Health Humanities Research Group
Our research explores the intersection of English, Humanities, Health, Healthcare, and Wellbeing. We meet several times a year to share new research from academic staff, postgraduate researchers, and invited visiting speakers.
We have expertise across a range of periods and topics, in particular medieval and early modern dietary culture (including Shakespeare), early modern women’s health, mental health in the nineteenth century, contemporary ageing, ill-health and work in the twenty-first century.
About
The Health Humanities Research Group houses research across a range of periods, from the medieval era to the contemporary moment. The group comprises academics and Doctoral Researchers from the Departments of English and International Relations, Politics and History within the School of Social Sciences and Humanities, as well as colleagues from the School of Design and Creative Arts.
We focus on the significance of health and well-being in literature, drama, history, visual art, and modern culture, incorporating both traditional and modern theoretical approaches. Our research is on dietary culture in the medieval and early-modern period, including Shakespeare; women's physical health in the early-modern period; women's mental health in the nineteenth century; ageing in modernist and contemporary culture.
The group organizes exhibitions, conferences, and other events that involve developing and enriching Health Humanities research in the UK and internationally.
Members of the group have received research funding from the AHRC, the British Academy, Leverhulme, and The Rosetrees Medical Trust. We have published widely within our own research specialisms but come together in this group to forge connections between the many and varied disciplinary strands that make for vibrant Health Humanities research. We continue to develop relationships with interested academic parties and public partners, both in the UK and internationally, most recently with Health Humanities researchers from Virginia Tech University in the USA.
Members of the group are listed below. For a selection of the wide range of research projects involving members of the Health Humanities Research Group see the 'Projects' section of this web page. Check out also the 'News and Events' section for information about our forthcoming British Academy Summer Showcase Exhibit: Materials of Pandemic Care Across Time (and a visit by our Vice Chancellor to the School of Social Sciences and Humanities to sample a treatment for plague and some early-modern biscuits).
Our members include:
- Professor Jennifer Cooke - contemporary Literature, outsourced care, feminist methodologies
- Professor Siân Adiseshiah - ageing and contemporary
- Dr Joan Fitzpatrick - medieval, early modern, and Shakespeare
- Dr Sara Read - early-modern women's health
- Dr Claire O'Callaghan - mental health in the nineteenth century
- Dr Anne-Marie Beller - mental health in the nineteenth century, Victorian lunatic asylums
- Dr Emily Bell - creativity and care in the James Joyce archive
- Dr Jade French - ageing, care, and modernism
- Dr Victoria Browne - the politics and philosophy of reproduction, care and vulnerability
- Dr Tamarin Norwood - bereavement studies and creativity, including drawing and life-writing
- Dr Rachael Grew - the monstrous body in art history and visual culture
- Hannah Palmer - maternal histories in the nineteenth century
- Catherine Rees - applied theatre and eating behaviour in care homes
- Claire Warden - health and wellbeing in Professional Wrestling
- Yee Zhao - aging in contemporary women's life writing
If you would like to contact us, please email the current Health Humanities lead Dr Joan Fitzpatrick
We welcome new members and prospective PhD research projects that investigate all aspects of health humanities within our wide and diverse research specialisms.
