Dr Amelia Hope-Jones

Job title:

Teaching Fellow in Art History

a.hopejones@ed.ac.uk

Office:

Room O.61, Hunter Building

Biography

I am a Teaching Fellow in Art History, with a focus on the visual cultures of pre- and early modern Italy. I have an interest in the eremitic - the landscapes and ways of life associated with the desert - and its representation in byzantine and Italian art before ca.1500. My work explores the relationship between images and textual sources, and between late-medieval visual cultures and religious ideas. I have an interest in the premodern landscape, particularly those places understood as a wilderness, and in ecocritical methodologies. I am also interested in practices and representations of ascesis, or self-discipline, and in the communities and friendships that emerge among hermits in the desert.
My recent research has proposed a queer re-reading of the monastic relationships represented in certain visual sources, exploring the potential for the desert to represent a radical, utopian vision of the religious life.

My teaching is primarily in Italian visual culture, ranging from 330CE to 1600CE, at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. I have an active interest in discipline-specific pedagogy, curriculum development and diversifying assessment methods in History of Art. I am an Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and am engaged in skills development and supporting student progression across the academic journey. I am currently Programme Director of the History of Art, Theory and Display MSc.

My research is published in Gesta (Fall 2025): ‘”Poor Men and Brother Hermits”; The Spiritual Franciscans and a late thirteenth-century image of the desert’, and in Different Visions, an open-access journal devoted to progressive scholarship on medieval art. The latter publication, "Male Friendship as an (Eremitic) Way of Life", was part of a special issue I guest edited, "Environmental Narratives and the Eremitic Turn" (Issue 12, Summer 2025). This special issue brought together international scholars writing about the representation and idea of the desert, many of whom take an ecocritical approach to the wilderness landscape, with a global scope. I have presented my work at the Renaissance Society of America (2023) and at Leeds International Medieval Congress (2017; 2023).

Research interests

Italian and byzantine visual culture, ca.1100-1500
Images of the desert and the eremitic way of life
The relationship between premodern images and religious texts
Ecocritical approaches to the premodern landscape
Monastic friendship; Queer Theory

Teaching

My role is teaching-focused, and my teaching experience wide-ranging. I have taught at Undergraduate and Postgraduate level across the pre- and early modern period, focused mainly on Italian visual culture.

In 2024-25, I set up a staff network with colleagues from across the University, to connect and support staff on teaching-focused contracts.

Research

Before starting my undergraduate degree in History of Art at the University of Edinburgh, I studied Painting at Wimbledon School of Art in London, and my interest in the medium of painting continues. My doctoral thesis focused on a thirteenth-century Italian painted tabernacle now at the National Galleries of Scotland (University of Edinburgh, 2019). My study of this object considered the origins of its unusual iconography - a mountainous desert landscape - in early Christian ascetic literature and byzantine illuminated manuscripts. My research prompted new technical analysis of the painting in 2018. I worked with curators and conservators at the National Galleries to study the painting - which is the earliest in the collection - reconsidering its making and subsequent restoration.

I loved studying History of Art at the University of Edinburgh. The city is rich in heritage, collections and in wild landscapes and I am delighted to continue my academic career here. I particularly enjoy working with colleagues and students to develop our teaching methods and academic support, and continue to learn a lot from the perspectives our students bring to their studies.