Dr Anne Whitehead
Senior Lecturer in Modern and Contemporary Literature

  • 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 and memory studies. While continuing my interest in these areas, my current research also engages with the intersection between literature and medicine, examining its implications both as it is represented in contemporary fiction and as it is influencing current critical theory and practice.

Roles and Responsibilities

In 2012-13,  I will be acting as the co-ordinator of the Annual Progress Review process for doctoral students 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 of 2012-13 are Mondays 3-5 and Wednesdays 12-1.

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, 2008) and, co-edited with Michael Rossington and contributing editors, Theories of Memory: A Reader (Edinburgh University Press/Johns Hopkins University Press/University of Western Australia Press, 2007).

Current Work

I am currently preparing my next monograph, Medicine and Empathy in Contemporary British Fiction, which is contracted to Edinburgh University Press. I am interested in analysing how and why contemporary British writers have turned to medical subjects in order to negotiate, problematise, and critique notions of empathy. 

With my colleagues Jennifer Richards and Heather Tilley in the School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics at Newcastle University, I am also developing a proposal for a Companion to the Critical Medical Humanities (Edinburgh University Press) in collaboration with Sarah Atkinson, Jane Macnaughton, and Angela Woods of the Centre for Medical Humanities at the University of Durham. 

Doctoral Supervision

I am interested in supervising postgraduates in the following areas:

  • trauma and literature
  • literatures and theories of memory and forgetting
  • literature and war or genocide
  • literature and human rights / processes of reconciliation 
  • the relation between medicine and contemporary literature
  • theories and literatures of care and/or empathy
  • postwar British fiction, especially Pat Barker, Janice Galloway, James Kelman, Kazuo Ishiguro

I have supervised to completion five PhDs, which have all passed with no or minor corrections. Four of them have been AHRC funded. They have included studies of J. M. Coetzee, Kazuo Ishiguro and W. G. Sebald; fictional representations of the Holocaust; and trauma theory and Romanticism.

I am currently supervising (50%) AHRC funded projects on the representation of political torture, and on contemporary fictions of the First World War.    

Doctoral Examining

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

Recent invited papers/lectures

Centre for Irish Studies, Catholic University of Leuven (2012); University of Lincoln (2012); 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

  • Book Forum on Pat Barker's Life Class (City Library, Newcastle, March 2013)
  • In conversation with Pat Barker and public lecture, 'The Face of War: Reading Pat Barker's Life Class', 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 convening and teaching on the stage 1 module SEL1023 Transformations and co-teaching on the Stage 2 module SEL2206 Class, Nation, Identity.

My stage 3 module in 2012-13 will be SEL3356 Madness, Medicine and the Modern Novel: Reading Hysteria in Fiction. 

 

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

 

Postgraduate Teaching

At Masters level, I will be contributing a unit on 'Remembering the Holocaust' to the team-taught module 'Time II' on the MA in Modern and Contemporary Studies.