Visual and material approaches
Critical engagement with visual and material culture is a prominent feature of research conducted at the MHRC. Several members have studied the influence of various media on current experiences of health and disability. In his book, Satire, Comedy, and Mental Health (2021), Dr Dieter Declercq (Lecturer in Medical Humanities (Narrative Medicine)) draws on a wide range of media and material culture to examine the importance of satire to mental health. Professor Amy Holdsworth (Professor of Television, Film and Cultural Studies) has been publishing extensively on the representation of disability in film and television, focusing especially on dementia, learning disability, and child disability. Dr Fabiola Creed (Sociological & Cultural Studies) is a Research Associate on Professors Anna Greenwood, Alex Mold and Heather Wardle’s major Wellcome Trust-funded project, ‘Kicking the Habit: Historicising ‘Addictive’ Sport Sponsorship in Britain, 1965-2025’. In her earlier research she explored the representation of sunbeds and tanning in modern Britain.
The historical role of art and craft in health and recovery is another area of research with a particularly strong tradition at the MHRC. Dr Sabine Wieber (Senior Lecturer in the History of Art) led the AHRC-funded project 'Madness and Modernity: Art, Architecture and Mental Illness in Vienna and the Habsburg Empire, 1890-1914’. She has also worked on Austrian health-tourism and Jewish identity, textile work in Central European psychiatric institutions, and sewing as rehabilitation for soldiers in post-WWI Britain. Focusing on twentieth-century Scottish contexts, Dr Cheryl McGeachan (Senior Lecturer in Geographical & Earth Sciences) has undertaken the project ‘A Tapestry of Tales: Investigating the Historical Geographies of Art Therapy and “Art Extraordinary” in Scotland (1950-1980)’ (British Academy Small Research Grants, 2014/16).
Finally, in collaboration with the University of Glasgow’s Hunterian Museum, Professor Dahlia Porter (English Literature and Material Culture) has been studying the museum’s anatomical and pathological collections using object-based and archival research methods. The project has resulted in publications in the British Journal of the History of Science Themes and the edited collection Institutions of Literature. Ongoing use of these collections in teaching has focused on the history of anatomical illustration and the ethics of collecting and displaying human remains.