Staff profile

Biography

I am a historian of twentieth century U.S. cultural politics, with a particular focus on how children's literature became a vehicle for protest on both the left and the right. I am interested in how education became a key battleground over race, gender identity, sexuality, militarism among many other core issues. Broadly, my work focuses on childhood and education in wider battles in U.S. culture wars as social justive movements, think tanks, and politicians focused on children as both victims and active agents of change during political turmoil.

Before coming to Durham, I was educated at the University of St Andrews, Universiteit Leiden, and the University of Edinburgh. Since my doctoral studies I have been a Teaching Fellow at the University of Edinburgh and an Associate Lecturer at the Open University. 

 

Current Research

I am working on a history of the Council on Interracial Books for Children (CIBC), an organisation that emerged out of the U.S. civil rights movement and developed alongside antiracist and antisexist movements in the United States and beyond. I examine the intersections between protest and literature as writers and artists became activists in social justice movements in the United States. My work traces the CIBC as they worked with activists in Black Power, Women's Liberation, LGBTQ+ movements, Disability rights, and many other liberation movements.

I have also been developing a project on book bans in the United States. These bans became key weapons in the arsenal of the culture wars. Activists, parents, politicians, and think tanks became focused on what messages were being transmitted in schoolbooks which resulted in protests and even bombings as book bans became manifestations of underlying anxieties and ideologies. Book bans have proliferated within the United States in the last decade, as populist politicians and activists have sought to target books relating to LGBTQ+ issues and critical race theory, among others, as part of wider "culture wars." I am also developing projects are focusing on mapping book bans in the United States, focusing on organisations including The Heritage Foundation and Citizens for Decent Literature. 

Teaching

A Change is Gonna Come: The United States in the 1960s

Conversations in History: The Science Wars

The Rise and Fall of American Slavery 

I've also previously taught courses on Revolutions, The Postwar U.S. Liberal Consensus, The Brownies Book, and The Rise of the U.S. Right.

Public History

Since 2018 I have worked with Professor Celeste-Marie Bernier and the National Library of Scotland on Frederick Douglass, the Douglass family and other Black freedom revolutionaries in Scotland. This has included developing  educational resources, digital maps, and contributing to a documentary film.

I also worked alongside Professor Bernier in developing some materials for Isaac Julien's immersive film intallation on the life and times of Frederick Douglass

 https://ourbondageourfreedom.llc.ed.ac.uk/

Struggles for Liberty home page | National Library of Scotland Newsroom

 

• U.S. Political History
• History of Childhood
• Children's Literature
• Cultural Politics
• civil rights
• Black Power
• New Right
• Education

• 2021: Higher Education Academy:

Journal Article

• Art and Storytelling on the Streets: The Council on Interracial Books for Children’s Use of African American Children’s Literature
  
  Batho, N. (2023). Art and Storytelling on the Streets: The Council on Interracial Books for Children’s Use of African American Children’s Literature. Humanities, 12(4), Article 69. https://doi.org/10.3390/h12040069
• Black Power Children's Literature: Julius Lester and Black Power
  
  Batho, N. (2021). Black Power Children’s Literature: Julius Lester and Black Power. Journal of American Studies, 55(1), 25-47. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0021875819000136
• “We’re A’ Jock Tamson’s Bairns”: Frederick Douglass and the People of Scotland
  
  Nick Batho. (2020). “We’re A’ Jock Tamson’s Bairns”: Frederick Douglass and the People of Scotland. Kalfou: A Journal of Comparative and Relational Ethnic Studies, 7(1). https://doi.org/10.15367/kf.v7i1.301