Dr Malcolm Noble

Dr Malcolm Noble, History Tutor

BA History (Leicester)
MA Urban History (Leicester)
PhD Economic and Social History (Edinburgh)
Fellow Society of Antiquaries of Scotland
Fellow Higher Education Academy

Responsibilities

  • Previously LVC’s Transition Manager, responsible for managing our move towards offering accredited programmes.
  • History tutor, previously offering courses on the history of the book, and recently the English country house.

Teaching Areas

I teach British, European and Imperial history after 1700, and very open-minded about what forms this might take. I have a particular interest in teaching book history and analytical bibliography.

I have taught at the Universities of Leicester and Edinburgh. Most, but not all, of my teaching experience has been with adult learners, for whom co-production and co-design of learning is an obvious choice.

Research Areas

I principally work as a freelance historian, largely on business histories, although I have worked on a wide range of topics. Beyond this, my scholarly work falls under three areas. First, I am interested in co-operative learning and pedagogy, as well as critical university studies. Much of my writing is  with my long-term collaborator Cilla Ross. We are currently under contract with Palgrave to produce a follow-up edited collection on the Co-operative University Project:

Second, I am by training an urban and social and economic historian. I am working toward publishing my PhD research of the experience of municipal reform in Edinburgh in the 1830s as impeded by civic bankruptcy and remain interested in the boundaries of the local state and provision of public services.

Third, much of my current research is concerned with queer bibliography, that is to say the mobilization of queer theory to challenge the assumptions and methods of the field of bibliography (see work with Sarah Pyke), to recover queer experiences of print culture (see writings on Heartstopper), and also as powerful tools for all kinds of material (see for example work on Harold Silver, all below). Some questions arising from this are around the bibliographical description and historical development of office paper, which I am investigating as Presidential Fellow in in Bibliographical Studies at the Linda Hall Library for 2025/2026. I am more broadly interested in the uses of different copying and duplicating technologies and their affordances in the service of queer liberation, and have been working on a number of collections in relation to this.

Publications

  1. ‘Review of The British Publishing Industry in the Nineteenth Century: Volume I: The Structure of the Industry ed. by David Finkelstein and Andrew Nash (London: Routledge, 2024)’, for Publishing History, XC (2026), pp.223-227 
  2. ‘Instagram shelfies and everyday readings of Heartstopper’, Lovro Škopljanac et al (eds), Everyday Reading of Literature (Zagreb: FF Open Press, 2026), pp.280-305. https://openbooks.ffzg.unizg.hr/index.php/FFpress/catalog/book/210
  3. Review of Glyn Davis and Laura Guy, eds. Queer Print in Europe. London: Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 2022’, Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, 120, 1(2026), pp.124-127. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/740107
  4. Review of ‘Cliff Hague and Richard Rodger with DJ Johnston-Smith and Terry Levinthal, Campaigning for Edinburgh: The Cockburn Association 1875-2049’, Book of the Old Edinburgh Club, new series 21 (2025), pp.103-105.
  5. ‘Review of Fernando Collantes, Milk in Spain and the history of diet change: the political economy of dairy consumption since 1950 (London, Bloomsbury Academic, 2025)’, Business History online early (2025), http://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2025.2578126
  6. with Elizabeth Ott (Emory), ‘The State of Queer Bibliography Today’, The New Americanist, 4, 1-2 (2025), pp.1-12. https://www.euppublishing.com/doi/10.3366/tna.2025.0039
  7. with Sarah Pyke, ‘A bibliographic gathering: Reflecting on ‘Queer Bibliography: Tools, Methods, Practice, Approaches’, Journal of Electronic Publishing 28, 1 (2025), pp.245-261. https://journals.publishing.umich.edu/jep/article/6034/galley/4629/download/
  8. George Farmiloe and Sons: two hundred years and six generations of a London family (The firm, 2024).
  9. (ed.) with Esther Gicheru (Co-operative University of Kenya) and Cilla Ross (U. Nottingham), a special number on ‘Co-operative education’, Journal of Co-operative Studies, 57, 2 (2024). https://www.ukscs.coop/resources/journal-of-co-operative-studies-vol-57-no-2
  10. ‘Unpacking Harold Silver’s Library: an historian of education and his books’, History of Education (2026), online early: 10.1080/0046760X.2025.2599196
  11. ‘Introducing the Catalogue of Harold Silver’s Library’, History of Education Researcher, 114 (2024), pp.22-29.
  12. ‘New directions in Edinburgh’s past: the third edition of the OEC Bibliography of Edinburgh History’, Book of the Old Edinburgh Club, new series, 20 (2024), pp.113-116.
  13. with Esther Gicheru (Co-operative University of Kenya) and Cilla Ross (U. Nottingham), ‘Guest editorial: Co-operative education in an age of crisis’, Journal of Co-operative Studies,57, 2 (autumn 2024), pp.3-9. https://www.ukscs.coop/resources/journal-of-co-operative-studies-vol-57-no-2
  14. with Sarah Pyke, ‘Queer Bibliography: a rationale’, Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, 118, 2 (2024), pp.147-169. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/toc/pbsa/2024/118/2
  15. Melting wax and warming hearts: Heartstopper, scented candles, and bookish social media’, special number of New Americanist on ‘Bookish objects’, 3, 1 (2024), pp.48-69. https://www.euppublishing.com/doi/10.3366/tna.2024.0026
  16. ‘Affective bibliography: three queer approaches to print’ in Jessica Farrell-Jobst and Elise Watson (eds), Gender and the Book Trades, Library of the Written Word (Leiden: Brill, 2024), pp.468-84.
  17. ‘Heartstopper’, The Literary Encyclopedia (7 November 2024), https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=41550.
  18. ‘Review of Lauren Alex O’Hagan, The Sociocultural Functions of Edwardian Book Inscriptions: taking a Multimodal Ethnohistorical Approach (New York: Routledge, 2021)’, for SHARP News: Society for the history of authorship, readership and print, published November 2024, online at https://sharpweb.org/sharpnews/2024/11/15/lauren-alex-ohagan-the-sociocultural-functions-of-edwardian-book-inscriptions-taking-a-multimodal-ethnohistorical-approach/
  19. ‘Co-operation for Asset-Based Community Development: the example of the Community Explorers project at Leicester Vaughan College’, in Julian Manley, Anthony Webster and Olga Kuznetsova (eds), Co-operation and Co-operatives in 21st Century Europe (Bristol University Press, 2023), pp.125-143. https://doi.org/10.46692/9781529226430.009
  20. ‘Co-operation not competition: on the queer potential of co-operative higher education’, in Churnjeet Mahn, Yvette Taylor, and Matt Brim (eds), Queer Sharing in the Marketized University (Routledge, 2022), pp.44-62. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003203254
  21. ‘Review of Margaret Galvan, In Visible Archives: Queer and Feminist Visual Culture in the 1980s (Minneapolis: U. Minnesota Press, 2023)’, Information & Culture, 60, 2 (2025) pp. 219-220, https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/lac.00016.
  22. OEC Bibliography of Edinburgh History, version 5 (2026) https://oldedinburghclub.org.uk/bibliography-of-edinburgh-history/. 
  23. with Cilla Ross, ‘From principles to participation: “The Statement on the Cooperative Identity” and Higher Education Co-operatives’, Journal of Co-operative Organization and Management, 9 (2021), 100146. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2213297X21000185
  24. OEC Bibliography of Edinburgh History, which can be accessed here (Edinburgh: Old Edinburgh Club, 2021).
  25. ”Finding Edinburgh’s Past: introducing The OEC Bibliography of Edinburgh History‘, Book of the Old Edinburgh Club, 16 (2020), pp.103-7.
  26. with Ann Stones, Learning Together: The LAT Community Explorers Project (Leicester: Leicester Vaughan College, 2020), 42pp. Online here.
  27. with Cilla Ross, ‘Bundling Co-operative Higher Education: towards a theory of co-operative learning’, Journal of Co-operative Studies (2020), 53, 3. Online here.
  28. with Cilla Ross, ‘Co-operative Higher Education and the post-pandemic university’, Post-pandemic University (2020). Online here.
  29. ‘From one sheet: a lesson in queer bibliography’, Queer Zine Library: Year 1 (London: Queer Zine Library, 2020).
  30. With Tom Woodin, ‘Review of Periodical Literature on the History of Education published in 2018’, History of Education Researcher, 105 (2020), pp.32-59
  31. Review of ‘Michael Anderson, ‘Scotland’s Populations from the 1850s to Today’’, Economic History Review 73, 1 (2020), pp.331-2, https://doi.org/10.1111/ehr.12948.
  32. Collection edited with Cilla Ross, Reclaiming the University for the Public Good: Futures in Co-operative Higher Education (Critical University Studies, Palgrave, 2019) https://www.palgrave.com/gb/book/9783030216245; paperback 2021.
  33. with Cilla Ross, ‘Now is the Time for Co-operative Higher Education’, in Reclaiming the University for the Public Good. https://www.palgrave.com/gb/book/9783030216245
  34. with Cilla Ross, ‘Seeking a co-operative university: reconstructing adult education and reclaiming HE as a public good’, in Reclaiming the University for the Public Good. https://www.palgrave.com/gb/book/9783030216245
  35. Risk, Reward and Reputation: the story of Morrison construction (Crucible books, 2019). https://www.carnegiepublishing.co.uk/product/morrison-story-1948-2019/
  36. with Susannah Lisbet Wright, ‘Review of Periodic Literature 2017’, History of Education Researcher, 103 (2019), pp.48-72.
  37. ‘Co-operative Higher Education is the Answer: how to save adult education for the last time’, Widening Participation and Lifelong Learning, 21, 1 (2019), pp.139-44. https://doi.org/10.5456/WPLL.21.1.139
  38. Review of ‘Jeffrey Abt, ‘Valuing Detroit’s Art Museum: a history of fiscal abandonment and rescue’’, Urban History, 45, 4 (2018), pp.736-7, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0963926818000512.
  39. with Richard Hall: ‘The Practicalities and pedagogies of adult learning co-operatives: Vaughan resurgam’, SCUTREA Proceedings (SCUTREA, 2018), pp.197-205, open online access http://www.scutrea.ac.uk/p/scutrea.html.
  40. ‘The Problems and Possibility of Common Good Accounts: Edinburgh, c.1820-56’, Scottish Archives, 21 (2017), pp.44-58, https://www.scottishrecordsassociation.org/2282.Scottish%20Archives%20-21.5%20Noble.web.2017-02-02.pdf.
  41. ‘The Common Good and Borough Reform: Leicester c.1820-50’, Midland History, 41, 1 (2016), pp.37-56, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0047729X.2016.1159853.
  42. ‘To obliterate forever Hunnish names’, Context, 137 (2014), pp.12-13, open online access at: http://ihbconline.co.uk/context/137/#14/z.
  43. ‘Bibliography of urban history 2010’, Urban History, 37, 3 (2010), pp.499-551, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0963926810000593.
  44. Review of ‘The Feminine Public Sphere: Middle-Class Women in Civic Life in Scotland c.1870–1914’, Reviews in History, 999 (2010), online at http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/review/999.
  45. Review of ‘Phillada Ballard (ed.), Birmingham’s Victorian and Edwardian Architects’’, Urban History, 37, 2 (2010), pp.341-2. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0963926810000441.
  46. ‘Bibliography of urban history 2009’, Urban History, 36, 3 (2009), pp.519-77, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0963926809990216.
  47. Review of ‘David G. Barrie, Police in the Age of Improvement: Police Development and the Civic Tradition in Scotland, 1775–1865’, Urban History, 36, 2 (2009), pp.346-7, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0963926809006336.
  48. ‘Thomas Burbidge: Last Town Clerk to the Corporation of Leicester’, Leicestershire Historian, 45 (2009), pp.44-7.
  49. Reviews in Leicestershire Historian (2009-present).
  50. ‘Bibliography of urban history 2008’, Urban History, 35, 3 (2008), pp.524-73, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0963926808005889.

Please do not hesitate to email malcolm.noble@vaughan.coop for access, as in many cases I can provide a PDF

Scholarships and awards

  • Presidential Fellowship in Bibliography, Linda Hall Library, Kansas City, MO (2025-2026).
  • SHARP Conference award (2025).
  • Spencer Library Researcher Travel Award, University of Kansas Libraries (2024-2025).
  • Fellowship in Bibliographical Studies, History of Education Society (2023-2024).
  • William T. Buice III Scholarship, Rare Books School (2021).
  • Richard Aldrich Fellow, History of Education Society (2019).
  • Richard Aldrich Fellow, History of Education Society (2018).
  • James Davis Scholarship, Rare Books School (2017).
  • John Nichols Prize for English Local History (2009).

Service

  • Member of Advisory Board Journal of Co-operative Studies, 2022-present
  • Co-operative College University Working Group, 2016-2018.
  • Member of Interim Academic Board, Co-operative University Project, Co-operative College, 2019.
  • Co-operative University Federation Steering Group 2020-present.
  • Founder Member, Leicester Vaughan College Limited, 2017-present; Director and Secretary, 2017-19.
  • Membership of CERN (Co-operative Early Researchers Network) 2019- present.
  • Conference Committee Urban History Group.
  • Vodcasting Urban History (New Teaching Initiatives Fund, University of Leicester) 2009-2010. Samples at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luTTGD6U4Yg

Recent Conferences and Workshops

  • ‘Not in Kansas anymore? Feeling community and kinship in the queer newsletters in the Bruce McKinney collection, c.1980-2000’, Queer Bibliography: in the South, U. Georgia, Athens GA, 9-11 March 2026.
  • ‘Selling books with Charlie’s bedroom: Heartstopper’, ‘Bookselling as Resistance’, Bookselling Research Network, U. Münster, 11-12 September 2025.
  • With Sarah Pyke (U. Münster), J.D. Sargan (U. Georgia), Bri Watson (UBC), ‘Queer and trans communities and values of the book’, ‘Communities and Values of the Book’, SHARP, Rochester NY, 7-11 July 2025.
  • ‘Folding, stapling, sticking, and posting: queer newsletters in the Bruce McKinney collection, c.1980-2000’, ‘Communities and Values of the Book’, SHARP, Rochester NY, 7-11 July 2025.
  • ‘Make opera queer again? Parterre Box (1993-2001)’, Queer Bibliography, Newcastle, 11-13 June 2025.
  • ‘Queer YA fiction as intergenerational dialogue and public history of Section 28: Simon James Green’s Boy Like Me’, Legacies of Section 28, 6-7 June, UCL, London.
  • with Louise Morgan (U. Warwick), Anne Touboulic, Richard Hyde (U. Nottingham), Lucy McCarthy (U. Bristol), ‘Making the invisible visible and revealing power in narratives: introducing Multi-modal Critical Discourse Analysis’ at the first Organization: the critical journal of organization, theory and society conference, online, 9-13 December 2024.
  • ‘Entering the Osemanverse: a transmedia approach to Heartstopper’, Young Adult Studies Association, online 4-8 November 2024.
  • ‘Leaky and absorbent books: material paratexts and contemporary queer print culture’, Objects. Between Absorption and Isolation, Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max-Planck-Institut, Florence 16-18 October 2024.
  • ‘Reading Isaac, reading identities: queer bookishness in Heartstopper’, Queer Bibliography, UCLA, Los Angeles, 25-27 July 2024.
  • ‘ECR Keynote panel’ at Actions, Alternatives, Assumptions, Organizational Discourse, U. Bristol Business School, Bristol, 1-2 July 2024.
  • ‘The merchant’s catalogue as archive: writing the early history of George Farmiloe and Sons from surviving catalogues’, Print in Archives, USTC, U. St Andrews, 20-22 June 2024.
  • ‘Queer critical bibliography and queer kinship’ as part of panel ‘What can queer and trans bibliography do for queer and trans history? At Queer and Trans History Now, Mansfield College, Oxford, 18-19 June 2024.
  • ‘Unpacking Harold Silver’s Library: a talk about book collecting’, Senses, Emotions and Experience in the History of Education, History of Education Society, University of Sheffield, 17-19 November 2023.
  • ‘Where was my Heartstopper?  Using ideas of reparative reading to understand older readers of queer YA literature’, Un/Discipling Reading, University College Dublin, 15-16 September 2023.
  • ‘The emotional labour of management consultants reorganizing a family business: George Farmiloe and Sons Limited 1953-56’, British Academy of Management, 2 September 2023.
  • Awarded Management and Business History Track Best Developmental paper.
  • with Richard Hyde, Lucy McCarthy, Louise Morgan, and Anne Touboulic, ‘A (hi)story of milk safety in the UK: A critical narrative approach across disciplines’, British Academy of Management, 2 September 2023.
  • with Richard Hyde, Lucy McCarthy, Louise Morgan, and Anne Touboulic, ‘Who is driving the agenda in food safety and why?: piloting a new discourse analysis tool’, British Society for the History of Science, Digital Festival of the History of Science, 3 July 2023.
  • ‘Leicester Vaughan College: past, present, future’, Leicester Secular Society, 10 October 2021.
  • with Lucas Ihlein, Cath Muller, and Joss Winn ‘Re-imagining the University as a Co-op’, panel discussion, U-topias, University of Wollongong/online, July 2020.