Dr John Slight

Professional biography

I took my BA degree in History from the University of Cambridge. I continued at Cambridge for my MPhil and PhD, under the supervision of Professor Tim Harper. A few months before I submitted my PhD, I began work as an AHRC-funded Research Consultant on Hajj: journey to the heart of Islam, a major exhibition at The British Museum which attracted c.140,000 visitors in 2012. I was elected to a Research Fellowship at St. John's College Cambridge in 2012, and while there also taught at Goldsmiths College, University of London, Cambridge Muslim College, and the University of Essex. I joined the Open University as a Lecturer in Modern History in 2016 and became a Lecturer in Imperial and Global History in 2019. I am also Director of the Ferguson Centre for African and Asian Studies.

My first book, The British Empire and the Hajj 1865-1956 (Harvard University Press, 2015) was awarded the triennial Trevor Reese Memorial Prize in 2017 by the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, London, for the most 'wide-ranging, innovative and scholarly work in imperial history'

Research interests

My main research interests are the British empire in the Middle East, Arabia and the greater Middle East during the First World War, and the relationship between British imperialism and Islamic religious practices, from the nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries.

My future projects include British imperial policies and the expansion of Islam, British maritime imperialism in the Red Sea, and British military bases in the Middle East.

Publications

Monograph

The British Empire and the Hajj, 1865-1956 (2015-09-21)
ISBN : 9780674504783 | Publisher : Harvard University Press | Published : Cambridge, MA

Journal articles

Book chapters

Reactions to the Ottoman Jihad fatwa in the British Empire, 1914-1918 (2019)
In: Johnson, Robert and Kitchen, James E. eds. The Great War in the Middle East
Publisher : Routledge

Anglo-French connections and co-operation against ‘Islamic’ resistance, 1914-1917 (2018-11-12)
In: Fichter, James R. ed. British and French Colonialism in Africa, Asia and the Middle East: Connected Empires across the Eighteenth to the Twentieth Centuries. Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies Series
ISBN : 978-3-319-97963-2 | Publisher : Palgrave Macmillan

Pilgrimage to Mecca by British converts to Islam in the interwar period (2017-07-27)
In: Flaskerud, Ingvild and Natvig, Richard J. eds. Muslim Pilgrimage in Europe. Routledge Studies in Pilgrimage, Religious Travel and Tourism (pp. 70-82)
ISBN : 978-1472447470 | Publisher : Routledge

British Colonial Knowledge and the Hajj in the Age of Empire (2016-10-05)
In: Ryad, Umar ed. The Hajj and Europe in the Age of Empire. Leiden Studies in Islam and Society (pp. 81-111)
ISBN : 9789004323346 | Publisher : Brill | Published : Leiden

The Hajj and the Raj: From Thomas Cook to Bombay's Protector of Pilgrims (2013)
In: Porter, Venetia and Saif, Liana eds. The Hajj: Collected Essays. Research Publication (193) (pp. 115-121)
ISBN : 978-086159-193-0 | Publisher : The British Museum Press

Essays on Medium.com

https://medium.com/@slightjp/pilgrims-progress-ff20137f4a50

https://medium.com/@slightjp/between-arabia-and-south-asia-the-pilgrim-guides-2ca053a5c14f

https://medium.com/@slightjp/st-johns-college-cambridge-and-the-first-world-war-77b1c0458748

https://medium.com/@slightjp/philby-of-arabia-and-williamson-of-the-gulf-2dd66f4527b6

https://medium.com/@slightjp/snapshots-from-history-aleppo-november-1918-da69b8f5ac3b

https://medium.com/@slightjp/roald-dahls-school-essays-on-the-british-empire-36060b7d91df

https://medium.com/@slightjp/the-impact-of-the-first-world-war-on-qatar-2bb7acf55e0

https://medium.com/@slightjp/the-white-caliph-of-sarawak-and-the-scottish-governor-of-medina-54add4cc9fa5

https://medium.com/@slightjp/islamic-connections-across-asia-c-1910-1930-pan-islam-and-communism-5ac5fceb08c5

Teaching interests

Imperial, transnational and world history from c.1400, with a particular interest in the history of empires. 

Impact and engagement

My PhD research informed my work as a Research Consultant on the British Museum's major exhibition on the Hajj.

I have delivered seminars on the British Empire and Islam to the Prince's Trust Summer School and Sutton Trust Summer School at Cambridge.

I delivered a presentation on Jihad and the Caliphate to the Home Office.

External collaborations

Affiliated Researcher, Faculty of History, University of Cambridge, 2016-2019