Hannah is an art historian who specialises in the visualisation of addiction and drug use in French art of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Hannah joined the University of Edinburgh as lecturer in nineteenth-century French art in January 2024. The same month saw the publication of Hannah’s first monograph, Art, Medicine, and Femininity: Visualising the Morphine Addict in Paris, 1880-1914 (McGill-Queen's University Press). The book stemmed from her PhD research, which was funded by Midlands4Cities Doctoral Partnership and the University of Birmingham’s Haywood Fellowship. Hannah graduated from her Art History PhD at the University of Birmingham in 2021. Post-PhD, Hannah has received funding from the Association for Art History, the Society for French Studies, the Alcohol and Drugs History Society, and the University of Edinburgh’s RKEI Award.
Hannah has held teaching positions at the University of Birmingham, the University of Edinburgh, and the University of Exeter. She received Associate Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy in August 2021 and Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy in July 2023. During Hannah’s teaching fellowship at the University of Edinburgh, she was nominated for Teacher of the Year Award 2022, Inspiring Colleague Award 2023, and Outstanding Team Player Award 2023.
Hannah is the book reviews editor for the Social History of Alcohol and Drugs journal. She is also an Associate Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.
Research Interests:
Hannah is interested in the visualisation of alcohol and drug use in French art and visual culture of the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Her research speaks to broader themes relating to feminism, the art market, and the blurred boundaries of art and medicine. Hannah’s first monograph focuses on images of morphine use(rs); it explores the gendering and sensationalising of drug use and addiction in French visual culture. Hannah’s current research centres on similar themes and investigates how the French portrayal of opium use and opium paraphernalia corresponded to the colonisation of Indochina by the French. She is also researching the visualisation of absinthe drinking and its relationship to the gendered spaces of Parisian cafés. Alongside this research, Hannah is writing a historical dictionary of Impressionism with Professor Frances Fowle (Bloomsbury).