Pam Hirsch
Position/Status
- University Lecturer
- Graduate Tutor at Newnham College
E-mail Address
ph211@cam.ac.uk
Phone
(+44) 01223 507294
Qualifications
- CertEd, BA Hons, MA, PhD
Membership of Professional Bodies/Associations
- Society of Biographers
- Society for the Promotion of Training for Women
- The Women's Library
- PEN
Profile
I am interested in re-writing the history of education (especially, although not exclusively, that of women's education), using new theories of gender. I have explored the way in which leaders of the women's movement saw the improved education of girls and women as the first and necessary step towards citizenship and suffrage.
My work has included a feminist re-vision of standard histories of education (where women were largely viewed as the followers of great men). My work, by contrast, has considered women in their roles as leaders, ideologues, founders of educational institutions and educational policy-makers. I have, for example, re-appraised Mary Wollstonecraft's reputation as an advocate of 'rational education', including a critique of the political frameworks that have distorted earlier appraisals of her educational philosophy. I have written more generally on the contribution of women's brainpower to the wealth of the nation, including Practical Visionaries: Women, Education and Social Progress 1790 -1930, co-edited with Mary Hilton.
I have written a critically acclaimed biography of Barbara Bodichon, which includes her role as an educationist, both in setting up a progressive primary school in the mid-nineteenth century and co-founding Girton College, Cambridge, the first university college for women in England.
Teacher Training at Cambridge: The Initiatives of Oscar Browning and Elizabeth Hughes co-written with New York scholar, Mark McBeth is, in effect the history of the Faculty of Education in the University of Cambridge. The struggles of these two characters to professionalize schoolteaching point to the polemics of the teaching profession in our own century
The Constant Liberal: The Life and Work of Phyllis Bottome published in 2010 is a literary biography of this remarkable woman writer and political activist. The interest in this book for educationists is that she studied under Alfred Adler, and was involved with two schools, one in Austria in the 1920s and another in Jamaica in the 1950. She was deeply concerned with reform schools and advocated that they would be run on Adlerian principles.
Academic Area/Links
- I am on the core staff of the MPhil in Screen Media and Cultures, University of Cambridge
- I supervise History of Education PhD students, and act as Internal Examiner
- I supervise Gender Studies for SPS
- I supervise MPhil students for the History Faculty
- I supervise PhDs for the English Faculty, and act as Internal Examiner of PhDs and MPhils
- PhD supervisor for Sociology Department, University of Gloucester
- External examiner for Anglia Ruskin University and the London School of Tropical Medicine (history of nurse education)
Research Topics
- On Individuals: George Eliot; Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon; Charlotte Bronte; Mary Wollstonecraft; Elizabeth Barrett Browning; Hertha Marks Ayrton, a woman scientist; Margaret Morris, an avant-garde dancer in twentieth-century; George Sand, the nineteenth century French writer; Phyllis Bottome, Elizabeth Hughes.
- Female Romanticism in nineteenth-century women writers. Writing (scholarly) biography. Autobiographics.
- Women travel writers (e.g. Barbara Bodichon and Mathilda Betham-Edwards). Women and Literary Bohemianism. Pre-Raphaelite Women Painters.
- Sibling relationships in literature (especially but not exclusively nineteenth century).
History of the (19th century) women's movement. - History of women's involvement in education (both as theorists and as practitioners), especially in the campaigns to get university education for women.
- Political leadership by women in the nineteenth century context.
- Nineteenth century periodicals run by women, and written in by women.
Current Research Projects
- Reframing Literature: Screen Media and the Young
- The adolescent on film
Course Involvement
- I lecture on nineteenth-century and twentieth century in English Literature including International Literature in English
- I am the Course Director of the Film, Identity and Culture Course
- I lecture on women educationists as part of the History of Education team
Publications
Books
Hirsch, P. (2010) The Constant Liberal: The Life and Work of Phyllis Bottome. Quartet.
Hirsch, P., McBeth, M. (2004) Teacher Training in Cambridge: The Initiatives of Oscar Browning and Elizabeth Hughes. Woburn.
Hirsch, P., Hilton, M. (2000) Practical Visionaries: Women, Education and Social Progress 1790-1930, co-editor with Mary Hilton. Longmans.
Hirsch, P. (1998) Barbara Bodichon: Feminist, Artist and Rebel. Chatto & Windus, 1998; paperback version Pimlico 1999.
Book chapters
Hirsch, P. (2000) 'Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon: Feminist Leader and Founder of the First University College for Women', in Practical Visionaries: Women Education and Social Progress (eds. Mary Hilton and Pam Hirsch). Longmans.
Hirsch, P. (1996) 'Mary Wollstonecraft: a problematic legacy?' in Wollstonecraft's Daughters, (ed. Clarissa Campbell Orr). Manchester University Press.
Hirsch, P. (1995) 'Gender Negotiations in Nineteenth Century Women's Writing' in Uses of Autobiography, (ed. Julia Swindells). Taylor & Francis, Gender Change and Society series.
Hirsch, P. (1995) 'Barbara Bodichon: artist and activist' in Women in the Victorian Art World, (ed. Clarissa Campbell Orr). Manchester University Press.
Journal Entries
Hirsch, P. (2005) Keynote Lecture at History of Education Conference 2004. Published as 'Apostle of Freedom: Alfred Adler and his British disciples' in History of Education volume 34 number 5 September 2005.
Hirsch, P. (2004) The George Eliot Memorial Lecture, published as 'What's in a Name: Competing Claims to the Authority of George Eliot' in The George Eliot Review.
Hirsch, P. (2001) 'Ligginitis, Three Georges, Perie-zadeh and Spitting Critics, or 'Will the Real Mr Eliot Please Stand Up?' in Critical Survey volume 13 number 2.
Hirsch, P. (1996) 'Charlotte Bronte and George Sand: the Influence of Female Romanticism' in Bronte Society Transactions.
Hirsch, P. (1994) 'Women and Jews in Daniel Deronda', The George Eliot Review.
Encyclopedia Entries
Entry on Phyllis Bottome in Encyclopedia of British Women's Writing, 1900-1950 (eds. Faye Hammill, Esme Miskimmin, Ashlie Sponebergh). Macmillan, 2006.
Entry on Hertha Marks Ayrton in Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encylopedia. Jerusalem, Shalvi Publising Ltd, 2006.
Entries on Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon, Anna Mary Howitt and Margaret Morris in Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press, 2004.
Entries on Elizabeth Barrett Browning and George Eliot in The Continuum Encyclopedia of British Literature (eds. Steven R. Serafin and Valerie Grosvenor Myer), 2003.
Entry on Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon in the Oxford Reader's Companion to George Eliot (ed. John Rignall), 2000.
Reviews
Pam regularly reviews for the Women's Philosophy Review and the Cambridge Journal of Education (History of Education books).