Project Leader: Dr Maria Vaccarella
I am a Lecturer in Medical Humanities, based in the English Department at the University of Bristol. I work mainly on the genre of illness narratives (both autobiographies and novels): this is why I am interested in fabricated accounts of illness, circulated and promoted as truthful – an intriguing compromise between life-writing and fiction. You can read more about my research activities here.
Research Assistant: Louise Benson James
I am a PhD student in the English Department at the University of Bristol, researching medical hysteria and the Gothic in women’s fiction, 1850-1930. My thesis project looks at how psychosomatic symptoms are depicted in both medical texts and fictional narratives. I am interested in the concept of fake illness looking back into history, for example the Victorian mistrust of hysteria as a feigned illness due to its histrionic manifestations and the way it mimics other disorders. You can read more about my research activities here.