Tributes paid to late ‘gifted teacher and committed tutor’ and Trinity Hall fellow Dr Isabelle McNeill
Tributes have been paid to “gifted teacher and committed tutor” Dr Isabelle McNeill, a Trinity Hall fellow, who has died from cancer.
Isabelle, who was born in 1979, completed her undergraduate degree, postgraduate degree and PhD at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and joined the Trinity Hall fellowship in 2005 after.
She was associate professor in French and Film and a Philomathia Fellow. She was also an affiliated lecturer in Modern and Medieval Languages and Linguistics (MMLL) and a key figure in Cambridge Film & Screen.
Isabelle specialised in Francophone cinema, feminist film theory and creative practice in relation to memory, urban space, internet culture and girlhood. She was active in the wider promotion of film culture through her work with the Cambridge Film Trust, of which she was a co-founder and trustee.
In 2017, Isabelle delivered Trinity Hall’s flagship Milestone Lecture on Ways of Seeing a City: The Rooftops of Paris in Cinema, and the college’s Eden Oration in 2023.
Respected by the student community, Isabelle was commended in the undergraduate supervisor category of the Cambridge University Students’ Union’s (CUSU) Student-Led Teaching Awards in 2019.
Remembering Isabelle, her close friends and colleagues at Trinity Hall, Dr Heather Inwood, Dr Leila Mukhida, Dr Rachel Tolley and Professor Louise Haywood, said: “There are no words capacious enough to convey Isabelle’s brilliance of mind, generosity of spirit, humour and creativity.
“Everything she did as a fellow, friend, teacher and tutor was underpinned by a feminist ethics of care. We loved her dearly and Trinity Hall was a better place with her in it.”
Paying tribute to Isabelle, Mary Hockaday, master of Trinity Hall, said: “Isabelle was a gifted teacher and committed tutor. She was a wonderful and positive member of our college community and a dear friend to many of us. We will miss her greatly.”
Isabelle was an instigator of Tactics and Praxis, a group exploring feminist and ethical intersections between academic and creative work, and was influential in the foundation of The New School of the Anthropocene (NSotA), serving as a member of the advisory board.
A statement on the NSotA website said: “The NSotA community is shocked and desolate at the news of Isabelle McNeill’s passing on 21 February. The agony of her young family and close friends must be beyond measure and we send them our love and deepest condolences.
“We regarded Isabelle as a beloved companion and unique source of counsel. She was incomparably wise and compassionate; a woman of unimpeachable integrity and a truly beautiful person.
“It’s right to say that without her early encouragement and support, not to mention the radical possibilities afforded by her Tactics and Praxis seminar at Trinity Hall, there would be no New School of the Anthropocene. She not only taught and examined for us, but put in a notable administrative shift, too.”
