About Me
Self-described as an Embryo Academic and part-time Globe Trotter, Hannah Swithinbank can probably no longer be described as a ‘Bright Young Thing’, given the precosiosity of some. However, she’s still pretty bright, and not too old, although she has not yet managed to leave university, because she likes it too much. Still, she’s very open to the idea of doing things outside the academy, just for kicks.
Hannah has just completed her Ph.D at the University of St Andrews, and can currently be found hanging around the University of Cologne where she has a six-month fellowship courtesy of those lovely people at the DAAD. She is writing an article on contemporary political influences on Sallust’s historical writing and intermittently plotting day trips to nearby places. She is also learning how to type letters with umlauts without having to resort to character map all the time.
Apart from the fact that she really rather likes her subject, Hannah also likes academia because it allows her the flexibility to travel quite a bit (especially if she works *really* hard during the time between jaunts). She particularly likes the occasions on which interesting conferences are thrown in exciting places around the world. She isn’t sure how many countries she has been to by now, but she knows that the list isn’t as long as she’d like it to be – even though it does cover four continents. She would be saving for a trip to the Galapagos, if only she didn’t keep spending the money on other, less expensive, travels.
Hannah’s constant companions are her cameras and her notebooks, with which she likes to record and interpret her experiences. She tends to shoot digital, but has a great deal of affection for the lo-fi fun of lomography, and would really like to be able to develop film, because it’s such such a hassle finding places to develop 120 and 110 films nowadays. She also has a moleskine habit, and is particularly fond of those little City Guides. She wishes you could get them for countries as well.
You can also find Hannah on flickr, twitter, posterous or on the good old email.