Professorship of the History of Art

prof history of art

GEOFFREY BATCHEN (BA PhD Sydney), Professor of Art History at Victoria University of Wellington, has been appointed to the Professorship of the History of Art in the Department of the History of Art and the Faculty of History.  Professor Batchen, who will take up the post with effect from 1 January 2020, will also be a fellow of Trinity College.

Professor Batchen's work as a teacher, writer and curator focuses on the history of photography.  His publications include Burning with Desire: The Conception of Photography (1997); Each Wild Idea: Writing, Photography, History (2001); Forget Me Not: Photography and Remembrance (2004); William Henry Fox Talbot (2008); What of Shoes: Van Gogh and Art History (2009); Suspending Time: Life, Photography, Death (2010); and Emanations: The Art of the Cameraless Photograph (2016).  He has also edited Photography Degree Zero: Reflections on Roland Barthes's Camera Lucida (2009) and co-edited Picturing Atrocity: Photography in Crisis (2012).

The arrival of Professor Batchen, one of the world's leading experts on photography, will make a significant contribution to teaching and research in the history of art at Oxford.  The Department and Faculty are very much looking forward to welcoming him in January.