Hannah Victoria Palmer

Nearly there xx

Couldn’t have done it without you 😘

Thanks Sarah, and thanks for being a fantastic reviewer!! 🩷

This week I submitted my PhD thesis! ✨I have loved this project and feel so lucky to have spent the last 3 years researching & writing. I have found new narratives about the realities of women’s reproductive health inside and outside of medicine, and uncovered histories of real lived experiences 🩺📚✍🏼

The cover image of Victoriographies journal volume 15, number 3, 2025, titled Marie Corelli Reconsidered. The image of an ornate’V’ is paired with a collage picture that includes an image of Marie Corelli with representations of ancient Egypt, mesmerism, provincial newspaper mastheads, Japanese text, and subtle references to twins.

Coming very, very soon…
Eleanor Dobson and I have co-edited a special issue of @edinburghup.bsky.social Victoriographies - titled Marie Corelli Reconsidered. There are clues to its contents in the beautiful cover image, below… we can’t wait for the work of our contributors to be out in the world!

🔈📚🕰️🩺 Join us for a Loughborough Health Humanities x Cultural Currents event on Weds 29 October, 16:15. Taking place in a hybrid format - DM us (or DM @culturalcurrents.bsky.social) for link and details. See post below for more info on our wonderful speakers👇

Yes, thank you! PhD submission next month... ! Was excited to see your progress with WWV x

Congrats Sophie!! This looks fantastic! X

CFP 📣 Join us in Loughborough 📍 for a day of Sensation fiction and health humanities organised by our very own @braddonite.bsky.social. ✨ See post below for details 👇

Mentally ill patients dancing at a ball at Somerset County Asylum. Process print after a lithograph by K. Drake, ca. 1850/1855. https://wellcomecollection.org/works/xswz3swa

CFP: Sensation Fiction and the Health Humanities A VPFA Study Day Loughborough University, 27 March 2026 The Health Humanities and Victorian popular fiction intersect in revealing ways, offering insights into how 19th-century literature shaped and reflected contemporary understandings of health, illness, and the body. Popular narratives not only mirrored anxieties surrounding public health and medical progress but also contributed to shaping public perceptions of health and healing. Health Humanities approaches re-examine these texts to uncover how cultural narratives and literary representations influenced attitudes toward physical and mental well-being, gendered experiences of illness, and the ethics of care in an age of rapid scientific change. Health Humanities is a particularly useful approach to sensation fiction because it illuminates the ways in which these emotionally charged, often morally ambiguous narratives explore and interrogate concepts of the body, illness, and mental health. Sensation fiction, with its focus on secrets, trauma, nervous disorders, and abnormal psychological states, frequently dramatizes the anxieties of Victorian society surrounding health, gender, and identity. By applying the lens of Health Humanities, scholars can uncover how these texts reflect and shape contemporary medical discourse. Interdisciplinary approaches also highlight how sensation fiction critiques institutional medicine, domestic care practices, and the pathologization of women’s experiences. Ultimately, Health Humanities allows us to see sensation fiction not just as entertainment, but as a culturally significant form that negotiates the meanings of illness, morality, and human vulnerability in a rapidly changing world. 20-minute papers are invited on any aspect of the health humanities and sensation fiction. Topics may include, but are not limited to the following: • Madness, Hysteria, and the Sensation Heroine • The Role of Doctors and Medical Authority in Se…

🚨Call for Papers!
❓Sensation Fiction and the Health Humanities: A VPFA Study Day
🗺️Loughborough University
📅27 March 2026
💷 FREE
For full CfP: victorianpopularfiction.org/studyday/for...
Contact the organiser Anne-Marie Beller (@braddonite.bsky.social) at a.m.beller@lboro.ac.uk for more information

Congrats, Claire!! This sounds amazing! X

Congratulations, Sarah!! X

This is a great post and a wonderful project, which features a little pub history - I'm fascinated by pubs responding to tourist opportunities in this period - and even a temperance hall. Loughborough was a decent temperance town, and you'd need somewhere to go on holiday!

This image is a picture of a miniature plague doctor figure. The figure is small (just a few inches tall) and it is a person dressed in all black with a black hat and the iconic plague mask.

The exhibition is interactive and diverse, and such a wonderful representation of the kind of research going on in the Health Humanities at Loughborough. A big congratulations to all involved in this fantastic event. ✨ Also, a moment of appreciation for the mini plague doctor...

Our wonderful researchers are exhibiting 'Materials of pandemic care across time' today and tomorrow at the British Academy Summer Showcase. Tickets are free and available through the link below 👇

Our Health Humanities colleagues shared some of their research with the VC today, including transcribing Victorian medical archives, cycles of care from the Victorian asylum to post-war care homes, 17C midwifery practices, and early modern plague treatments (a sponge with vinegar on the nose!)

Poster for online workshops, 3rd and 4th April 2025, and 10th and 11th April 2025, on the topic of "Women Writing Violence: from the 16th to the 21st century". The first workshop, titled 'Language and Forms of Violence', is dated 3rd April 2025, 14:00 to 17:00 CET. The second workshop, titled 'Witnessing/Inflicting Violence', is dated 4th April 2025, 14:00 to 16:30 CET. This workshop includes a keynote by Carol Acton, based at St Jerome's University, University of Waterloo, Canada. The third workshop, titled 'Domesticity, Motherhood & Violence', is dated 10th April 2025, 13:30 to 15:00 CET. The fourth and final workshop, titled 'Violent Women', is dated 11th April 2025, 14:00 to 17:00 CET. This workshop includes a keynote by Erin Murphy, based at Boston University, US. The workshops are organised by Lara Ehrenfried (LMU Munich), Sophie Franklin (UCD and University of Reading), and Nikolina Hatton (LMU Munich). For a full schedule and session links, see the webpage link: womenwritingviolence.eventbrite.co.uk/

📣 *Women Writing Violence, from the 16th to the 21st century* – online workshops

📆 3–4 April & 10–11 April 2025

Join us for four online events spotlighting English-language women writers and their associations with violence. Sign up to each event here: womenwritingviolence.eventbrite.co.uk

Really looking forward to this! I'll be speaking online on 10 April about abortion, unborn lambs, fur coats, and celebrity feuds in Barbara Comyns's novel The Skin Chairs - one of my favourite books of all time. Tickets are free and available via link below 👇 www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/women-writ...

Congratulations, Jade! So exciting. Would love to celebrate soon xx

An illustration of a woman

Hi friends, Loughborough's Health Humanities research group has finally made it over to bluesky ⛅🦋. Follow for updates from our wonderful researchers in the Health Hums. You can also use the link below find out more about who we are and what we do! www.lboro.ac.uk/subjects/eng...