Dr Thomas Hughes

Publications

• Thomas Hughes, ‘The Human Landscape: John Ruskin, Drawing and Colour’, in
  British Art and the Environment: Changes, Challenges and Responses, (eds) Charlotte Gould and Sophie Mesplède (Routledge, 2022), chapter 11.
• Kelly Freeman and Thomas Hughes (eds), Ruskin’s Ecologies: Figures of Relation from Modern Painters to The Storm-Cloud’ (London: Courtauld Books Online, 2021).
• Thomas Hughes, ‘The Balcony: Queer Temporality in The Stones of Venice and Proust’, in Ruskin’s Ecologies: Figures of Relation from Modern Painters to The Storm-Cloud, (eds) Kelly Freeman and Thomas Hughes (London: Courtauld Books Online, 2021), chapter 2.
• Kelly Freeman and Thomas Hughes, ‘Introduction: “There Is No Wealth But Life”‘ in Ruskin’s Ecologies: Figures of Relation from Modern Painters to The Storm-Cloud (London: Courtauld Books Online, 2021).
• Thomas Hughes, ‘Subjectivity, historical imagination and the language of art history’, Journal of Art Historiography, no. 23, December 2020, 23/TH1.

Short essays and reviews

• Thomas Hughes, ‘Review of “Whistler’s Woman in White: Joanna Hiffernan” at the Royal Academy’, 19: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century, 19 Live. 
• Thomas Hughes, Review, ‘Edward Burne-Jones’, Tate Britain, October 2018–February 2019, The Ten O’Clock: Whistler Society Journal, no. 2, 2020, pp. 75–76.
• Thomas Hughes, ‘Ruskin, Whistler and Aestheticism’ in Ruskin, Turner and the Storm-Cloud, eds Suzanne Fagence Cooper and Richard Johns (York: York Art Gallery, Abbot Hall Art Gallery and Paul Holberton), 69–73.
• Book review: The Sympathy of Things: Ruskin and the Ecology of Design, Bloomsbury, London, 2016 by Lars Spuybroek, The Burlington Magazine, July 2017.
• ‘A review of Caroline Arscott’s lecture “Whistler and Whiteness” at UCL’, The Whistler Society Journal, no. 1, spring 2017, 24–30.
• Book review: Louisa Waterford and John Ruskin: ‘For you have not Falsely Praised’ by Caroline Ings-Chambers, The Burlington Magazine, no. 1354, vol. 158, January 2016.

Education

• PhD, History of Art, The Courtauld Institute of Art 2014–2018 (passed without corrections)
• MA, History of Art, Courtauld Institute of Art 2012–2013 (Distinction)
• BA, English Language and Literature, Balliol College, University of Oxford 2009–2012 (First)

Teaching

• 2021–2022: MA Victorian Science and Aesthetic Movement Art; BA1 The Pre-Raphaelites; BA3 Lessons in Critical Interpretation
• 2020–2021: BA3 Lessons in Critical Interpretation; BA2 Constellations: The Female Body from Manet to Picasso
• 2019–2020: BA3 Body Politics: Art, Gender, Class and Race in the Victorian Metropolis; BA1 Sculpture in the City: Modern Sculpture in London
• 2018–2019: Associate Lecturer, BA3 Lessons in Critical Interpretation, The Courtauld.
• Teaching Assistant for BA Foundations, January 2017, The Courtauld.
• BA3 seminar, ‘Whistler v Ruskin’, The Courtauld, November 2016.
• Teaching Assistant for MA Methodology October, December 2015, The Courtauld.
• Teaching Assistant for BA Foundations, February 2016, The Courtauld.

Grants and Awards

• 2018: Brian Allen Visiting Scholarship, Yale Center for British Art
• 2017: Stones of Venice research bursary, Ruskin Library, University of Lancaster
• 2017: British Association of Victorian Studies bursary to attend NAVSA/AVSA conference at NYU Florence, Villa La Pietra
• 2014–2017: CHASE (Arts and Humanities Research Council) PhD scholarship
• 2012: Charles Oldham Shakespeare Prize, University of Oxford

Conferences etc.

• June 2021: workshop paper, ‘Reflection and Temporality in Whistler’s Symphony in White No. 2‘, The Mirror in Theory and Practice, Department of Art History of the University of Vienna and the Institut für philosophische und ästhetische Bildung of the Alanus University of Arts and Social Sciences in Alfter.
• March 2021: co-organiser, Decentering Realisms, The Courtauld Institute of Art (online).
• December 2020: seminar paper, ‘John Ruskin, Drawing and the Limits of the Human’, British Art and Natural Forces, Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, London (online). I also contributed to the concluding roundtable of this two-months-long research programme.
• October 2020: ‘The Odd Couple: John Ruskin and Walter Pater on Michelangelo, Turner and Amiens Cathedral’, Couples and the Writing of Art History, Institut national d’histoire de l’art, Paris (online).
• September 2020: chair, in conversation with Professor Andrew Patrizio, British Art and Ecology, PMC ECRN (online).
• July 2020: chair and co-organiser, Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art ECRN careers workshop (online).
• February 2020: seminar paper, ‘Ruskin’s Gothic Time Travelling’, Research Lunch, Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art.
• October 2019: invited paper, ‘Queer Ruskin’, Victorian Research Seminar, Balliol College, Oxford.
• June 2019: panel co-organiser and presenter, Alternative Modernisms: Narrative, Genre and Art Writing 1877–1910, Modernist Art Writing/Writing Modernist Art conference, University of Nottingham.
• Lent Term, Lancaster University: event series and workshop co-organiser: ‘Ruskin’s Ecologies’. A series of events on Ruskin’s implications for ecological ways of thinking, writing, drawing, looking at art and architecture, gardening and other things, January–March 2019, Ruskin Library, Lancaster University.
• January 2019: seminar paper, ‘Surface, Depth and Form in Gothic Naturalism’, the Ruskin Research Seminar, Ruskin Library, Lancaster University.
• February 2018: academic and public presentation, ‘Ruskin, Pater and Whistler’, Art in Context presentation at the Yale Center for British Art.
• December 2017: conference co-organiser, New Approaches to Ruskin on Art and Architecture, a two-day international conference for early career researchers, The Courtauld Institute of Art and UCL.
• November 2017: conference paper, ‘“Ninety Per Cent of the Theory of Impressionism”: Ruskin, Pater and Monet’, at Writing Impressionism into and out of Art History, 1874 to Today, a major international conference at The Courtauld Institute of Art.
• June 2017: conference paper: ‘The Rose and the Worm: “Realism” in Ruskin, Pater and Nineteenth-Century Painting’, Annual Third-Year Postgraduate Symposium, The Courtauld Institute of Art.
• June 2017: co-organiser and chair, ‘Annual Third-Year Postgraduate Symposium’, The Courtauld Institute of Art.
• May 2017: conference paper, ‘“An intense consciousness of the present”: Ruskin, Pater and the drawing of modern life’ at NAVSA/AVSA Supernumerary Conference at NYU Florence Villa Pa Pietra. (A significantly expanded version of this paper was given as a Research Lunch at The Paul Mellon Centre, London on 2^nd June 2017).
• March 2017: conference paper: ‘The human landscape: John Ruskin’s theory of drawing and colour’ at Art and the Environment in Britain 1700–Today, Université Rennes 2, Rennes, France. (A significantly expanded version of this paper was given as the Ruskin Research Seminar, Ruskin Library, University of Lancaster, later in the month).
• October 2015: conference paper: ‘Gothic and Decadent Gothic: surface, depth and “form” in Ruskin and Pater’ at British Association of Victorian Studies annual conference, University of Cardiff, September 2016.
• December 2016: co-organiser and chair, immediations 2016 symposium and Launch Party, The Courtauld Institute of Art.
• October 2015: co-organiser and chair, ‘Writing émigré artists into the history of modern British art 1915-1955’, The Courtauld Institute of Art.

Other academic activity

• Member of the steering committee, Early Career Researcher Network, The Courtauld.
• Co-editor-in-chief, immediations, (January 2016–December 2016)
• Editorial board of immediations (October 2015–December 2016)