I am Academic Lead for Visual Arts subjects (Art History, Fine Art, Contemporary Fashion Design and Digital Creativity). My BA (Hons) degree and MA were both in American Studies with a particular focus on classical Hollywood cinema and Modernist photography. In my PhD from the University of Liverpool (2010) I explored the war photography of Surrealist Lee Miller and later published a monograph based on my postdoctoral research. My research has focused on various aspects of Miller's work especially her representations of women in war, her Surrealist interpretation of the London Blitz and analyses of Miller's photographs of Buchenwald and Dachau concentration camps as modern memorials. I have also published on British documentary film and fan culture.
Externally, I am an External Examiner at the Kingston University School of Art and have been a reviewer for the Journal of Visual Resources and the Journal of Art History. Recent research includes a review of the book Lee Miller in Print for the Journal of European Periodical Studies (2024) and a forthcoming article on Lee Miller for The Conversation.
Since 2022, I have been a trustee of the Liverpool Hope Carter Preston Foundation.
Teaching responsibilities
Programme Leader for Art and Design History Majors
Level C Coordinator for Art and Design History.
Element Lead for Level C Themes and Issues in Art and Design History.
Teaching specialisms
Early Twentieth Century Modern Art (especially Surrealism)
History and Theory of Photography
War, Art and Memory
Classical Hollywood Cinema
School Roles
Academic Lead for Visual Arts
Research Ethics Sub-Committee (CAPA)
Professional Organisations/Networks
Member of the Association of Art Historians
Member of the Archbishop Desmond Tutu Centre for War and Peace Studies
Member of the War and Conflict Subject Specialist Network (Imperial War Museums)
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lynnhilditch/
Books
Lee Miller, Photography, Surrealism and the Second World War: From Vogue to Dachau. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 2017.
Edited Books
Lee Miller's Surrealist Eye: New Insights. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 2022.
Book Chapters
Representing the Holocaust: Lee Miller's Concentration Camp Photographs as Modern Memorials, in Abbes Maazaoui, ed. The Arts of Memory and the Poetics of Remembering. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 2016.
A Nice Cup of Tea: An Analysis of Tea Culture in the 1930 and 40s British Documentary Film, in Thomas J. Hertweck, ed. Food on Film: Bringing something new to the table. Rowman & Littlefield. 2014.
Audrey Hepburn: Fashion, Fairy Tales and Transformation, in Jacqui Miller, ed. Audrey Hepburn. Intellect Fan Phenomenon Book Series/University of Chicago Press. 2014.
A Surreal Landscape of Devastation: An Analysis of Lee Miller's Grim Glory Photographs of the London Blitz, in Jennifer Walden, ed. Art and Destruction. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 2014.
Surreal Documentation: Lee Miller's Artistic Representation of Dachau and Buchenwald, in Jonathan Harris, ed. Inside the Death Drive: Excess and Apocalypse in the world of the Chapman Brothers. Liverpool: University of Liverpool Press/Tate Liverpool Critical Forum. 2010.
Journal Articles
Review of Lee Miller in Print, in Cedric van Dyke, ed. Journal of European Periodical Studies (forthcoming Autumn 2024).
BELIEVE IT! Lee Miller's Second World War Photographs as Modern Memorials, in Terry Phillips and Andrew Frayne, eds. "Arts and Artefacts: Memory and Guilt in 20th Century Europe", Journal of War and Culture Studies, 2018, 11:3, 209-222.
Representing the Holocaust: Lee Miller's Concentration Camp Photographs as Modern Memorials, in Abbes Maazaoui, ed. The Lincoln Humanities Journal, Vol.3, Memory and the Poetics of Remembering, Fall 2015, 95-101.
A Surreal Landscape of Devastation: An Analysis of Lee Miller's Grim Glory Photographs of the London Blitz, in Andriko Lozowy and Elena Siemens, eds. Imaginations: Journal of Cross-Cultural Image Studies, Issue 4-1: Scandals of Horror, September 2013, 21-28.