Women's Writing Before Woolf: A Social Reference/Kim F. Hall/2

Kim F. Hall

Biography

Professor/Doctor Kim F. Hall was born in 1961 in Baltimore, Marland. Her mother is the Honourable Vera Hall (The Honorable Vera Hall’s Biography, 2004.), and her grandmother Drusilla Hall. (Kim F. Hall | Duke Forum for Scholars and Publics, n.d.). Little is known of Hall’s early life.

Education

Hall attended Hood College as an undergraduate. Afterwards, she studied for her PhD at the University of Pennsylvania, focusing on sixteenth and seventeenth-century English Literature (Wikipedia contributors, 2020).

Career

Hall went on to teach at the University of Pennsylvania, Swathmore College, Georgetown University and Fordham University (Wikipedia contributors, 2020)

Her academic focuses are listed as follows:

●“Shakespeare and Renaissance literature

●Black feminism

●Critical race theory

●Slavery

●Material culture

●Depictions of race in literature”

(Kim F. Hall | Barnard College, n.d.)

Literary Works

Hall's first publication was ‘Things of Darkness’ in 1996, which is described as “evocations of blackness in the contexts of sexual politics, imperialism, and slavery in early modern England.” (Hall, 1996)

Her second book ‘Othello, the Moor of Venice: Texts and Contexts’ from 2007, is described by the publisher as follows, “The primary documents contextualize race and religion in the Renaissance, gender relations, military life, the passions, the notion of the "Other" in early modern England” (Othello, the Moor of Venice: Texts and Context, 2007.).

Reputation and Legacy

Professor Hall is currently “Lucyle Hook Chair, Professor of English and Africana Studies, at Barnard College” (Marshood, 2021) and is currently working on “a book, tentatively entitled Sweet Taste of Empire, which examines women, labour, and race in the Anglo-Caribbean sugar trade during the seventeenth century.” (Marshood, 2021)

On the Barnard University website, they go into detail about their current employee and their achievements. She joined Barnard in 2006 and is still there in 2022.

“In 2014, Barnard Library and Academic  Information Services (BLAIS) recognized her as their Inaugural Library Partner of the Year” (Kim F. Hall | Barnard College, n.d.)

“In 2015 she won a Tow Award for Innovative Pedagogy for The Digital Shange Project.” (Kim F. Hall | Barnard College, n.d.)

“Professor Hall has won several prestigious fellowships, including a National Humanities Center Fellowship; a  Fellowship at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture; an NEH fellowship at the Newberry Library in Chicago; and an ACLS fellowship.” (Kim F. Hall | Barnard College, n.d.)

“Hall was named one of 25 "Women Making a Difference in Higher Education and Beyond" by Diverse Issues in Higher Education for 2016 and Alumnae of the Year for Hood College in 2018.” (Kim F. Hall | Barnard College, n.d.)

Further Reading

Kim Hall, her mother Vera, and her grandmother Drusilla are all known for their quilting expertise. “She inherited a love of fabrics from her mother, who always had a side business as a couture seamstress, although she made her first quilt with her paternal grandmother, Drusilla Hall, more than forty years ago. Since then, quilting has been her primary creative outlet.” (Kim F. Hall | Duke Forum for Scholars and Publics, n.d.)

Kim Hall has an active Twitter account, where she regularly posts about current political topics and comments on her research fields. Her handle is @ProfKFH