Guy Halsall

Guy Halsall (born 1964) is an English historian of Early Medieval Europe. He is currently based at the University of York, and has published a number of books, essays, and articles on the subject of early medieval history and archeology. Halsall's current research focuses on western Europe in the important period of change around AD 600 and on the application of continental philosophy (especially the work of Jacques Derrida) to history.

Guy Halsall was born in North Ferriby in 1964 and raised in Worcestershire. He studied Archaeology and History at the University of York, earning the first First-Class degree from York's archaeology department in 1986. He completed his D.Phil at York in 1991 with a thesis on the "history and archaeology of the region of Metz in the Merovingian period" supervised by Edward James and examined by Steve Roskams and Bryan Ward-Perkins.

In 1990 Halsall was awarded a post-doctoral research fellowship at the University of Newcastle. From 1991-2002 he was a permanent lecturer, and then reader, in early medieval history and archaeology at Birkbeck, University of London. In 2003 he moved to the University of York, and was promoted to a professorship there in 2006.

In June 2013, Halsall was one of the signatories to an open letter criticising the proposed changes to the British history curriculum being implemented by Conservative Minister for Education Michael Gove. The letter expressed the opinion that the proposed reforms were "underpinned by an unbalanced promotion of partisan political views" in that they emphasised an Anglocentric "national triumphalism" and thus contravened the Education Acts of 1996 and 2002.

In December 2012, Halsall briefly attracted attention in the Times Higher after a University of York student newspaper, Nouse, published an intemperate message he had sent to students enrolled on an undergraduate course, concerning non-attendance at lectures. The tone of his post caused some offence at the time, and the student newspaper published Halsall's apology. In view of the publicity the exchange had attracted, the History Department and Board of Studies at York made a joint statement highlighting that Halsall was "among the most highly rated" lecturers according to student evaluations, and suggesting that his original comments reflected the understandable frustration of "a world-leading scholar and excellent lecturer" faced with a noticeable degree of student non-attendance.

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