Dr Alexander Langlands

I bring a host of innovative industry experience, critical thinking and cutting-edge skills development to my teaching and embrace alternative and engaged forms of teaching, indexing learning activities to real-world situations and global and local challenges.

My first-year teaching explores multi-period heritage sites across South Wales offering critical perspectives on how heritage is presented and discussed along with the essential research techniques required to improve our understanding of the historic past.

In the second year I teach across the early medieval period and encourage students to engage with a diverse range of source material and evidences. Archaeology is a strong component and we use this, as well as historical source material, folklore, place-names and topography to examine a range of themes. These include slavery, the impacts of 'Viking' expansion, gendered female sacral and dynastic power, the rise of kingdoms, urbanism and early medieval governance.

I teach industry-standard Geographic Information Systems at Third Year aligned to students’ individual historical and archaeological interests.

I have a range of research interests spanning multiple periods, places and themes.

I have interests in understanding the value of heritage in the context of present-day global challenges. Heritage, place and belonging are essential to community cohesion, a sense of connectedness and place-attachment. How, therefore, can we examine the notion of ‘heritage’ critically to unlock its potential to deliver social and public benefit.

I am increasingly interested in the archaeology and history of farming and the cultural landscape that is a product of it. Large scale landscape recovery must be an essential project for societies across the planet but this needs to be achieved in environments that produce food and other essential commodities. How can a greater understanding of past agricultural systems and their social and cultural dynamics serve to inform a better outcome for people and nature?

I remain interested in the early medieval landscape and its social, cultural, material and physical character. This includes the way people moved through the landscape, its ecological resources, the history and archaeology of its agriculture and the way it was perceived by those living in and passing through it.

(PI) ‘Heritage, Communities and Co-creating place’. AHRC Creative Communities, Creative Innovation Practitioner, £58,000. Grant Agreement No AH/X001555/ (2024)

(PI) ‘Archaeological and Historical Review of Kilvey Hill. Initial LIDAR Survey’. Research Wales Innovation Fund, Commercial, £9,000. (2022)

(Co-I) ‘Public Heritage and Community Regeneration’. Research Wales Innovation Fund, Civic Mission/Public Engagement, £350,000. (2020-23)

(PI) ‘Copper Crucibles: Where Chemistry meets art and archaeology’. Royal Society of Chemistry – Public Engagement Fund, £9,830. (Sept 2020).

(PI) ‘Copperopolis: Place-making, Engagement and Heritage-led Regeneration’. UKRI Public Engagement - Enhancing place-based Partnerships in Public Engagement, £26,280.00. (Dec 2019).

(PI) ‘Twenty-First Century Reverberations: Restoring Industrial Heritage in the Swansea Valley’. Heritage Lottery Fund, Our Heritage, £62,000. NLHF Ref: OH-17-00460 (Oct 2018)

(PI) ‘The Lost City of Sarum Project’, Society of Antiquaries, Margaret and Tom Jones Fund, £19,920 (Jan 2016, 2017).

(PI) Mapping the Genius Loci: Exploring the character of space and place in Ordnance Survey digital data, Ordnance Survey, (2013 – 2014)

(Honorary Lecturer) Travel and Communication in Anglo-Saxon England project (2014), University College London, Leverhulme Trust

(Senior advisor) Early Medieval Atlas project (2014 - 2017), Early Medieval Atlas project based at University College London.