Editor’s note: Today’s post comes from Hannah Halliwell, a third-year History of Art PhD student at the University of Birmingham, England. In it, she describes the work she presented at the “Substance Use and Abuse in the Long Nineteenth Century” conference, held last September, and her winning entry into the Creative Competition. You can follow Hannah on Twitter @hanhalliwell. Enjoy!
Substance Use and Abuse in the Long Nineteenth Century was a two-day conference at Edge Hill University, England, on 13th-14th September 2018. It was an interdisciplinary symposium with fascinating talks on topics ranging from alcoholism and cocaine use to opium, logistics and concepts of addiction. A personal highlight was being named the Creative Competition winner.
As I neared the end of the second year of my History of Art PhD at the University of Birmingham, I realized I had missed the Call for Papers deadline for the Substance Use and Abuse conference. Whilst researching attendance details on the conference website, the words “Creative Competition” caught my eye. This was a way to get involved with the conference, although it was a far cry from the usual 300-word abstract submission. Regardless, I saw it as an opportunity to present my research on visual representations of the morphinomane (morphine addict)[1] in French fin-de-siècle society (c.1880-1910) in a new way.
The task: “Your research in one image.”