Profile
After completing my undergraduate studies in Physics and HPS at the University of Cambridge, I spent ten years as a BBC film-maker. I subsequently won Wellcome Trust funding for an MA and PhD in the history of medicine at UCL. I currently work at the Centre for the History of the Emotions, as a post-doctoral researcher and Public Engagement Co-ordinator.
Research
Research Interests:
My central research interest is the history and philosophy of concepts of health. My PhD thesis examined this topic from a biographical perspective, looking at the American philosopher and psychologist William James's explorations of different understandings of health and their social, philosophical and religious contexts: ‘Re-writing the laws of health: William James on the politics and philosophy of disease in nineteenth-century America.’
My post-doctoral research extends my focus further into the twentieth century and explores the links between child-rearing ideas and practices and concepts of psychological health.
- The American philospher and psychologist William James (1842-1910)
- Stoicism and the Victorians
- The mind-cure movement
- Late nineteenth and twentieth-century child-rearing ideas and practices
- Twentieth-century concepts of psychological health
Publications
Journal Articles
- ‘Interpreting “Mind-Cure”: William James and “the Chief Task of the Science of Human Nature’ (link is external), Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, Spring 2012, Vol. 48, No. 2, pp. 115-133.
- ‘When Misery and Metaphysics Collide: William James on ‘the Problem of Evil’’ (link is external), Medical History, July 2011, Vol. 55, No. 3, pp. 389-392.
- ‘Marcus Aurelius, William James and “the Science of Religions (link is external)”’, William James Studies, Dec. 2009, Vol. 4, No. 1, pp. 70-89.
Book reviews
- Francesca Bordogna, William James at the Boundaries: Philosophy, Science, and the Geography of Knowledge (link is external), History of the Human Sciences, Sep. 2010, Vol. 23, No. 4, pp. 121-124.
- Lee-Ann Monk, Attending Madness: at work in the Australian colonial asylum (link is external), Medical History, Oct. 2010, Vol. 54, No. 4, pp. 560-561.