Leonie Hannan

I am a social and cultural historian of Britain, Ireland and the north Atlantic world, who considers themes of gender, material culture, enquiry and domestic space. I also work with collections (museums, heritage and archives) to develop novel connections, methods and practices.

My new programme of research looks at understandings of air in the eighteenth century, including as disease-carrying miasma, as urban smog, as wind or weather and as the object of scientific study. The focus is on the experiences and understanding of working people, rather than scholars or writers. I have a long record of working collaboratively with scholars from other disciplines on projects concerned variously with ageing, cultures of care and practices of material attention. I am interested in experimental methodologies based on interdisciplinary engagement and my initiative (with Kate Smith) the 100 Hours Project best represents this strand of her scholarship and creative practice.

Relevant publications

My second monograph for Manchester University Press: A Culture of Curiosity: Scientific Enquiry in the Eighteenth-Century Home was published in 2023 and I have a forthcoming edited volume for Routledge (with Olwen Purdue) on Dealing with Difficult Pasts: the Public History of Ireland. My first monograph, Women of Letters: Gender, Writing and the Life of the Mind in Early Modern England was published in 2016. Other publications focus on pedagogy, specifically relating to the role of heritage objects and spaces in adult learning. My collaborations have led to a number of books: History through Material Culture (with Sarah Longair); Gender and Material Culture in Britain since 1500 (with Hannah Greig and Jane Hamlett); The Changing Arts of Communication in the Eighteenth Century (with Penelope Corfield); and Engaging the Senses: Object-Based Learning in Higher Education (with Helen J. Chatterjee).
Collaborations in the field of museums and heritage
Over the last ten years, I have worked extensively in museums and heritage and built collaborative working relationships between researchers, teachers, curators, museum collections and heritage sites. I am a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, a member of the Steering Committee for the Centre for Public History at Queen's University, and am on the Executive Board of the international research group Scientiae: Disciplines of Knowing. I am also Director of the Centre for Eighteenth-Century Studies and Co-Lead of the Science and Culture Research Group at Queen's University Belfast.