I am a freelance writer, editor and historian. I have researched and published widely on health, medicine, emotion and the body from the ancient world to the present. I regularly give talks and interviews at home and internationally, and I write for the History Girls collective. My recent books include Matters of the Heart: History, Medicine and Emotion and This Mortal Coil: The Human Body in History and Culture . In addition to my own research and writing, I provide a consultancy research and editorial se
Hello, I am a writer and historian, specialising on medicine, emotion, gender and the body. I am a Professor of History at King’s College London, where I lead the Interface project into the history and meanings of the human face. I am also Director of the Centre for Technology and the Body. To find out more about my projects, publications, talks and events, see below. For speaking invites and press enquiries, please use the Contact Me page. My literary agent Is Adam Gauntlett at Peters, Fraser + Dunlop.
Much of my research focuses on the changing meanings of the body in history - and the political functions that those meanings serve. The emergence of scientific medicine in the 19th century did much to create hierarchies of race and gender that remain with us, and are embedded in the language we use everyday.