Julian is interested in the ideas and experiences of time, and in history, culture and music. He has published widely on European history, particularly the history of France. His recent volume with the Proceedings of the British Academy, Time on a Human Scale, puts the human present back into the cultural, philosophical and literary history of Europe between 1860 and 1930. 

Julian is working on a book about how people living in the era of the Second World War wrote themselves back into time. He focuses on practices of the everyday, from writing to performing music, to the work of maintaining familial relationships; and is fascinated by the time-experiences of people living under siege, prisoners in camps or people living in secrecy in occupied Europe.

Julian was Head of Humanities at Northumbria from 2017 to 2022 with a period as Deputy Head of Faculty during that time. After a Junior Research Fellowship at Christ Church Oxford, he taught at Durham University for thirteen years. He has held a visiting professorship at the École des hautes Études en Sciences sociales, Paris and a Leverhulme Fellowship. 

Julian is a Council Member and Secretary for Professional Engagement of the Royal Historical Society.

The author of two books with Oxford University Press, on regionalism and socialism, Julian is particularly fascinated by the idea and experience of time in the present. Working with colleagues from many other institutions and disciplines, his project 'Time on a Human Scale' which puts the human present back into the cultural, philosophical and literary history of Europe between 1860 and 1930.

Julian's project on the experience of ordinary people who were living 'outside of time' in the era of the Second World War demands a focus on the practices of the everyday, from writing to performing to familial relationships, and how people tried to reconstruct these ordinary temporal rhythms in difficult conditions, from those living under siege to prisoners in camps or people living in secrecy in occupied Europe.