Matthew D'Auria

Nationalism in Europe since 1789: Shaping Identities in the Age of Modernity

'Ideas in context': A short history of European social and political thought

Modern Italy

The birth of Modern Ideologies (MA Specialist Tutorial)

2022 – present: Senior Advisor for the School of History, UEA

2018 – 2021: Post-Graduate Research Director for the School of History, UEA

2016 – 2018: Chair of the Board of Examiners for the School of History, UEA

2015 – 2018: Academic Lead of the History Transition Programme, UEA

2015 – 2016: Modern European History MA course Director, UEA

2014 – 2018: Disability Liaison Officer, School of History, UEA

2014 – 2018: Deputy Course Director for the Joint Honours degree in Philosophy and History, UEA

Matthew is interested in supervising  supervising research students in any aspect of modern European intellectual history and the history of modern political thought.

Matthew’s key interest is the relationship between notions of Europe and discourses about the nation in the modern age, with a particular focus on Italian and French history.

Matthew is currently working on two major research projects. The first is a comparative and transnational history of nationhood and nationalism in France, Italy, and Spain from the early eighteenth to the late nineteenth century. His second major publication project is a work on Benedetto Croce and how his ‘napoletanità’, his sense of Italianess, and his Europeanism influenced his work. 

Matthew graduated in International and Political Studies at the University of Naples, l’Orientale. He then completed his PhD, focusing on French national narratives in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century, at University College London. Before joining UEA, he taught and conducted research at Sciences Po – Paris, the University of Salerno, and UCL. His main research interest is the relationship between images of the nation and discourses about Europe in the modern age. He has co-edited, with Mark Hewitson, Europe in Crisis: Intellectuals and the European Idea, 1917-1957 (2012), with Vittorio Dini, The Space of Crisis: Images and Ideas of Europe in the Age of Crisis. 1914-1945 (2013) and, with Jan Vermeiren, Visions and Ideas of Europe during the First World War (2019). His book, The Shaping of French National Identity: Narrating the Nation’s Past, 1715–1830, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2020. He has also co-edited, with Cathie Carmichael and Aviel Roshwald, the Cambridge History of Nationhood and Nationalism. Matthew is one of the founding members of the Research Network on the History of the Idea of Europe as well as the Deputy Director of the Institute for the Study of Ideas of Europe at the University of East Anglia. 

I specialise in the history of ideas about nation and nationhood and on discourses about European identity.