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Reflections on Reading Bodies (2023-2025)

As we reach the final stages of the Reading Bodies grant, here are some reflections on the shape, scope and challenges of the project over the last 20 months:

This AHRC-funded multilingual project has sought to address the under-representation of Hispanic Studies research in the wider field of Medical Humanities. To achieve this objective, the project has facilitated exchanges with specialists working on literary and cultural representations of health and illness in French, Portuguese, Italian and German Studies. It includes the following highlights:

Year One

  • Established an international Reading Bodies Research Network with specialists in the UK, Europe and USA, through regular online meetings to facilitate the exchange of ideas and perspectives.
  • Held academic workshops in 2024 at the Institute of Languages, Cultures and Societies (University of London) and University of Exeter;
  • Contributed to the Multilingual Medical Humanities series of The Polyphony;
  • Established partnerships with arts and cultural organisations, writers, artists and health professionals;
  • Developed an extended Special Issue with the Journal of Romance Studies on ‘Reading Bodies: Narrating Illness in European Literatures and Cultures (1870s to 1960s and Beyond)’, forthcoming in Autumn 2025.
  • More information on outputs can be found here.

Year Two

  • Hosted creative workshops and public engagement activity in Exeter and London, leading to the Reading Bodies: Burnout, Overload and Resilience anthology (2024);
  • Shared our research impact via the University’s Public Engagement with Research blog and University News;
  • Held an ‘in conversation’ online event about writing bodies and health with acclaimed author Sarah Moss. This interview aimed to establish connections between research on literary representations of health and illness in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and their relevance in the present day;
  • Disseminated our research findings via conferences such as the Association of Hispanists of Great Britain and Ireland, Edinburgh University (April 2025) and Northern Network for Medical Humanities Research 2025 Congress on ‘TONGUES: Medical Humanities across Linguistic and Cultural Frontiers’ (May 2025).

If you’re interested in learning more about these activities and the wider field of Multilingual Medical Humanities, please follow our Reading Bodies Multilingual Network on Bluesky.

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Events News

Writing Bodies: In Conversation with Sarah Moss

Thank you so much to everyone who attended our In Conversation event on 7 May with acclaimed author Sarah Moss. We were thrilled to host Sarah as she delivered a generous reading from her recent work, My Good Bright Wolf: A Memoir.

The conversation, led by Katharine Murphy, explored a wide range of topics, including the intricacies of writing about the body and illness, whether writing can serve a therapeutic purpose, and the formal challenges of life writing and fiction.

Attendees engaged meaningfully during the Q&A session, chaired by Laura Salisbury, asking insightful questions about the literary references in Sarah’s work, the balance between writing and day-to-day life, and how to maintain a regular writing practice.

The event was well-attended by academics and members of the public. Feedback included:

‘I personally love hearing tales from the intersection of motherhood, creativity, and academia.’

‘It was wonderful, and helped me think afresh about writing, resilience, and the therapeutic.’

‘This was absolutely fascinating!.’

‘[I enjoyed] the introduction to this wonderful research and the links to explore more.’

Watch the recording of the event here:

Reading and Writing Bodies

The public engagement activities for Reading Bodies have considered the present-day relevance of historical discourses about illness, health and the body. Echoing our project research findings, Sarah Moss reflected on the ways in which reading literary texts from the past provide a way into exploring illness in her own writing, exemplified by an array of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century literary intertexts in her book My Good Bright Wolf. She explained that her novel Bodies of Light, although set in the nineteenth century, comments on health inequalities past and present, including contemporary pressures on the NHS. During our conversation, Sarah also expanded on her critical response to contemporary theories of resilience. Underscoring the importance of recognising the impact of social determinants of health, she commented that resilience is:

‘a term that really risks transferring structural problems to individuals; […] I’m very skeptical of anything that seeks to require individuals to resolve structural problems in their own bodies or in their own mind’.

We were so pleased to have the chance to discuss the findings of our project research on reading illness in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century European literatures and cultures with a contemporary author who has written so extensively on the body. As we noted in the introduction to this event, Sarah’s work:

‘speaks profoundly to the questions of what it means to write and to read embodiment, including in states of illness and distress. Her close attention to the texture of lived experience also traces out how aesthetic forms might create new conditions, both for understanding and potentially for wellbeing’.

Pre-order Sarah Moss’s new book, Ripeness, here: https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/sarah-moss/ripeness/9781529035490

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Events News

Reading Bodies News Item

We are delighted to share a news feature on how public engagement activity for Reading Bodies underscores the contemporary relevance of our project research on late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century European literature:

Renowned author Sarah Moss set for public talk on her writing and the human body – News

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Events News

Writing Bodies: In Conversation with acclaimed author Sarah Moss – 7 May 2025

Join us for a discussion with author Sarah Moss as we explore the relationship between writing, health, and the human body. This free event takes place online and is open to the public – all welcome!

Read more information about the event here: Renowned author Sarah Moss set for public talk on her writing and the human body – News

Sarah told us about her interest in the Reading Bodies project: ‘I’ve been writing and thinking about literature and the body since my PhD on 18th-century travel writing, and especially in recent fiction and life writing as I explore what bodies say without and/or against words, and how literature can almost literally shape our bodies, especially in relation to girls’ reading and eating. My interest in writing, food and bodies wanders from 18th-century ships to modern and historical kitchens, from human remains in museums to ghosts on the mountains’.

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Events News

Writing Bodies – Creative Writing Sessions in London

As part of our Reading Bodies public engagement initiative, Dr Olivia Glaze hosted two creative writing sessions in London which focused on the theme of the body.

The first ‘Writing Bodies’ session took place at the Battersea Arts Centre on 7 November 2024, followed by the second session at St Marylebone Parish Church on 20 February 2025. These events provided a welcoming space for participants to explore or enhance their creative writing skills while fostering a sense of community.

Participants created a variety of writing styles, including fiction, personal essays, poetry, and haikus, focusing on themes such as ageing, illness, and body confidence. They also offered thoughtful feedback on each other’s writing, fostering a supportive and collaborative writing environment.

A heartfelt thank you to everyone who attended and shared their creativity with us! We hope you continue to write and explore your storytelling journey.

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Events News

Reading Bodies at upcoming conferences

Prof. Katharine Murphy and Dr Olivia Glaze will be presenting research relating to the Reading Bodies project at the forthcoming Association of Hispanists of Great Britain and Ireland 70th Annual Conference in Edinburgh, 7-8 April 2025. Our papers are part of a panel on ‘Cultural Portrayals of Illnesses and Disabilities in the Modern Luso-Hispanic World’, in collaboration with academics in Hispanic and Portuguese Studies at the University of Leeds.

Our research findings for Reading Bodies will also be presented at TONGUES: Medical Humanities across linguistic and cultural frontiers, the Northern Network for Medical Humanities Congress, 21-23 May 2025 (online).

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Articles News

Reading Bodies Special Issue with Journal of Romance Studies (in preparation)

Our forthcoming Special Issue on ‘Reading Bodies: Narrating Illness in European Literatures and Cultures (1870s to 1970s)’, guest edited by Katharine Murphy and Olivia Glaze, is scheduled for publication by the Journal of Romance Studies later in 2025. This extended volume seeks to contribute to the rapidly emerging field of Multilingual Medical Humanities and will include articles on illness narratives in Spanish, French, Portuguese and Italian cultural texts. Watch this space for updates!

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Articles Events News

Reading Bodies Creative Anthology with Riptide

We’re delighted to share our Reading Bodies: Burnout, Overload and Resilience creative anthology, published in collaboration with Riptide Journal (2024). You can read the digital version as a flipbook and via our website here.

The volume presents fiction, poetry and artwork inspired by our research themes and explores how creativity can unlock different perspectives on burnout and resilience. For more information about this initiative, please visit our blog post about the creative workshop we held in June 2024.

The Reading Bodies anthology features on the Behavioural and Cultural Insights Hub, a knowledge-sharing platform for healthy practices developed in collaboration with the WHO Regional Office for Europe.

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Articles News

Reading Bodies Illustration

Artist Katharine Howell has illustrated the Reading Bodies collaborative process with Riptide Journal, in preparation for our forthcoming anthology on Burnout, Overload and Resilience. We’re delighted to share her illustration below:

You can find more information about the artist here.

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Events News

Burnout, Overload & Resilience: A Creative Writing Workshop, 14 June 2024

We are looking forward to the third in our series of project workshops for Reading Bodies, hosted by the University of Exeter on 14 June 2024. This creative writing workshop on the theme of Burnout, Overload and Resilience, will be introduced by researchers in Languages, Public Health and Psychology, and led by Dr Sally Flint, a specialist in Creative Writing. A reminder of practical information and what to bring can be found in our flyer below. We invite submissions of writing and illustrations for publication in Riptide Journal.