Biography.guide
Home › People › Historian › Philippa Levine
Portrait of Philippa Levine

Philippa Levine

b. 1957

British historian & academic

Don't just read it — keep itBiographies to ownE-book · Audio · Video From $7 →

About Philippa Levine

Born 1957. Philippa Levine is a British historian and university teacher.

Philippa Judith Amanda Levine, FRAI, FRHistS, is a historian of the British Empire, gender, race, science and technology. She has spent most of her career in the United States and has been Mary Helen Thompson Centennial Professor in the Humanities (2010–17) and Walter Prescott Webb Professor in History and Ideas (since 2017) at the University of Texas at Austin.

Biography Philippa Judith Amanda Levine grew up in the United Kingdom and studied at King's College, Cambridge, from 1976 to 1979, when she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree in history; she then completed a doctorate (DPhil) at St Antony's College, Oxford, from 1979 to 1984 (supported firstly by a postgraduate studentship from King's College, Cambridge, and then from 1980 with a Department of Education and Science research studentship). The DPhil was awarded for her thesis "The amateur and the professional: antiquarians, historians and archaeologists in nineteenth century England, 1838–1886", which was published as her first book in 1986.

Levine's first academic post was as a lecturer in history at the University of East Anglia (1983–85). She then spent two years as a research fellow in women's studies at Flinders University of South Australia, before moving to Florida State University as an assistant professor in 1987. Three years later, she was promoted to associate professor. In 1991, she moved to the University of Southern California as an associate professor of history and became a full professor in 1994. She was appointed Mary Helen Thompson Centennial Professor in the Humanities at the University of Texas at Austin in 2010. Since 2017, she has been Walter Prescott Webb Professor in History and Ideas at the University of Texas at Austin.

Levine was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (FRHistS) in 1994, and a Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland (FRAI) in 2014.

Research Levine's research has focused on the history of the British Empire, race and gender, and science, medicine and society. Her publications include: The Amateur and the Professional. Historians, Antiquarians and Archaeologists in Victorian England, 1838–1886 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986) Victorian Feminism 1850–1900 (London: Hutchinson Education, 1987) Feminist Lives in Victorian England. Private Roles and Public Commitment (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990) (co-edited with Laura E. Nym Mayhall and Ian Christopher Fletcher) Women's Suffrage in the British Empire: Citizenship, Nation and Race (London: Routledge, 2000) Prostitution, Race and Politics: Policing Venereal Disease in the British Empire (New York: Routledge, 2003) (edited) Gender and Empire, Oxford History of the British Empire Companion Series (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004) (co-edited with Kevin Grant and Frank Trentmann) Beyond Sovereignty: Britain, Empire and Transnationalism, 1860–1950 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007) The British Empire, Sunrise to Sunset (Harlow: Longman Pearson 2007) Italian translation: L'impero britannico (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2009) (co-edited with Susan Grayzel) Gender, Labour, War and Empire in Modern Britain: Essays on Modern Britain (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009) (co-edited with Alison Bashford) The Oxford Handbook of the History of Eugenics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010) (co-edited with John Marriott) The Ashgate Research Companion to Modern Imperial Histories (Farnham: Ashgate, 2012) Eugenics: A Very Short Introduction (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017)

Biography shop

Don’t just read it —
keep it.

Full-length biographies made to live with: read them, listen on the way to work, watch them tonight.

  • E-book
  • Audio
  • Video
Browse the shop — from $7

Instant download · yours to keep · every purchase keeps this site free

Important facts

Birth century
Nationality
Education
King's College, St Antony's College
Employers
Florida State University, University of Southern California, University of Texas at Austin, University of East Anglia
Awards
Fellow of the Royal Historical Society; Guggenheim Fellowship

People in Philippa Levine's life

Named in this biography and alive at the same time

Contemporaries

People whose lives overlapped Philippa Levine's

Frequently asked questions

Who is Philippa Levine?

British historian & academic

When was Philippa Levine born?

Philippa Levine was born on 1 April 1957 in London.

What is Philippa Levine's occupation?

Philippa Levine is a historian and university teacher.

What nationality is Philippa Levine?

Philippa Levine is British.

Sources & further reading

· Wikipedia: Philippa Levine

· Wikidata: Q48031813

· DBpedia: Philippa Levine

Cite this page

APA: Biography.guide. (2026). Philippa Levine. https://biography.guide/philippa-levine/

MLA: "Philippa Levine." Biography.guide, https://biography.guide/philippa-levine/.

Chicago: "Philippa Levine." Biography.guide. https://biography.guide/philippa-levine/.

Data last updated: 2026-09-20 · Spot an error? Report a correction.

Page generated 2026-09-27 05:27 UTC