Catherine Baker

Reader in 20th Century History

University of Hull

Speaker Biography

Catherine Baker is Reader in 20th Century History at the University of Hull. She specialises in understanding the relationship between popular culture, media and national identity in post-Cold-War Europe, especially in the post-Yugoslav region and the UK, and is particularly interested in the cultural politics of international competitive events.

She has researched the Eurovision Song Contest for more than fifteen years and is a leading specialist on its LGBTQ+ politics and its significance in central and eastern Europe. In 2023, when Liverpool and the BBC hosted Eurovision on Ukraine’s behalf, she led the ‘Culture, Place and Partnership’ study of Eurovision’s cultural relations and soft power impact, commissioned by the British Council in partnership with Liverpool City Council and DCMS. Since 2019, when the University of Hull became Team GB’s official university partner, she has also co-led a series of heritage research projects to help Team GB understand the diverse history of British Olympic teams dating back to 1896 and inform team-building work with athletes ahead of each Summer and Winter Games.

She has written and edited eight books, most recently The Routledge Handbook of Popular Music and Politics of the Balkans with an international team of more than forty contributors across four continents. Since 2015 she has been a member of the Arts and Humanities Research Council’s peer review college.

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