Dr Hannah Halliwell
Job title:
Lecturer in Nineteenth-Century French Art History
Office:
Hunter Building, O.45
Biography
I am a lecturer in nineteenth-century French art history, with a focus on representations of the female body, visualisations of addiction and alcohol/drug use, and the relationship between visual culture and the medical sector. I have presented my research to public and academic audiences around the world - across the UK, in the USA and in China. My most recent publication, out in January 2024, is my first monograph: Art, Medicine, and Femininity: Visualising the Morphine Addict in Paris, 1870-1914 (McGill-Queen's University Press). My ongoing and future research continues to explore bodies, addiction, recreational and medical drug use, and feminism.
I am an Associate Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA). I also hold the position of Reviews Editor for the Social History of Alcohol and Drugs journal (University of Chicago Press).
I have worked previously as a lecturer in art history and visual culture at the University of Exeter and held art history teaching fellow positions here at ECA at the University of Edinburgh and the University of Birmingham.
I graduated with a PhD in Art History in 2021 from the University of Birmingham. My PhD was funded by Midlands4Cities (AHRC DTP) and the Haywood Fellowship. I completed my Art History BA and MA also at the University of Birmingham. Before university, I attended a state school in Derby. I applied to study art history at university on a whim, having little idea of what it was ... and now, here I am!
Research interests
- Nineteenth-Century Art
- French Art
- Medical Visual Culture
- Drugs and Addiction
- The Body/Nude
Courses I currently teach at the University of Edinburgh are the postgraduate special option ‘Impressionism and the Third Republic: Culture, Politics and Social Change, 1865-1900’, the senior honours special option ‘Avant-Gardes and Individuals: Art in France, 1886-1900’, and the Junior Honours special option ‘Bodies of Change: Medicine, Sexuality, and Gender in France, 1852-1914’. I also lecture on Impressionism, Manet, Post-Impressionism, Japonisme, and Drugs and Diseases in France for History of Art 2A.
I am the course organiser for the postgraduate core courses ‘Research: Theories and Methods’ and ‘The Cultures and Politics of Display’.
I supervise undergraduate and postgraduate dissertations, Analysing Art History projects, and PhD students.
Research
Research
My research centres on mid- to late-nineteenth-century French visual culture. I am particularly interested in representations of the female body and/or sexuality, the overlaps between visual culture and medicine, and the representations of alcohol/drug use and addiction. My first monograph brings together these three interests; Art, Medicine, and Femininity: Visualising the Morphine Addict in Paris, 1870-1914 came out in January 2024 with McGill-Queen's University Press.
My research considers an array of mediums, including oil paintings, lithographs, caricatures, and sculpture, and art styles. I focus on the function, impact, and effect of art and visual culture in relation to socio-political events in France and further afield.
