Hannah Halliwell

• In progress: PhD History of Art, 2016 – present, University of Birmingham (Midlands4Cities Doctoral Scholarship, 2016-2019; Haywood Fellowship, 2017-2018)
• MA History of Art, University of Birmingham, Distinction (College of Arts and Law Masters Scholarship; Birmingham Alumni Award)
• BA (Hons) History of Art, University of Birmingham, First

I am a Midlands4Cities-funded doctoral researcher (2016-2019), supervised by Dr Francesca Berry and Dr Camilla Smith (both University of Birmingham) and Dr Ting Chang (University of Nottingham). I received my MA and BA from the same department. My MA dissertation examined depictions of female figures in bicycle posters from fin-de-siècle France. With a continuing interest in the interdisciplinarity of art and the representations of women, my PhD thesis focuses on the (almost exclusively) female morphine addict in French visual culture, 1880-c.1916.

I was awarded the department’s Haywood Fellowship award in 2017-18, which involved teaching, organising research lunches for research staff in the department and co-ordinating school-wide research seminars. 

 

• Debates and Methods seminars (1st year, History of Art seminars), 2018-2019; 2017-2018
• Historical Concepts (1st year, History of Art seminars), 2016-2017
• AWAS workshop leader, 2016-2017

Qualifications:

• Introduction to Learning and Teaching in Higher Education (September 2016)
• Introduction to Assessment and Feedback (October 2016)
• Small Group Teaching (October 2016)
• One-to-One Academic Tutoring (October 2016)
• Supporting Diversity (February 2019), Cultural Differences (March 2019)

By the end of the nineteenth century, the morphine addict was a familiar visual and literary motif, created in response to the increasing social and medical problem of morphine addiction in France. My research analyses depictions of morphine use in fin-de-siècle French visual culture, examining the hypervisibility of the female body and the socio-political, artistic and medical implications of this hypervisibility. The research considers the visual culture of morphinomanie (morphine-mania) as an interdisciplinary, multi-functional device. It explores wider debates on medicine, femininity, masculinity, domesticity, class and opiate trading, reframing the significance of this widely neglected aspect of French society.

Research interests

• Mass culture in late nineteenth-century France
• Concepts of visual culture
• Fin-de-siècle femininity and women’s experiences in nineteenth- and twentieth-century France
• Consumerism and its representations in art
• Medical history and its visual teaching aids
• Concepts of addictions and visual depictions

 

Professional memberships:

• Association for Art History
• Alcohol and Drugs History Society

Conference papers

• 'Absent Presences: The Morphinomane at Home in French Visual Culture (1880-c.1916)’, Modernism in the Home conference, University of Birmingham (1-2 July 2019)
• ‘The Significance of the Image: Morphinomanie in French Visual Culture (c.1880-1916)’, Changing Minds: Societies, States, the Sciences and Psychoactive Substances in History, the biannual Alcohol and Drugs History Society conference, University of Shanghai (13-16 June 2019)
• ‘Medicalisation and Popularisation: The Morphinomane in French Art (1880-c.1916), annual Southern Association for the History of Medicine and Science, University of Virginia (14-16 March 2019)
• ‘Medical Absent Presences: Images of Morphine Use in Fin-de-Siècle French Visual Culture’, Modern and Contemporary forum, University of Birmingham (6 March 2019)
• Discussion of creative competition entry (How to paint a morphine addict for the French fin-de-siècle annual Salon), Substance Use and Abuse in the Long Nineteenth Century conference, Edge Hill University (September 2018). Also appears in a follow up exhibition (Dr Jekyll’s Laboratory: Science and Medicine in the Nineteenth Century) at The Atkinson gallery, Southport (February – May 2019)
• ‘The Body of the Fin-de-Siècle Morphine Addict’, Re/Presenting the Body: Between Art in Science, Association for Art History summer symposium, University of Glasgow (13-14 July 2017)

Grants

• Midlands3Cities Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Doctoral Studentship Award (2016-2019)
• Haywood Fellowship, University of Birmingham (2017-2018)