Dr Gavin Miller
- Reader in Contemporary Literature and Medical Humanities (English Literature)
telephone:
0141 330 2435
email:
Gavin.Miller@glasgow.ac.uk
Critical Studies - English Lit, Room 504, 2 The Square, Glasgow G12 8QQ
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3144-8233Biography
Prior to joining the University of Glasgow in 2011 as Senior Lecturer, I worked at Edinburgh University and at Manchester Metropolitan University. My undergraduate and PhD degrees are in English Literature, and so I have mainly worked in Literature departments. But I was from 2010-11 employed within the School of Divinity, University of Edinburgh, as part of the AHRC-funded Theology and Therapy Project.
Research interests
- Contemporary literature, particularly illness narrative, medical journalism, and discursive writing
- Science fiction and Horror fiction
- History and theory of the psy disciplines, including their book and media history
- The broader medical humanities in theory and practice
I direct the Glasgow Medical Humanities Research Centre and the Wellcome Trust funded Glasgow Medical Humanities Network, as well as being a Steering Group member for the Wellcome funded Northern Network for Medical Humanities, and a Glasgow representative for the CIVIS Health Humanities and Innovative Pedagogies Hub.
I am lead Editor for the book series Contemporary Cultural Studies of Illness, Health and Medicine (Edinburgh University Press), an Associate Editor for the journal Palgrave Communications, and a member of the Peer-Review Committee for Études écossaises.
I review funding and do panel work for a variety of organisations. I am a member of both the AHRC Peer Review College (second term) and the UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship Peer Review College, and I was an expert reviewer for the AHRC COVID-19 call. I have also reviewed for the MRC, ESRC, Wellcome Trust and Carnegie Trust.
I have peer-reviewed for a wide range of journals across medical humanities, contemporary literature, religious studies, Scottish literature, psychiatry and psychotherapy, and history of the psy disciplines. I have peer-reviewed monographs and collections for various publishers, including Routledge, Peter Lang, Palgrave MacMillan, Bloomsbury, and UCL Press.
I welcome invitations to externally examine, including at undergraduate and taught postgraduate level. I have externally examined PhDs in contemporary and modern literature, and medical humanities, for University of Aberdeen, University of Bristol, Monash University, University of Stirling, and King's College London.
Publications
Selected publications
Miller, G. (2020) Science Fiction and Psychology. Series: Liverpool Science Fiction Texts and Studies, 62. Liverpool University Press. ISBN 9781789620603 (doi: 10.3828/liverpool/9781789620603.001.0001)
Miller, G. and McFarlane, A. (2016) Science Fiction and the Medical Humanities [Guest Editors]. Medical Humanities, 42(4),
Miller, G. (2018) Madness decolonized?: Madness as transnational identity in Gail Hornstein’s Agnes’s Jacket. Journal of Medical Humanities, 39(3), pp. 303-323. (doi: 10.1007/s10912-017-9434-8) (PMID:28194547)
Miller, G. (2017) David Stafford-Clark (1916-1999): seeing through a celebrity psychiatrist. Wellcome Open Research, 2, 30. (doi: 10.12688/wellcomeopenres.11411.1) (PMID:28503668) (PMCID:PMC5426535)
Miller, G. (2020) Miracles of Healing: Psychotherapy and Religion in Twentieth-Century Scotland. Series: Scottish religious cultures. Edinburgh University Press: Edinburgh. ISBN 9781474446969
White, R. , McGeachan, C. , Miller, G. and Xenofontos, S. (Eds.) (2020) Special Issue: "Other Psychotherapies” – Healing Interactions Across Time, Geography and Culture [Guest Editors]. Transcultural Psychiatry, 57(6). SAGE Publications.
All publications
Grants
Wellcome Trust Humanities and Social Science Small Grant. "Glasgow Medical Humanities Network". January 2019-December 2021. £50 083. Principal Investigator.
British Academy Small Research Grant. "Penguins on the Couch: Penguin publishing on psychoanalysis and psychotherapy c.1935-1990". April 2017 - September 2018. £3 460. Principal Investigator.
Wellcome Trust Medical Humanities Small Grant. “Other Psychotherapies – Across Time, Space and Cultures”. March 2016 – August 2017. £5 000. Principal Investigator.
Wellcome Trust Medical Humanities Seed Award. "Science Fiction and the Medical Humanities". July 2015 - June 2016. £39 614. Principal Investigator
Wellcome Trust Medical Humanities Small Grant. "David Stafford-Clark (1916-1999): Portrait of a Media Psychiatrist". £2 208. Principal Investigator.
Royal Society of Edinburgh Arts & Humanities Small Grants. “DSM-5 and the Future of Psychiatric Diagnosis: Perspectives from Medical Humanities”. July 2014. £668. Principal Investigator.
Carnegie Trust Research Grant. “Psychiatry in the book market: writing on psychiatry and mental health for Penguin (1945-1985)”. July 2013. £551. Principal Investigator.
Royal Society of Edinburgh Research Workshop Award. “Scottish Health Humanities Seminar and Masterclass Series”. March 2013 – February 2014. £4 150. Principal Investigator.
Wellcome Trust Medical History and Humanities Small Grant. ‘"Attentive Writers": Healthcare, Authorship, and Authority'. August 2013. £5 000. Co-Investigator.
AHRC Science in Culture theme Exploratory Award. “Debating the First Principles of Transcultural Psychiatry”. February 2012 – August 2012. £8 500. Principal Investigator.
Royal Society of Edinburgh Research Network Award. “Medical Humanities Research Network Scotland”. April 2011 – March 2013. £9 623. Co-Investigator with Dr David Shuttleton, English Literature, University of Glasgow.
University of Edinburgh Dean’s Fund (College of Humanities and Social Science). “Edinburgh University Medical Humanities Research Network”. January 2011. £750
Wellcome Trust Medical History and Humanities Fellowship. “R.D. Laing: the Medical Doctor as Public Intellectual (1960-1987)”. £168 292. [declined]
AHRC Religion and Society programme Large Grant. “Understanding the Encounter between Christianity, Psychotherapy and Spirituality in Scotland (1945-2000) in Theory and Practice”. Jan 2010 – December 2011. £251 000 [as named R.A. developing bid]
Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowship. “Scottish Psychoanalytic Psychiatry 1880-1990”. Jan 2006 – December 2007. £43 086 + matching funding from host institution. Principal Investigator.
Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities, University of Edinburgh. Postdoctoral Fellowship. October 2004 - September 2005. £5 000
Supervision
I welcome enquiries regarding postgraduate research supervision in my research areas as explained above. If you email me, please take time to check that your interests correspond with mine.
I currently supervise or co-supervise research postgraduates working on a wide variety of topics, and I often supervise across different subject areas and universities:
Eilidh Bowie, Narratives of death in horror fiction, 1970-present (SGSAH funded; with End of Life Studies, Glasgow, and English, Stirling University)
Zoe Slater, Narrative insurgency and experimental form in British and American women’s writing from 1965 (Wellcome Trust funded; with English, Stirling University )
Laura Donald, Narrating chronic heart disease in contemporary British and American writing, 1980-present (Wellcome Trust funded; with Science, Technology and Innovation Studies, Edinburgh University)
Dora Valkanou, In Bed with Kierkegaard: a novel of erotic passion
Wansah Al-Shammari, Madness in contemporary British drama (with Theatre Studies)
Katerina Llano, The writings of British author and public intellectual Colin Wilson
Deborah Molloy, The Sick Apple: A geocritical investigation into female mental illness in New York fiction set between 1925 and 1955
Kiation-Qatjon Lanos, Masochism in European literature (with German)
Ross Cook, Prophecy in science fiction
Oliver Langmead, Epic Poetry and terraforming (with Creative Writing)
Sarah Spence, Representations of stigmatized health conditions in Scottish fiction 1979-present (Wellcome Trust funded)
- ALShammari, Wansah Fawaz M
The Representation of Mental Illness in Contemporary British Drama from 1970 to the Present. - Lanos, Kiation-Qatjon
The liberating Impact of masochism - Molloy, Deborah
The Sick Apple: A geocritical investigation into female mental illness in New York fiction set between 1925 and 1955
Completed PhDs that I have supervised include:
Dr Joe Wood, Cicely Saunders and the Legacies of ‘Total Pain’ (SGSAH funded; with End of Life Studies)
Dr Charlotte Orr, Sir Ronald Ross (1857-1932): The literary self-fashioning of a colonial medico-scientific researcher
Dr Kevin Smith, Erich Fromm's 'The Art of Loving': An existential, psychodynamic, and theological critique (SGSAH funded; with Theology and Religious Studies)
Dr Sarah Phelan, Reconstructing a twentieth-century Scottish psychiatrist: Thomas Ferguson Rodger, “Wartime psychiatry”, “Eclecticism”, and “Mad dreaming” (Glasgow LKAS scholarship; with Geography)
Dr Alex Campbell, Archipelagic poetics: ecology in modern Scottish and Irish poetry (with Interdisciplinary Studies)
Dr Mark Gallagher, From mental patient to service user: deinstitutionalisation and the emergence of the Mental Health Service User Movement in Scotland, 1971-2006 (with Economic and Social History)
Teaching
I am Learning and Teaching Convener for English Literature, and I regularly convene Honours provision in literary theory and contemporary literature. I convene the Senior Honours option Science Fiction ENGLIT4062, and I co-teach on the Senior Honours option Literature and Medicine ENGLIT4059.
I also convene the MLitt Option The Bleeding Edge: Contemporary Narratives Of Illness And Medicine ENGLIT5104, and will soon introduce a new contemporary Horror Fiction option that will be available at both Senior Honours and MLitt.
I founded and occasionally still convene Glasgow's intercalated medical humanities degree, the BSc Med Sci (Hons) in Medical Humanities, and I also accept medical students as a supervisor on independent SSMs.
Additional information
Because of my interest in the history of Scottish psychotherapy, I have been for some years a Co-director of the Sutherland Trust http://www.sutherlandtrust.org.uk/, a registered independent charity (Scottish Charity Number SC22013) promoting the study of human relations in Education, Social Services, and Health Care. 2007 – present
