Hannah Stovin

Research Interests

Growing Up Queer: 1870-1918

Supervisor: Matt Cook 

My DPhil project is an examination of the social, cultural and medical understandings of the ‘queer child’ in Victorian and Edwardian Britain. Despite the importance of the late nineteenth century in shaping contemporary views on both sexuality and childhood, there has been surprisingly little conversation between the two subjects in the historiography. My project thus argues for the critical importance of the figure of the youth in the crystallisation of understandings of homosexuality in this period, and likewise, for the impact of developing ideas of homosexuality on norms and notions pertaining to childhood. The project aims to illuminate 19th-century home and family life from a different angle, as well as cast fresh light on the queer experience and the impact of childhood on queer adult life.

As a Collaborative Doctoral Award student, my work is conducted in partnership with the Museum of the Home in London. As part of this programme, it is also generously funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council.

I hold a BA in History from the University of Oxford and an MPhil in Modern British History from the University of Cambridge. Prior to undertaking the DPhil, I worked as a Trainee Archive Assistant at the National Gallery and thus also have a keen interest in archives and records management.