Dr Anne Whitehead
Senior Lecturer in Modern and Contemporary Literature & Theory

  • Email: anne.whitehead@ncl.ac.uk
  • Telephone: +44 (0) 191 222 3531
  • Fax: +44 (0) 191 222 8708
  • Address: School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU, UK.

Introduction

I work in the area of modern and contemporary literature, and I have published extensively in the related fields of trauma theory and memory studies. My current work extends from these concerns, to examine the concept of empathy in contemporary literature and theory.

Roles and Responsibilities

In semester 2 of 2011-12,  I will be acting as the co-ordinator of AHRC Studentships and School Bursary Awards in the School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics.

I am currently an external examiner of undergraduate degrees in English Literature at the University of Cardiff. 

Office Hours 

My office hours in semester 2 are Tuesdays 2-4, and Thursdays 3-4.

Research Interests

I have established research expertise in the relationship between trauma and modern literature, and I have published the monograph Trauma Fiction (Edinburgh University Press, 2004; trans. Li Ming, Henan University Press, 2011) and co-edited with J. J. Long, W. G. Sebald - A Critical Companion (Edinburgh University Press, 2004). I have also published in this area in a range of journals, including Modern Fiction Studies, Textual Practice, and Contemporary Literature. 

I have related expertise in the field of memory studies, most notably in the publication of my monograph Memory: New Critical Idiom (Routledge, 2009) and, co-edited with Michael Rossington, Theories of Memory: A Reader (Edinburgh University Press/Johns Hopkins University Press/University of Western Australia Press, 2007).

Current Work

I am currently working on my next monograph, which will examine the concept of empathy. I am particularly interested to analyse, and respond to, how the notion of empathy has been conceptualised within the developing field of the medical humanities. 

I am also interested more broadly in the intersections between literature and medicine and am contributing an invited chapter, 'The Medical Humanities: A Literary Perspective' to the volume Medicine, Health and the Arts: Approaches to the Medical Humanities, edited by Victoria Bates and Samuel Goodman (Routledge, 2014). This volume emerges out of a Wellcome Trust funded project (Exeter University, 2012) 

Doctoral Supervision

I am interested in supervising postgraduates in the areas of: literature and empathy; intersections between medicine and modern/contemporary literature; trauma and literature; representations of the Holocaust; contemporary fictions of war; psychoanalytic theory; theories and literatures of memory.

I have supervised to completion the following PhDs, which have all passed with no or minor corrections:

  • Leen Maes, 'Imagined Witness: Representing the Holocaust in American Women's Fiction' (2006; AHRC funded).
  • Franklyn Hyde, 'Towards Decolonisation in the Fiction of J. M. Coetzee' (2006; AHRC funded).
  • Katie Harland, 'The Roots of Traumatic Memory: Wordsworth and the Origins of Trauma in Literature' (2009; AHRC funded).
  • Lucy Gallagher, 'The Contemporary Middlebrow Novel: Feminism, Class and Domesticity in British Women's Writing' (2011; AHRC funded).   

Doctoral Examining

I have acted as external examiner for PhDs at Sheffield University, the University of St Andrews, and Vaasa University in Finland. 

Recent invited papers/lectures

University of Zurich (2011); Centre for Literature and Trauma, University of Ghent (2011); University of Mainz (2010); University of Vienna (2010); University of St Andrews (2010); Cambridge University (2009); Institute of Advanced Studies, University of Durham (2009). 

External Funding

AHRC Research Leave Award (2006-2007); AHRC Research Leave Award (2002-2003); British Academy Small Research Grant (2001).

External Assessorships

I have assessed funding bids for the following external bodies: AHRC, Leverhulme Trust, Royal Society, Newton Fellowships, Humanities and Social Sciences Research Council of Canada, the Flemish Research Council (FWO) Vlaanderen, the Research Council of KU Leuven.

Editorial Boards and Professional Memberships  

I am on the editorial board for the Journal of Trauma and Literature.

I am a member of the UK and Ireland Association of the Medical Humanities, the Contemporary Women's Writing Association, and the research network War-Net. 

Engagement Activities

'The Face of War: Reading Pat Barker's Life Class', public lecture as part of About Face exhibition of Henry Tonks' portraits at Durham Light Infantry Museum (Institute of Advanced Studies and Centre for Medical Humanities, Durham University, June 2012); 'Never Let Me Go', Tyneside Cinema Book Club (Newcastle, 2011); 'Connections across Texts', Modes in Motion: OCR A Level English Language and Literature Conference (London, 2008); 'Life Writing' (with Blake Morrison), Reading Lives, (British Council, Oxford, 2007); 'Memory', Australia Talks, Australian Broadcasting Corporation (2007).

 

Undergraduate Teaching

I will be co-teaching on the Stage Two module SEL2206 Class, Nation, Identity.

I will also be convening and teaching on the Stage One module SEL1023 Transformations.

 

I will also be co-teaching a Student Selected Component module on Medicine and Literature for undergraduates in the Faculty of Medicine.

 

Postgraduate Teaching

At Masters level, I will be contributing sessions on 'Postmodern Time' and 'War, Memory, Culture' to the team-taught module 'Time II' on the MA in Modern and Contemporary Studies.