I am Professor of English Literature and the Health Humanities and co-director of the Centre for the Humanities and Health. I joined the department in 2005 as Lecturer in Literature and Medicine, having previously had a career in epidemiology and public health.  Following a BA at Trinity College Dublin, I went to Paris where I studied at the Ecole Normale Supérieure and the Université de Paris VII (Jussieu). My MPhil and DPhil research – on Coleridge – was carried out at Balliol College, Oxford. Previous posts in English include a stint as University Lecturer in Romanticism at Cambridge and Stipendiary Lecturer in English at Jesus College, Oxford.

Research Interests and PhD Supervision

My current research lies exclusively in the health humanities. My latest book (co-authored with Derek Bolton), Being Ill: On Sickness, Care and Abandonment, will be published in the summer of 2024 by Reaktion Books. It is about what major illness does to social belonging in the WEIRD world (Western, Educated, Industrial, Rich and Democratic). A major diagnosis changes how others see us, in ways that are difficult to control. Few if any relationships remain the same. Relations with intimate others often become closer as we become more dependent on them; more distant contacts become more strained; and, if the illness is visible, even relations with complete strangers may become fraught. These transformations in social identity are seldom discussed. Drawing on social neuroscience, group psychology, psychoanalysis, infant research, disability theory and microsociology, we offer a psychobiological account of relations between the healthy and the ill in contemporary Western societies that highlights the creative power of care and the devastation of abandonment. Highly individualistic societies are bad at supporting the supporters of the ill. We show how a sense of connectedness and group belonging can not only improve care but also make societies more resilient to illness.

I am currently co-editing (with Patrick ffrench and Céline Lefève) a special number of the History of the Human Sciences on the history of the medical humanities, which is also the subject of a book I am writing.

I have a strong interest in the history of the Psy disciplines – but most especially the British psychoanalytic tradition – and their relation to concepts of health and illness more generally. Recent publications include a chapter on Long Covid’s future history, an article about Winnicott’s concept of ‘holding’ and major illness, articles on Hilary Mantel, Martin Amis and on illness narrative as a literary genre. I have also published widely on Coleridge and eighteenth-century medicine.

I am happy to talk to anyone interested in working on a PhD in any of these research fields. For more details, please see my full research profile.

Teaching

I convene a second-year undergraduate module on Literature and Psychoanalysis and a third-year module on The Contemporary Irish Novel. I currently teach two MA modules, one An Introduction to the Health Humanities, the other on Illness Narrative as Fiction and as Life Writing.