An aerial view of Singleton Campus and the bay opposite

Dr Hilary Orange

Lecturer in Heritage, History

Telephone number

+44 (0) 1792 602423
Office - 133
First Floor
James Callaghan
Singleton Campus
Available For Postgraduate Supervision

About

I am a senior lecturer in the History Department at Swansea University, where I have been since 2020. After undertaking a PhD at UCL Institute of Archaeology, I worked at the British Museum and in commercial archaeology before moving to Germany to join the Institute for Social Movements, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, as an Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellow.

I work in COAH’s heritage team, with an engagement and innovation remit, to deliver projects that focus on public heritage, research, and community regeneration in Swansea and further afield. In this, I am keen to build partnerships with key stakeholders, to strengthen COAH’s capacity to deliver heritage projects with real-world benefits, and to embed innovation and engagement within College activities. My background is in the museum and commercial sectors and I have experience of delivering heritage services, consultancy and working in collaboration with a wide range of public, private and third sector organisations.

My research areas are in industrial heritage and contemporary archaeology. I am particularly interested in how industrial heritage and historical knowledge are produced outside of academia through, for instance, grass-roots activism, memorialisation, photography and art, and community archives. I am also interested in the heritage and memorialisation of rock and pop music and I have recently undertaken a longitudinal study of rock shrines in London.

I have published on a diverse range of topics covering public archaeology, archaeology and education, heritage studies, contemporary archaeology, and development-led archaeology. In 2015, I published the edited volume Reanimating Industrial Spaces: Conducting Memory Work in Post-Industrial Spaces (Routledge, 2015) and recently co-edited The Routledge Handbook of Memory and Place (Routledge, 2019). Other recent writing includes various publications on popular music heritage in London and a chapter on the sharpening of ethno-Celtic nationalism in Cornwall during the post Second World War period (Constructing Industrial Pasts, ed. S. Berger, Berghahn, 2019).

Areas Of Expertise

  • Industrial heritage
  • Cornish identity and nationalism
  • Memory and memorialisation
  • Popular music heritage
  • Contemporary archaeology
  • Public archaeology

Career Highlights

Teaching Interests

I am available to supervise undergraduate and postgraduate dissertations on topics that fall within my areas of expertise.  

Research Award Highlights