David Gange

I began my career as a historian of the nineteenth century, working as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow on a Leverhulme-funded project at Cambridge University entitled ‘Past versus Present: Abandoning the Past in an Age of Progress’. I arrived at Birmingham in 2010 and my first monograph, Dialogues with the Dead: Egyptology in British Culture and Religion was published by Oxford University Press in 2013 alongside an edited collection with Michael Ledger Lomas, Cities of God: the Bible and Archaeology in Nineteenth-Century Britain (Cambridge University Press, 2014). After that, I wrote The Victorians: A Beginner’s Guide (Oneworld, 2016), intended to be my last publication on the nineteenth century before leaving a change in research field.

My more recent research is on coasts, oceans and the communities and species that occupy them. It involves first-person narrative writing, formed around long-distance ocean kayak and rowing boat journeys, and includes The Frayed Atlantic Edge: a Historian’s Journey from Shetland to the Channel (Harper Collins, 2019), Afloat: Small Boats, Swell, and North-Atlantic Seaspray (Harper Collins, 2026) as well as articles such as ‘Time, Space & Islands’, Past & Present (May 2019) and “In Search of the Donkey Boat”, Archipelago (2025). 

On the journeys for those projects, I was surprised to meet an extraordinary number of metal musicians who were doing exciting activist things with their music (e.g. protesting resource extraction, and representing small-language communities, on threatened coastlines). That has led to a current research project, Why Metal Matters, which explores the purposes metal music is put to in the twenty-first century. This has involved interviewing and photographing at festivals such as Bloodstock, Arctangent, Fortress, Supersonic, and Damnation, as well as appearing alongside musicians including Tony Iommi at events exploring the history of metal. It also involves working locally in Birmingham to raise the profile of the city’s histories of heavy music.

My work has been featured on BBC Breakfast TV, BBC2, BBC online, Sky News, Smithsonian Television, at the Hay Festival and the Edinburgh Festival, and I’ve written for media including the Times Literary Supplement, The Scotsman, The Guardian, and The Big Issue. I’ve been nominated for teaching awards in most full year’s teaching I’ve done at Birmingham and in 2013 was awarded the Head of School's Award for Excellence in Teaching (History and Cultures), the Head of College's Award for Excellence in Teaching (Arts & Law) and the Aston Webb Award for Outstanding Early-Career Academic. In 2015-17 I was a fellow of the Intercontinental Academy, convening in Sao Paulo, Nagoya, and Munich, to produce collaborative work between the humanities and sciences on the concept of Time, and in 2018 I was a Moore Fellow at the National University of Ireland Galway. 

I have also been Admissions Tutor for History since 2018 and Public Engagement Lead since 2024.

My main research areas are coasts, oceans, and the communities and species that occupy them. This blends archival research with oral histories and observation from the kayak, on sea routes that – before the dominance of road and rail - were once used by multitudes of local families. It also involves weeks spent in traditional boat workshops learning historic craftwork. One priority in this research is to speak to the historical profession and general readerships in ways that are accessible to all. So open access articles such as ‘Time, Space & Islands’, Past & Present (May 2019) appear alongside ‘Rethinking our Coastlines’, The Big Issue (July 2019).

My first book in this field, The Frayed Atlantic Edge (Harper Collins, 2019), involved kayaking from Shetland to the Channel over the course of a year, immersing myself in archives, seas and conversations, and writing a book that blends historical research, literary criticism and ecological commentary with a personal narrative from the boat. Its key themes range from the geographical reorganisation of Britain after 1770, to the philosophical significance of Gaelic thought, and the significance of poetry as a historical resource.

In asking how British and Irish history looks from the perspective of Atlantic coastlines this research challenges existing, metropolitan, narratives. It therefore questions metanarratives such as enlightenment, industrial revolution and modernity, while exploring the nature of human entanglements with other species and environments. It is also practice based: showing how a kayak and a camera can be tools of historical research on coastlines that change on a daily basis.

The second book for this project will be published in April 2026. Called Afloat, it swaps the kayak for traditional wooden and canvas boats and encompasses a far wider geography, from Ireland to Sapmi, Faroe, Greenland, Newfoundland, Maine, and the Caribbean. While researching that project I, to my surprise, met an extraordinary of metal musicians who were using their music for activist purposes (including environmentalism, ocean activism, and indigenous identity). My new project, Why Metal Matters, explores the histories that have led a genre that was once seen as a social pariah to become a powerful voice for crucial causes across the globe. It has involved appearing alongside musicians including Tony Iommi, interviewing bands from around the world and photographing metals scenes at festivals and events.