Technologies on the Body
Roundtable: Technologies on the Body
Centre for the Study of the Body and Material Culture
Department of History
11 Bedford Square
Room 1-03
This roundtable brings together scholars from different periods and places to reflect on the relationship between technologies and the body, focusing on specific technologies that are used with or become part of the body. Our speakers will examine the use of prosthetic limbs, cosmetic surgery and breathing apparatus - exploring the integration of objects, bodies and bodily processes.
Dr Jane Draycott is Lord Kelvin Adam Smith Research Fellow in Ancient Science and Technology at the University of Glasgow, UK. Previously she was Lecturer in Classics at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David, Associate Teacher in Roman Archaeology at the University of Sheffield, and 2011–12 Rome Fellow at the British School at Rome. Her research interests include the history and archaeology of medicine, impairment and disability, and prostheses, prosthesis use, and prosthesis users in
classical antiquity.
Dr Paolo Savoia is Postdoctoral Research Fellow at King’s College London, Department of History, where he works on a Wellcome Trust funded project titled Renaissance Skin. He has studied philosophy and history at the University of Bologna, and has obtained his PhD at the Department of the History of Science, Harvard University. His first book is titled Cosmesi e chirurgia: Bellezza, dolore e medicina nell’Italia moderna [Cosmetics and surgery: beauty, pain, and medicine in early modern Italy] (Milan, 2017; the English version is under contract with Routledge).
Dr Jennifer Wallis is Medical Humanities Teaching Fellow at Imperial College London, and previously Lecturer in Cultural and Intellectual History at QMUL. Her research into 'air technologies' is an extension of work she began during a postdoctoral position on the Diseases of Modern Life project at the University of Oxford. Her book, Investigating the Body in the Victorian Asylum, was published with Palgrave last year. Jen's current research focuses on interactions between people, technologies, and environments in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Commentary by Dr Angela McShane (Head of Research Development, Wellcome Collection)
For more information: katie.carpenter@rhul.ac.uk
