The College is saddened to announce the death of alumna Dr Isabelle McNeill. Isabelle was Associate Professor in French and Film at Trinity Hall College, where she was a Philomathia Fellow. She was also an Affiliated Lecturer in Modern & Medieval Languages and Linguistics (MMLL), and a key figure in Cambridge Film and Screen.

Isabelle had been a part of the MMLL Faculty since she arrived at Corpus to read French and Russian as an undergraduate. She went on to do her MPhil in European Literature, followed by a PhD in French, under the supervision of Corpus Fellow Professor Emma Wilson. She took up her lectureship at Trinity Hall in 2005.

The Master of Trinity Hall, Mary Hockaday,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.”

Professor JD Rhodes, Fellow and Warden of Leckhampton, said Isabelle was a “dear colleague” at Cambridge Film and Screen (of which he is Director). He continued,

“Isabelle specialised in French cinema, but had a wide range of fascinating and pathbreaking scholarly interests. Her monograph Memory and the Moving Image: French Cinema in the Digital Era (Edinburgh University Press) appeared in 2010. Her recent scholarly preoccupations included the reciprocal relations between urban space and cinematic space (especially situated in Paris), and the representation of girlhood in cinema.  Her work, as both scholar and teacher, was underwritten by a capacious and generative feminist framework. Her commitment to feminist practice bore fruit in Tactics and Praxis, a radical interdisciplinary seminar that she organised—in collaboration with MMLL colleagues Georgina Evans and Louise Haywood—and that explored the intersection of scholarly and creative labour outside the academy. She pursued this work also in very beautiful video-essay practice in recent years.

Isabelle was a beloved teacher and supervisor. She taught generations of MMLL undergraduates while also acting as an inspiring and endlessly supportive postgraduate supervisor. Her numerous PhD students will remember not only her enormous care, but also her supportive criticism, both of which allowed their own interests to flourish.

She gave herself to the institutions in which she worked with great generosity: out of love for teaching and scholarship and with a profound sense of their real importance. She was committed to justice and fairness in the academic workplace.  Her passionate commitment to film and film culture is, in addition to her work as a scholar and teacher, one of her great legacies. She was the co-founder and chair of the board of trustees of the Cambridge Film Trust, the charity that runs the Cambridge Film Festival as well as other activities in the region. 

It is impossible to capture the singularity of any life. Isabelle’s is no exception to this rule; hers is, in fact, a staggering instance of it. We will be looking in the coming days for the most appropriate ways in which to celebrate her life and her contributions to the Faculty, to Cambridge, and the world around her. In the meantime, we offer our condolences to her family and to all who loved her.”