Catherine Hall in conversation

Catherine Hall is Professor of Modern British Social and Cultural History at University College London.  Since her pioneering work Family Fortunes: men and women of the English middle class, 1750-1850 (1987), she has sought to resituate constitutive categories of class, gender, and race as being central to narratives of Britain, especially in re-thinking the relation between Britain and its empire.

Catherine Hall’s career has exemplified the rallying slogan of the second-wave feminist movement that the ‘Personal is Political’. A feminist scholar, Hall withdrew from her first doctorate at the University of Birmingham to participate in second-wave feminism and was prominent in Birmingham Women’s Liberation. Her politics and personal life have constantly intersected to inform her historical work. Hall’s seminal Civilising Subjects: metropole and colony in the English imagination 1830-1867 (2002) is framed by a subjective introduction and prologue. This exploration of her own life as a daughter, wife, mother, and scholar establishes the postcolonial and feminist framework for the book as not only an intellectual endeavor, but also a deeply personal one. 

Catherine Hall will receive an honorary degree from the University of Birmingham on 12^th July 2016. Following this, Hall will be in conversation with postgraduates from the department of history to discuss her career, in particular the interaction between her work, politics, and personal life. The event is open to all and there will be an opportunity for members of the audience to ask questions.