Background

Background

Anne is Professor of Modern and Contemporary Literature and she has published on poetry, the short story and the contemporary novel, with particular interests in Pat Barker, Kazuo Ishiguro and W. G. Sebald. She specialises in trauma and memory studies, feminist theory, and the medical humanities. She has published three monographs: Trauma Fiction (2004), Memory: New Critical Idiom (2008) and Medicine and Empathy in Contemporary British Fiction (2017).

Anne has worked at Newcastle University since she was appointed as a lecturer in 1999. 

Roles and Responsibilities

In semester 1 of 2020-21, Anne is Deputy Head of the School of English as well as Director of Impact. She is on research leave in semester 2. 

She sits on the steering committee of the Newcastle University Medical Humanities Network. 

Research

Research Interests

Anne's research focuses on modern and contemporary literature, and she has particular interests in medical humanities, trauma and memory studies, and feminism and affect. Her most recent publications are Medicine and Empathy in Contemporary British Fiction (Edinburgh University Press, 2017) and the co-edited Edinburgh Companion to the Critical Medical Humanities (Edinburgh University Press, 2016). Her other books include Memory: New Critical Idiom (Routledge, 2008), Theories of Memory: A Reader (Edinburgh University Press, 2007), W. G. Sebald: A Critical Companion (Edinburgh University Press, 2004), and Trauma Fiction (Edinburgh University Press, 2004).

Anne has co-edited a special issue of Feminist Theory on feminism and affect (2012). Her articles have been published in Modern Fiction Studies, Contemporary Literature and Textual Practice, and her new essay on Kazuo Ishiguro's short stories is scheduled for publication in Modern Fiction Studies in 2021. 

Anne is currently writing her next monograph, Relating Suicide, which is contracted to Bloomsbury's Critical Interventions in the Medical and Health Humanities series.   

Doctoral Supervision

Anne is an experienced supervisor of doctoral projects and welcomes applications in any area of her expertise. She was Director of Postgraduate Studies for the School of English (2013-16) and she acted as Interim Director of the Northern Bridge Doctoral Training Consortium (2015-16).

External Activities 

Anne is a regular national and international examiner and reviewer. She is a member of the AHRC Peer Review College (2017-2022) and she reviews applications for, amongst others, the Wellcome Trust, the British Academy, the Leverhulme Trust, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and the Icelandic Research Council.

Anne sits on the steering committee of the Wellcome funded Northern Network for Medical Humanities Research.

Anne was the project lead on a Knowledge Transfer Partnership with Seven Stories: The National Centre for Children's Books, which was the recipient of the Times Higher Education Leadership and Management Award for Knowledge Exchange Project of the Year, 2017.    

Teaching

Undergraduate Teaching

SEL3362, English Literature Dissertation (module leader and supervisor)

SEL3364/5, Independent Essay I and II (module leader, supervisor and lecturer)

SEL2206, Contemporary Cultures (lecturer and seminar leader)

SEL1023, Transformations (lecturer)

Postgraduate Teaching

Research Methods: 'Representing Pain' (MA in English Literature)

Thinking Theories and Methods: 'Medical Humanities' (Doctoral Training Programme, Faculty of Arts and Humanities)

External Examining

Anne is currently an external examiner on the MA in Medical Humanities: Bodies, Cultures and Ideas at Birkbeck, University of London (2020-2024).  

She has previously been appointed as external examiner of the undergraduate English Literature programmes at Cardiff University (2011-2014) and at Bristol University (2016-20).

Publications

• Whitehead A. Medicine and Empathy in Contemporary British Fiction: An Intervention in Medical Humanities. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2017.
• Whitehead A, Woods A, Atkinson S, Macnaughton J, Richards J, ed. Edinburgh Companion to the Critical Medical Humanities. Edinburgh, UK: Edinburgh University Press, 2016.
• Whitehead A, Woods A. Introduction. In: Anne Whitehead, Angela Woods, Sarah Atkinson, Jane Macnaughton and Jennifer Richards, ed. The Edinburgh Companion to the Critical Medical Humanities. Edinburgh, UK: Edinburgh University Press, 2016, pp.1-31.
• Whitehead A. War and Beauty: The Act of Unmasking in Pat Barker's Toby's Room and Louisa Young's My Dear, I Wanted to Tell You. In: Saunders C; Macnaughton J; Fuller D, ed. The Recovery of Beauty: Arts, Culture, Medicine. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015, pp.217-234.
• Whitehead A. The Medical Humanities: A Literary Perspective. In: Victoria Bates, Alan Bleakley, and Samuel Goodman, ed. Medicine, Health and the Arts: Approaches to the Medical Humanities. London and New York: Routledge, 2014, pp.107-127.
• Whitehead A. Reading with empathy: Sindiwe Magona's Mother to Mother. Feminist Theory 2012, 13(2), 181-195.
• Pedwell C, Whitehead A, ed. Affecting Feminism: Questions of Feeling in Feminist Theory (Special issue of Feminist Theory). London: Sage, 2012.
• Pedwell C, Whitehead A. Introduction: Affecting feminism: Questions of feeling in feminist theory. Feminist Theory 2012, 13(2), 115-129.
• Whitehead A. Writing with care: Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go. Contemporary Literature 2011, 52(1), 54-83.
• Whitehead A. Representing the Child Soldier: Trauma, Postcolonialism and Ethics in Delia Jarrett-Macauley's Moses, Citizen and Me. In: Ganteau, JM; Onega, S, ed. Ethics and Trauma in Contemporary British Fiction. Amsterdam: Rodopi BV, 2011, pp.205-234.
• Whitehead A. Trauma and Resistance in Art Spiegelman's In the Shadow of No Towers. In: Crownshaw, R; Kilby, J; Rowland, A, ed. The Future of Memory. Oxford: Berghahn, 2010, pp.241-251.
• Whitehead A. Journeying through hell: Wole Soyinka, trauma, and postcolonial Nigeria. Studies in the Novel 2008, 40(1-2), 13-30.
• Whitehead A. Memory. London and New York: Routledge, 2008.
• Whitehead A. The Role of Theories of Memory in Teaching the Holocaust. In: Eaglestone R; Langford B, ed. Teaching Holocaust Literature and Film. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008, pp.37-47.
• Rossington M, Whitehead A, Contributing eds.: Anderson L, Chedgzoy K, Mukherjee P, Richards J, ed. Theories of Memory: A Reader. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007.
• Whitehead A. Tony Harrison, the Gulf War and the poetry of protest. Textual Practice 2005, 19(2), 349-+.
• Whitehead A. Pat Barker's Regeneration Trilogy. In: Shaffer, B.W, ed. A Companion to the British and Irish Novel 1945-2000. Oxford: Blackwell, 2005, pp.550-561.
• Whitehead A. Trauma fiction. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2004.
• Long JJ, Whitehead A. W. G. Sebald - A Critical Companion. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2004.
• Whitehead A. The past as revenant: Trauma and haunting in Pat Barker's Another World. Critique - Studies in Contemporary Fiction 2004, 45(2), 129-146.
• Whitehead A. 'Telling Tales: Trauma and Testimony in Binjamin Wilkomirski's Fragments'. Discourse 2003, 25(1 & 2), 119-137.
• Whitehead A. Geoffrey Hartman and the Ethics of Place: Landscape, Memory, Trauma. European Journal of English Studies 2003, 7(3), 275-292.
• Whitehead A. A Still, Small Voice: Letter-writing, Testimony and the Project of Address in Etty Hillesum's Letters from Westerbork. Cultural Values 2001, 5(1), 79-96.
• Rossington M, Whitehead A, ed. Between the Psyche and the Polis: Refiguring History in Literature and Theory. Aldershot and Burlington, Vt: Ashgate, 2000.
• Whitehead Anne. Refiguring Orpheus: the possession of the past in Ted Hughes' Birthday Letters. Textual Practice, 13 227-241 1999.
• Anne Whitehead. Open to Suggestion: Hypnosis and History in Pat Barker's Regeneration. Modern Fiction Studies, 44 674-694 1998.