Louise Brangan

Dr, Chancellor's Fellow, Senior Lecturer

  • United Kingdom

Accepting PhD Students

Personal profile

Personal Statement

My work explores the ways in which societies punish wrongdoers, using sociological, cultural, historical and comparative approaches.

 

I have  written on the Ireland’s use of Magdalene laundries, and the contemporary histories of Irish and Scottish prison systems - for which I received the Theoretical Criminology Best Article Prize (2022) and the Brian Williams Prize (2020) for the best criminological article from an emerging scholar.  

 

Along with traditional academic writing, I am especially keen on the arts and how they can communicate research and engage the public. In 2023, I was named as one of the BBC’s New Generation Thinkers, and made a radio essay based on my work. I also co-wrote a script for a piece of dance theatre (with Sinead McCann), shown in Dublin in 2024 to much audience acclaim. In 2024, I signed contracts with The Bodley Head (UK) and Simon and Schuster (US) for a tradebook on my research examining the rise and fall of Ireland’s Magdalene laundries. 

In 2025, I was the recipent a Royal Sociey of Literature's  Giles St Aubyn prize for new non-fiction.

 

I joined Strathclyde in 2021 as a Chancellor's Fellow, having previously been the Policy and Public Affairs Manager at the Howard League Scotland a lecturer at the University of Stirling. I completed my PhD at the University of Edinburgh in 2017. During that time I was also a visiting Fulbright scholar at the Center for the Study of Law and Society at UC Berkeley.

 

I am currently leading an ESRC New Investigator Grant funded study of Magdalene Laundries in Ireland, "Mass Decarceration: A critical social history'.  With Dr Colette Barry (UCD) I am also undertaking a history of Irish prison officers, funded by the British Academy/Leverhulme small grant fund.

 

My books include "The Politics of Punishment" and the "Histories of Punishment and Social Control in Ireland". I am an international associate editorial board member at Punishment & Society, and on the editorial boards of The British Journal of Criminology, and Law & Society Review.

 

For part of 2024/25, I will be a Nominated Fellow at IASH at the University of Edinburgh, and a Visiting Fellow at NYU's Ireland House. I am also undertaking an MRes in Creative Writing at the Univeristy of Strathclyde.

 

 

I welcome PhD applications concerned with penal culture and penal politics, comparative criminology, and the social history of punishment.

Expertise related to UN Sustainable Development Goals

In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. This person’s work contributes towards the following SDG(s):

  • SDG 16 - Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics where Louise Brangan is active. These topic labels come from the works of this person. Together they form a unique fingerprint.
  • 1 Similar Profiles

Collaborations and top research areas from the last five years

Recent external collaboration on country/territory level. Dive into details by clicking on the dots or