Matt Cook (historian)

Matt Cook FRHistS is a social and cultural historian specializing in LGBTQ and queer history. Since October 2023, he has served as the Jonathan Cooper Chair of the History of Sexuality at Mansfield College, Oxford University. The appointment makes him the UK's first professor of LGBTQ+ history.

Professor Matt Cook FRHistS
Title	Jonathan Cooper Professor of the History of Sexuality
Children	2
Academic background
Alma mater	Queen Mary University of London (PhD)
Academic work
Discipline	History
Sub-discipline	History of sexuality LGBT history Cultural history History of London
Institutions	Keele University Birkbeck, University of London Mansfield College, Oxford

Cook received his PhD in history at Queen Mary University of London, then served as a lecturer at Keele University from 2002 to 2005. He went on to teach for 18 years at Birkbeck College, University of London, where he ultimately was named professor of modern history and head of the Department of History, Classics and Archaeology.

Personal life

Cook has two children.

Selected publications

• London and the Culture of Homosexuality, 1885–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003).
• A Gay History of Britain: Love and Sex Between Men since the Middle Ages (Oxford: Greenwood, 2007); editor and lead author.
• Queer 1950s: Rethinking Sexuality in the Post-war Years (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012); co-editor with Heike Bauer.
• Queer Cities, Queer Cultures: Sexuality and Urban Life in post-1945 Europe (London: Continuum, 2014); co-editor with Jennifer Evans.
• Queer Domesticities: Homosexuality and Home Life in Twentieth-Century London (London: Palgrave, 2014).