Catherine Hall

thumb|Catherine Hall Catherine Hall (born 1946) is a British academic. She is Emerita Professor of Modern British Social and Cultural History at University College London and chair of its digital scholarship project, the Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery. Her work as a feminist historian focuses on the 18th and 19th centuries, and the themes of gender, class, race, and empire. Quotes I had an excellent conventional grammar school education, where I had a wonderful history teacher. That was very important; it instilled in me from an early age how important teaching was and what a difference it can make. It was an incredible learning curve, realising how historians tend to only see what they’re interested in. For me, the point of doing history has been about how understanding the past might help us to improve people’s lives in the present. You can see that so clearly in relation to women’s rights or in relation to racial inequality. ...The national narrative in Britain has been one of liberty, freedom, a freedom loving people, prosperity, peace, no conquests, no violence, no expropriation. A peaceful story from beginning to end. A transformation from barbarism to civilisation, but one that has been done in an extraordinary and English way. Which means recognising trouble when it’s coming and dealing with it before it happens, reforming in time, and therefore the slow march of progress. And that Whig story of English history is still phenomenally powerful. External links Catherine Hall Category:1946 births Category:Living people Category:Women academics from England Category:Women born in the 1940s Category:Fellows of the British Academy Category:Historians from England Category:Feminists from England Category:University College London faculty Category:University of Birmingham alumni