Tom Sojka

Thomas J. Sojka received a dual BA in History and Political Science from Roger Williams University (2013) and an M.Litt in Modern History from the University of St Andrews (2014). His dissertation at Boston University, advised by Arianne Chernock, explores the spaces of sociability in the 1920s and 1930s in the UK. “Moving Beyond Mayfair: Rethinking Social Life in Interwar Britain” considers how the Bright Young People — an informal, quasi-aristocratic group of artists, writers, and professional party-goers — navigated the nighttime leisure landscape of London’s West End, the Scottish countryside, and the French Riviera. Additionally, it conceptualizes the interwar gossip column as a discursive social space, which worked to democratize elite sociability for a middle-class reading public. His work has appeared (and is forthcoming) in publications such as the Los Angeles Review of Books, Journal of British Studies, Twentieth Century British History, and English Historical Review.

He was the recipient of the Warren and Myrtle Ault Graduate Fellowship, “awarded to an outstanding graduate student of English history or literature” at Boston University. His commitment to teaching was also recognized in 2020, when he received the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Outstanding Teaching Fellow Award.