge, 'Self-esteem in twentieth century Britain'. (PhD current)
- Mathilde Michaud, 'Popular Culture, Gender and the Catholic Church: How Catholic Popular Education remodelled Québec's Gender Scripts, 1810-1880' (PhD current)
- Thea Campbell, ‘The Classics in Scottish Education since c.1945’ (PhD current)
- Valerie Mackenzie, ‘To see myself reflected: Reader response to Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City’ (PhD awarded 2023)
- Murray McLean, 'A Social and Cultural History of Weddings in Scotland c.1930-2016' (PhD awarded 2020)
- Paula Blair, ‘The Genetics of Prenatal Diagnosis, c.1950-1990: the case of Malcolm Ferguson-Smith’ (PhD awarded 2020)
- Charlie Lynch, ‘The sixties sexual revolution in Scotland’ (PhD graduated 2019, now an article 'Moral panic in the industrial town' in Twentieth Century British History (2021))
- Rachel Cheng, 'John Hargrave, the Kibbo Kift and the Woodcraft folk' (PhD awarded 2016)
- Laura Paterson, 'Women and Work in Postwar Industrial Britain, 1945 – 1970' (PhD awarded 2015)
- Alison McCall, 'The lass o’pairts: women and teaching in Scotland' (PhD awarded 2014)
- Cait Ross, 'The Public Morality Council' (M.Litt. awarded 2013)
- Charlie Lynch, 'Did Scotland have a sixties? (M.Litt. awarded 2013)
- Shivani Agarwal, 'The Walsingham pilgrimage' (M.Litt. awarded 2010)
- Sarah Browne, 'The Women’s Liberation Movement in Scotland' (PhD awarded 2009, now a book from Manchester University Press (2014))
- Nathalie Rosset, 'Representation of the Body in 19th century Scotland (PhD awarded 2007, now a book from VDM Verlag Dr. Müller); Embodying blackness, signifying race: blackface minstrelsy on the Glasgow stage 1825-1880 (MLitt awarded 2002, now an article in Rethinking History).
- Angela Bartie, 'Festival City: Arts, Culture and Moral Conflict at the Edinburgh Festivals 1947-67' (Ph.D. awarded 2007, now a book from Edinburgh University Press); 'Frankie Vaughan and the Glasgow gangs' (B.A. dissertation, now an article in Contemporary British History)
- Ann Petrie, 'Scottish culture and the First World War' (PhD awarded 2006)
- Paul Burton, 'An active and united body: change in the Society of Friends in Scotland 1800-2000' (PhD awarded 2005, now a book from Edwin Mellen Press)
- Iain Hutchison, 'The Experience and Representation of Disability in 19th century Scotland' (PhD awarded 2004, now a book from Edwin Mellen Press).
- Sarah Smith, 'Angels With Dirty Faces: Children, Cinema and Censorship in 1930s Britain' (PhD awarded 2002, now a book from IB Taurus); ‘Women and higher education in Glasgow’ (B.A. dissertation 1998, now an article in Gender and History).
- Paul Maloney, 'Music Hall in Glasgow 1850-1914' (M.Phil. awarded 1999, now a book from Manchester University Press, 2003)
Additional information
My core research and teaching agenda for 30 years has been the nature of secularisation (or the decline of religion) in British society since the late eighteenth century. Operating chiefly through social-science methodology, I used to argue within traditional class-based, quantitative and qualitative parameters in an attempt to refute the theory of secularisation. [The Social History of Religion in Scotland, (1987), and 'Did urbanisation secularise Britain? Urban History Yearbook 1988.] In the late 1980s and early 1990s, I re-contextualised the decline of religion within the 'field' of popular culture, locating religious issues as central to the ethical construction of both popular culture and the individual. [Religion and Society in Scotland (1997), Up-helly-aa: Custom, Culture and Community in Shetland (1998), and 'Sport and the Scottish Office in the 20th century,' European Sports History Review (1999).] In my work on the Shetland winter fire festival of Up-helly-aa, I started to take the linguistic turn.
From 2000 I 'turned' upon the theory of secularisation in The Death of Christian Britain: Understanding Secularisation 1800-2000 (2000, second edition 2009), which explores the gendered and discursive nature of religious identity between 1800 and 1960. I got drawn more and more to gender and cultural history, looking at how the femininity of modernity broke down in the 1960s (see Religion and Society in Twentieth Century Britain (2006)). I went further in Religion and the Demographic Revolution (2013) in demonstrating the gendered demographic implications of post-1960 severe secularisation.
Since 2009, I have turned again – to the social history of atheists. The rise of people without religion is the most important religious development in recent western society, yet the social history of religion neglects this topic almost entirely. My first foray into this – an oral history of how the 60s generation lost faith - has emerged as Becoming Atheist (Bloomsbury 2007). After I complete my current book, The Battle for Christian Britain (CUP), I will be publishing on The Humanist Revolution: Britain and its Liberal Hour 1957-1968 (provisional title).
