Professor Dana Arnold

Professor Dana Arnold

History
School of Humanities
University of Southampton
Southampton
S017 1BJ

Position: Professor

Research interests

Rural UrbanismMy work on British architectural history c1700-1840 positions architecture and urban and rural built environments within social and cultural contexts. I am particularly interested in the interface between theory and archive and in my monographs, edited volumes and other collaborative projects I have worked towards a recasting of the paradigms in which architecture in its broadest constituency is interrogated. My most recent work has been on London and I am interested in how the built environment in all its complexities is experienced and used in the formulation of national and cultural identities.

This has been a theme in my books Rural Urbanism: London landscapes in the early nineteenth century (MUP 2005) and Re-presenting the Metropolis (Ashgate 2000). Recently I Cultural Identitiesinvestigated this question in a broader collaborative volume Cultural Identities and the Aesthetics of Britishness 1750-1950 (MUP 2004) which looked at the notion of Britishness within an imperial and a colonial frame. Rural Urbanism also connects with my earlier work on the country house in the long eighteenth century in Britain where I consider the role of elites and elite culture in the formulation of aesthetic preferences and the notion of taste.

I return to London in my forthcoming book provisionally titled Shaping London, Shaping Lives the Hospital in London 1700-1840 which draws together the historiographic and historical strands of my research to provide a new analysis of the social and cultural significance of urban institutions and infrastructures with specific reference to the hospital.

Reading Archtectural History I am also interested in Architectural Historiography as evident in my book Reading Architectural History (2002), but recently I have been interested in the status of the narratives of architectural history covering a range of periods, but considered in a postcolonial context. In November 2005 I received British Academy funding to bring delegates over from Turkey for a colloquium on Architectural History between East and West and in April 2006 I received funding to host a conference at Middle East Technical University, Ankara which brought together a network of researchers I have set up from Asia, Europe and USA.

We are all interested in fracturing the ‘consolidated vision’ that privileges the ‘West’ through essentializing and dualistic perspectives, and perpetuates the misrecognition regarding the totality and unity of cultures. Vis-à-vis the historical processes of orientalism, colonialism, westernization and nation-building that provided settings for inter-, and trans-cultural encounters, the aim is to problematize geographical difference – a complex category which may work in unexpected and ambivalent ways.

Art History Alongside my work on architectural history I have a keen interest in art history. My recent book Art History: a very short introduction (OUP 2004) has been translated into many languages and has been reprinted several times. I edit three art history book series: New Interventions in Art History, Anthologies in Art History and Companions to Art History, and I have recently secured funding from Blackwell Publishers for an innovative two-volume publication Re-mapping British Art and Architecture c1500-2000 which I will co-edit.

I was editor of the international journal Art History 1997-2002 and I now serve on the editorial board of the Journal of the Architecture Faculty at the Middle East Technical University. Through these editorships I have been able to push forward the boundaries of the discipline and the possibilities for publication for an international community of scholars.

I am a member of the Research Panel for the AHRC (Arts and Humanities Research Council) which covers Visual Art and Media and a panel member for the RCUK (Research Councils UK) initiative ‘Preserving our Past’. I have held research fellowships at Yale University; the University of Cambridge and the Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles and I have been a Lansdowne Visiting Professor at the University of Victoria, British Columbia and visiting professor AHRB Centre CATH at the University of Leeds. I have given invited lectures and keynote addresses across Europe and the United States and I have been involved with numerous international conferences either as an organizer, chair or speaker.

Areas where I can offer postgraduate supervision:

British Architectural History and Historiography; Country House Studies; London 1700-1840; Art History and Aesthetic; the Material Culture and Cultural History of the long eighteenth century.

Contact

Room: 1059
Tel: +44 (0)2380 597 138
Email: d.r.arnold@soton.ac.uk


Publications

Research seminar:


 

Teaching responsibilities for Professor Dana Arnold
Module title Module code Discipline Role
Building Britain: architecture, landscape and indentity c1760-1840 Pt 2 HIST3151 History Course leader
Building Britain:architecture, landscape and identity c1760-1840 Pt 1 HIST3149 History Course leader

Publications from e–Prints Soton

Arnold, Dana and Derevenski, Joanna Sofaer (eds.) (2008) Biographies & space: placing the subject in art and architecture, Abingdon, UK, Routledge, 224pp.
Arnold, Dana (2005) Rural urbanism: London landscapes in the early nineteenth century, Manchester, UK, Manchester University Press, 221pp.
Arnold, Dana and Ballantyne, Andrew (eds.) (2004) Architecture as experience: radical change in spatial practice , London, UK, Routledge, 312pp.
Arnold, Dana (ed.) (2004) Cultural identities and the aesthetics of Britishness , Manchester, UK, Manchester University Press, 224pp. (Studies in Imperialism Series)
Arnold, Dana (2004) Art history: a very short introduction, Oxford, UK, Oxford University Press
Arnold, Dana (2004) Introduction. In, Arnold, Dana (ed.) Cultural Identities and the Aesthetics of Britishness. Manchester, UK, New York, USA, Manchester University Press, Palgrave, 1-14.
Arnold, Dana (2004) London bridge revisited. In, Arnold, Dana and Ballantyne, Andrew (eds.) Architecture as Experience: Radical Change in Spatial Practice. London, UK, New York, USA, Routledge, 261-276.
Arnold, Dana (2004) Trans-planting national cultures: The Phoenix Park, Dublin (1832-49), an urban heterotopia. In, Arnold, Dana (ed.) Cultural identities and the aesthetics of Britishness. Manchester, UK; New York, USA, Manchester University Press; Palgrave, 67-86. (Studies in Imperialism Series).
Arnold, Dana and Bending, Stephen (eds.) (2003) Tracing Architecture: the Aesthetics of Antiquarianism, Oxford, UK; Malden, Massachusetts, US, Blackwell, 160pp. (Art History Special Issues)
Arnold, D. and Bending, S. (eds.) (2002) Facts or Fragments? Visual histories in the age of mechanical reproduction. Journal of Art History, 25, (4), 421-430. (doi:10.1111/1467-8365.00338)
Arnold, Dana (2002) Reading architectural history, London, UK, Routledge, 256pp.