Dr Maryse Tennant

I joined the criminology team at CCCU in November 2013. My academic journey began with my undergraduate studies at Keele University whose interdisciplinary approach fostered a life long interest in research across and between several disciplines. Awarded a first class honours degree in Criminology and Psychology I went on to work and volunteer for several homlessness charities following my graduation. In 2005 I was awarded an ECRF scholarship to complete a Masters in Criminology and Research Methods followed by my PhD, which was awarded in 2011.

During my time at CCCU I have taught on a number of modules for our criminology and policing modules at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. I also supervise and examine postgraduate research students for both masters and PhD research. I have recently been involved in validating two criminology pathways as part of an interdisciplinary masters course and am now Course Director for all out Criminology undergraduate courses. My leadership roles within the School include research and ethics.

The criminology courses at CCCU involve a collaborative approach to teaching. Consequently, I contribute to a range of modules across the programme. For example, I deliver a session exploring ideas of social justice at prison museums to out third year students, and another to the second years which considers the Grenfell Tower fire as an example of state-corporate crime.  I have co-ordinated and designed a number of my own modules during my time at the University, including core areas of the curriculum, such as Research Methods and the final year dissertation module. By adopting a blended learning approach to teach research methods which increased active learning in this area, I improved student satisfaction with the module and also increased the number of students undertaking research-based dissertations.

I currently run a specialist third year module exploring Punishment and the Prison. The first assessment for this involves students act as co-creators of knowledge, using a ghost criminology approach to expand the prisoner life stories developed through my research on Canterbury prison.  I am passionate about including students actively in the generation of knowledge, supporting them to contribute to staff research, as well as undertaking their own projects. I also support staff to develop their supervisory skills at undergraduate and postgraduate levels.  

In collaboration with Dr Katja Hallenberg, I have worked to embed sustainability within the criminology curriculum, leading to a sustained increased in content on environmental criminology, climate change, social harm and social justice. I also contribute to other programmes within the School, including the in-service BSc Policing course, the MSc by Research in Policing, and the MSc in Policing with the Police Academy in the Netherlands. I also act as an external examiner for part of the Criminology programme at Kingston University.

My interest in both historical and critical criminology began during my undergraduate studies at Keele University. My masters dissertation explored experiences of victimisation among homesless young people and for my Ph.D. I produced a Bourdieusian analysis of the introduction of modern policing, outlining an original theoretical model that has relevance for understanding local-central state relations more generally during this period.  Canterbury Christ Church University bought the former Canterbury prison site in 2014. My research since has focused on the development of ethical and multi-perspective representations of that institution's almost two hundred year history. Mapping the History of Canterbury Prison and the Prison Lives exhibition was an initial element of this but work continues. It is hoped that the University will eventually develop a heritage centre as part of the redevelopment of the site.  

I have also been involved in producing guidance for best practice in representing histories of imprisonment at prison museums as part of two funded research projects. I have also researched penal heritage in Viet Nam, forming part of an inter-disciplinary team working on this.  My postgraduate supervision currently involves projects exploring staff and culture in open prisons, the historical delivery of rehabilitation in prisons between 1948 and the 1970s, and representations of women and family relationships within cases of fatal domestic homicide in the mid-twentieth century.  

Research Projects Historical development of open prisons in the UK. Researcher(s): Miss AMY BROMLEY. Supervisor(s): Dr Maryse Tennant, Ms Kristina Massey. [Postgraduate Research Project] Murder in the Family: Representations of Gender in the Mid-Twentieth Century. Researcher(s): Miss BROOKE JONES. Supervisor(s): Dr Maryse Tennant, Professor Steve Tong. [Postgraduate Research Project] Open prisons, prison staff and prison work: Exploring the distinct aims and environment of the open prison and the cultural adaptation to a different kind of prison work.. Researcher(s): Mrs NAOMI CLEMONS. Supervisor(s): Dr Maryse Tennant, Dr Dominic Wood. [Postgraduate Research Project] The implementation of rehabilitative initiatives in British Prisons between 1895 and 1995 and the implications of this for notions of the rise and fall of the ‘rehabilitative ideal’.. Researcher(s): Mrs ABI CARTER. Supervisor(s): Dr Maryse Tennant, Dr Sarah Cant. [Postgraduate Research Project]

My research on historical criminology has involved me delivering conference presentations at a number of national and international events, including those organized by the European Society of Criminology and the British Society of Criminology. I have been invited to speak on my work by a number of organisations, including the Crime and Punishment Collections Network, the Police and Criminal Justice Seminar Series run by The Open University, and the National Justice Museum. I have also been invited to present at events associated with research projects such as the ‘Sites of Suffering, Sites of Memory’ and the artist Edgar Martin’s ‘What Photography has in Common with an Empty Vase’ symposium.

Examples of some recent papers include:  

Tennant, M. (2021) ‘”Our Penal Borstal”: Navigating “the half-way house” in early implementation of the borstal system’, paper presented at the British Crime Historians Symposium, Online, 3rd September 2021.

Tennant, M. (2019) ‘Museums of Pain: Prisoner ‘Mugshots’ and the Pain we Cannot See’, paper presented at the British Society of Criminology Conference, University of Lincoln, 4th July 2019.

Tennant, M. (2018) ‘Photography and the Pain of the Prison’, paper presented at What Photography has in Common with an Empty Vase Symposium, Birmingham City University, 5th December 2018

Tennant, M. (2018) ‘The Tiger Cages of Con Dao: Some Observations’, paper to be presented at the A Poetics of Space: Images of Con Dao workshop, National Justice Museum, Nottingham, 24th Nov. 2018

I am associated with a number of historical criminology networks, and was involved in the establishment of both the British Crime Historians and the Historical Criminology network of the British Society of Criminology. I have acted as a peer-reviewer for the ESRC, as well as historical and sociological journals, such as Historical Research and Capital and Class, and the Routledge books Criminology series. In 2016 I was a member of the Advisory Editorial Board for new Open University Press Criminology textbook by Case et al. In 2017 I participated in the steering group to established the Historical Criminology sub-group within the British Society of Criminology I continue to be a member of the Academic Advisory Group for this. In 2018 I was invited to be an academic advisor on the launch of the new ditigal penal heritage resource containing information about historic British prisons developed by Dr Rosalind Crone at The Open University