Picture of Matthew Neufeld

Matthew Neufeld PhD

Associate Professor, FRHistS

Faculty Member in History

Office
Arts 715

Research Area(s)

  • Early modern Britain
  • Early modern Europe
  • War and society
  • War and state formation
  • War and welfare
  • War and medicine
  • Naval and maritime history
  • Healthcare

About me

It's my pleasure to be a historian of early modern Britain and Europe. I aim to foster historical thinking about the connection between the past and the present among my students, and through them to the wider public. I also think that doing history is remarkably fun.


Publications

Peacemaking Warfare and Welfare Whistle blowing

Books/Collections

Matthew Neufeld, Early Modern Naval Health Care in England, 1650-1750 (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2024) 

https://www.mqup.ca/early-modern-naval-health-care-in-england--1650---1750-products-9780228020592.php?page_id=46&

Krista Kesselring and Matthew Neufeld, Editors, Reckoning with History: Essays on Uses of the Past (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2024)

Reckoning with History | McGill-Queen’s University Press (mqup.ca)

Matthew Neufeld,The Civil Wars after 1660: public remembering in late Stuart England (Woodbridge, 2013) https://boydellandbrewer.com/the-civil-wars-after-1660-hb.html

Matthew Neufeld, Editor of The Uses of the Past in Early Modern England, a special issue of Huntington Library Quarterly, 76 (2013).

Articles and Book Chapters

Matthew Neufeld, "Reckoning with the Past: An Appreciation and an Introduction," in Reckoning with History: Essays on Uses of the Past, eds Krista Kesselring and Matthew Neufeld (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2024), 3-17.

Matthew Neufeld and Rachel Hatcher, 'Civil War Stories in Lands of Commanded Forgetting: Restoration England and Late-Twentieth Century El Salvador', in Civil War and Narrative: Testimony, Historiography, Memory, eds. Karine Deslandes, Fabrice Mourlon, Bruno Tribout (Basingstoke, 2017), 191-210.

Matthew Neufeld, 'The Biopolitics of Manning the Royal Navy in Late Stuart England', Journal of British Studies, 56 (2017), 506-531.

Matthew Neufeld, 'Neither Private Contractors nor Productive Partners: The English Fiscal-Naval State and London Hospitals, 1660-1715', International Journal of Maritime History, 28 (2016), 268-290.

Matthew Neufeld, 'From Peacemaking to Peacebuilding: The multiple endings of England's long civil wars,' American Historical Review, 120 (2015), 1709-1723.
 
Matthew Neufeld and Blaine Wickham, 'The State, the People and the Care of Sick and Injured Sailors in Late Stuart England', Social History of Medicine, 28 (2015), 45-63.

Matthew Neufeld, 'Parliament and some roots of whistle blowing during the Nine Years War', The Historical Journal, 57 (2014), 397-420.

Matthew Neufeld, 'Introduction: Putting the past to work, working through the past', Huntington Library Quarterly, 76 (2013), 483-497.

Matthew Neufeld, ‘The framework of casualty care during the Anglo-Dutch wars’, War in History, 19 (2012), 427-444.

Matthew Neufeld, ‘The politics of Anglican martyrdom: letters to John Walker, 1704-5’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History 62 (2011), 491-514.

Matthew Neufeld, ‘Doing Without Precedent: applied typology and the execution of Charles I in John Milton’s The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates’, Sixteenth Century Journal 38 (2007), 329-344.

Teaching & Supervision

Early Modern Britain; Social and Cultural History War in history

I am happy to supervise students wishing to do MA topics in the history of early modern Britain: I would welcome proposals to do doctoral work on aspects of English social and cultural history from 1650 to 1750.

I have taught the following postgraduate and undergraduate courses at the U of Saskatchewan:

  • Hist 319.3  War in German Lands from Luther to Clausewitz
  • Hist 233.3  War and Medicine from Paracelsus to Penicillin
  • Hist 145.3, War in the Early Modern European World
  • Hist 884.3, Historical Writing
  • Hist 444.3, Social and Cultural History of Early Modern Britain
  • Hist 241.3, Anglobalization: Britain and its Empires, 1700-1950
  • Hist 883.3  Historical Methods
  • Hist 240.3, More than Conquerors: The British Peoples and their World, 1540-1720
  • Hist 397.3, Approaches to History
  • Hist 125.3, Britain and British Empires since Caesar
  • Hist 246.6, The Rise and Fall of Imperial Britain
  • Hist 122.3, Europe in the Age of Mass Culture
  • Hist 498.3, Gender and the Family in Early Modern Britain


Research

early modern Britain early modern Europe healthcare naval and maritime history peace building war war and historical memory war and imperial state formation war and society

My research aims to help us understand and explain some of the important social changes that stemmed from the experience of warfare and state formation in post-Reformation Britain and Europe.

In spring 2022, I was awarded an Insight Grant by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) to research the treatment of prisoners of war, focusing on Britain, Austria, France and Spain during the 18th century. The three-year project aims to provide historical context and resources for moral decision making in the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) today and to encourage public discussion about the complex ethical challenges facing military personnel. 

Awards & Honours

  • Postdoctoral Fellowship Award, awarded by SSHRC of Canada May 2009-April 2011
  • Dissertation Fellowship, awarded by University of Alberta September 2007-July 2008
  • Imrie Travel Award, awarded by University of Alberta Faculty of Graduate Studies January 2005
  • Graduate Scholarship Doctoral Fellowship, awarded by SSHRC of Canada September 2004-August 2007
  • Winston Churchill Travel Award, awarded by University of Alberta April 2004
  • PhD Recruitment Scholarship, awarded by University of Alberta September 2003-August 2004