Hilary Fraser

Hilary Fraser is a Professor and holder of the Geoffrey Tillotson Chair of Nineteenth-Century Studies at Birkbeck, University of London. She has served as Head of the Department of English and the Humanities, founding Dean of the School of Art (2009), and currently chairs the Centre for Nineteenth-Century Studies. Her interdisciplinary research bridges literature, art history, and cultural studies, focusing on Victorian society, gender dynamics, and Renaissance cultural influences. Fraser is a leading scholar of Victorian aesthetics, religion, and the role of women in art criticism, best exemplified in her seminal work Women Writing Art History in the Nineteenth Century: Looking like a Woman.

• Education: University of Western Australia, Canterbury Christ Church College (UK)

Her research emphasizes the interplay between Victorian intellectual life and historical constructs like the Renaissance, challenging traditional narratives about gender and artistic authority. Fraser has secured major funding (e.g., Boston Fund for Victorian Studies) and expanded access to higher education via Birkbeck's Foundation Year program. She serves on prestigious panels, including the REF Panel for English Language and Literature (2014), and founded the journal 19: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century.

Awarded a College Fellowship at Birkbeck, she is celebrated for her administrative leadership, fostering collaborative environments, and her ‘brilliant, nurturing’ mentorship style. Her work often reveals overlooked dimensions of Victorian culture, such as the gendered nature of aesthetic discourse and women’s contributions to art criticism.

• Key Grands: AHRC CHASE consortium for doctoral students, Boston Fund for Victorian Studies