Director, Museum Studies Program; Associate Professor, History of Art and Architecture
Research Areas: Heritage, memory, art and museums in the nineteenth- and twentieth-century; cultural transfer; relationship of museums to cultural diplomacy; preservation of buildings and landscapes
As a scholar and a teacher, Melanie Hall specializes in museums and preservation in Britain and North America. Her research interest focuses on the origins of world heritage, the preservation of buildings and landscapes, and the arts and preservation institutions and transatlantic networks that supported these activities in the 19th and 20th centuries. The role of museums and the visual arts in forging those connections, and how this intersects with questions of gender, race, and politics are a core focus of this research. As part of her research and teaching Prof. Hall has developed research tools and courses involving digital humanities. She is a strong advocate for collaborative, inter-disciplinary projects, involving students, academics, and practitioners. An example of this is Towards World Heritage, International Origins of the Preservation Movement 1870-1930, an edited work that arose from a working conference at Boston University that she organized, bringing together an international group of scholars and practitioners and that has been well reviewed in multiple scholarly journals. Her current work considers the origins of the (British) National Trust (now the most successful preservation organization in the world) that reveals the transatlantic dimensions of this organization, and women’s roles in its inception.
Professor Hall’s work has appeared in a range of journals including the Proceedings of the British Academy, the Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, Architectural History, and Furniture History. Her recent publications include an article on ‘Octavia Hill and the National Trust’ in a centenary volume commemorating the work of this remarkable Victorian woman; and a co-authored article on ‘Digital Humanities for Tourism History’.
She has received grants and fellowships from institutions including the Arts and Humanities Research Council of Great Britain; English Heritage; the Shakespeare’s Birthplace Trust; the Ruskin Centre, Lancaster University; and Boston University Center for the Humanities. She was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, London (2006).
She serves as Director of Museum Studies.
Selected Publications:
“Octavia Hill and the National Trust,” in “Nobler imaginings and mightier struggles”: Octavia Hill and the remaking of British society (Oxford University Press, 2016).
“Political Ambition, Civic Philanthropy and Public Sculpture, 1900: The City Square, Leeds” in Cornucopia, Essays in Honour of Terry Friedman (Leeds City Art Galleries/Leeds Art Collections Fund, 2015)
“American Tourists in “Wordsworthshire”: from ‘national property’ to ‘national park,” in The Making of a Cultural Landscape: the English Lake District as Tourist Destination, 1750-2010, ed. John K. Walton and Jason Wood (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2013), pp. 87-109.
Editor, Towards World Heritage: International Origins of the Preservation Movement 1870-1930, ed. Melanie Hall (Ashgate, 2011)
For a detailed academic bio and CV, please see Professor Hall’s Department Profile.