Matt Cook (historian)

{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}

{{short description|British historian and academic}}

{{Infobox academic

| honorific_prefix = Professor

| name = Matt Cook

| honorific_suffix = {{post-nominals|country=GBR|FRHistS|size=100%}}

| image = Matt Cook, British cultural historian.JPG

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| birth_date = {{birth year and age|1969}}

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| title = Jonathan Cooper Professor of the History of Sexuality

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| children = 3

| alma_mater = University of Sheffield (BA)
Queen Mary University of London (MA, PhD)

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| discipline = History

| sub_discipline = {{hlist|History of sexuality|LGBT history|Cultural history|History of London}}

| workplaces = Keele University
Birkbeck, University of London
Mansfield College, Oxford

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Matthew "Matt" Cook {{post-nominals|country=GBR|FRHistS|size=100%}}{{cite web |title=List of Fellows (February 2024) |url=https://files.royalhistsoc.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/22170322/Fellows_February-2024.xlsb.pdf |website=Royal Historical Society |access-date=27 June 2024}} (born 1969){{cite web |title=Queer domesticities: homosexuality and home life in twentieth-century London / Matt Cook, Senior Lecturer in History and Gender Studies, Birkbeck College, University of London, UK |url=https://wellcomecollection.org/works/nhzkppgf |website=Wellcome Collection |access-date=20 May 2025}} 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.Sally Weale, [https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/jun/05/matt-cook-oxford-university-appoints-uk-first-professor-of-lgbtq-history Oxford University appoints UK’s first professor of LGBTQ+ history], The Guardian. Retrieved 7 June 2023.

Cook was educated at a state secondary school in Staffordshire and received his BA from the University of Sheffield and his MA and PhD from Queen Mary University of London.{{cite web |title=Professor Matt Cook |url=https://www.history.ox.ac.uk/people/professor-matt-cook |website=Faculty of History, University of Oxford |access-date=20 May 2025}} He 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.[https://www.history.ox.ac.uk/people/professor-matt-cook Professor Matt Cook.] Oxford University. Retrieved 6 December 2023. While at Birkbeck he also directed the Raphael Samuel History Centre.{{cite web |last1=Bengry |first1=Justin |title=Queer Domesticities: Matt Cook on Home Life, Family and Community in London |url=https://notchesblog.com/2015/02/26/queer-domesticities-matt-cook-on-home-life-family-and-community-in-london/ |website=Notches |date=26 February 2015 |access-date=28 December 2024}}

Cook worked with the National Trust in 2017 on their Prejudice and Pride programme and co-authored its associated guidebook. He has also advised on archival projects related to the history of gender and sexuality, including English Heritage's Pride of Place and the Pitt Rivers Museum's Beyond the Binary.{{cite web |last1=Weale |first1=Sally |title=Oxford University appoints UK's first professor of LGBTQ+ history |url=https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/jun/05/matt-cook-oxford-university-appoints-uk-first-professor-of-lgbtq-history |website=The Guardian |date=5 June 2023 |access-date=28 December 2024}} He is a series editor of the Queer and Trans Histories series at Manchester University Press{{cite web |title=Queer and Trans Histories |url=https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/series/queer-and-trans-histories/ |website=Manchester University Press |access-date=11 February 2025}} and an editor of History Workshop Journal.{{cite web |title=Editorial Board, History Workshop Journal |url=https://academic.oup.com/hwj/pages/Editorial_Board |website=Oxford University Press |access-date=11 June 2025}}