Staff Profile
I lecture on Art History in the Fine Art Department. My research operates broadly within the critical terrain of the medical humanities and art-science relations, and I have a particular interest in how the history of modern art was shaped by scientific and medical thought.
I have published on British sculpture, biocentric modernism, Surrealism and the work of Karl Blossfeldt. My monograph, published by Manchester University Press as Grown but not Made: British Modernist Sculpture and the New Biology (2015), looks at the complex relationship between life science and sculptural production in interwar Britain. I have also contributed to the Edinburgh Companion to the Critical Medical Humanities (Edinburgh University Press, 2016) and, more recently, to No Two Alike: Karl Blossfeldt, Francis Bruguière, Thomas Ruff (Verlag fur moderne Kunst GmbH, 2018). My articles have been published by, among others, History of Photography, Interdisciplinary Science Reviews and the Tate.
My latest work touches directly upon art-science relations in the form of the volume Post-Specimen Encounters between Art, Science and Curating which is due to be published by Intellect Books in late 2020 and which I am both co-editing and contributing to. This book examines how scientific and medical objects in museums and other collections can act as inspiration to contemporary art practice, curating and aesthetics.
Before coming to Newcastle I held a Wellcome Trust Research Fellowship in the Medical Humanities at the University of Edinburgh. Prior to this I was a Henry Moore Postdoctoral Fellow also at the University of Edinburgh. I received my PhD from the University of Manchester in 2009 and my MA and BA from the University of East Anglia.
I welcome enquiries from prospective Fine Art and Art History PhD students especially in the fields of modern and contemporary art-science relations, early 20th century modernism, Surrealism studies as well as the visual medical humanities.
Research Interests
My research operates broadly within the critical terrain of the medical humanities and I have a particular interest in the body as an object of artistic and medical discourse most especially within the context of Surrealism and its legacies. Previous research has examined the relationship between life science and sculptural production in interwar Britain, the fruits of which have been recently published by Manchester University Press as Grown but not Made: British Modernist Sculpture and the New Biology (2015). This book provides the first major critical history of British Modernist Sculpture's interaction with modern biology. It sheds new light on the work of key Modernist artists and critics (including Herbert Read, Barbara Hepworth, Paul Nash and Henry Moore) through exploring the influence on their work of leading interwar biologists and scientific philosophers such as D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson, Julian Huxley and Alfred North Whitehead.
More recently, I have written a chapter on Antonin Artaud and visceral imagery for the forthcoming Edinburgh Critical Companion to the Medical Humanities (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2016) and I am developing a monograph on Surrealism and the anatomical imaginary. New and future projects involve corporeal grotesquery, exploring 'skin' as a critical metaphor in modern and contemporary practice and physiological aesthetics in Surrealism.
Awards
Paul Mellon Publication Grant (Author), 2013
University of Edinburgh Moray Endowment Fund, 2013
Wellcome Trust Research Fellowship in the Medical Humanities, 2012-15
Henry Moore Postdoctoral Fellowship, 2009-11
AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Award, 2005-08
I teach and supervise both undergraduate and postgraduate students.
Undergraduate
Semester 1, 2015/16
- Art Histories 1 (Stage 1)
- Electric Dreams and Nuclear Visions: Art, Science and Medicine in the 20th Century (Stages 2 & 3)
- Dissertation Support Seminars (Stage 3)
Semester 2, 2015/16
- Art Histories II (Stage 1)
- Fleshful Things: The Body and Visual Art (Stages 2 & 3)
- Dissertation Support Seminars (Stage 3)
Postgraduate
I welcome PhD applications from students interested in Surrealism, European Modernism, art and science, the history of the body and visual culture in the medical humanities.
- Juler E. Grown but not Made: British Modernist Sculpture and the New Biology. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2015.
- Juler E. Life Forms: Henry Moore, Morphology and Biologism in the Interwar Years. In: Griffin, Chris & Mundy, Jennifer, ed. Henry Moore: Sculptural Process and Public Identity. London, UK: Tate Gallery, 2015.
- Juler E, Robinson A. Introduction. In: Edward Juler & Alistair Robinson, ed. Post-Specimen Encounters between Art, Science & Curating: rethinking art practice and objecthood through scientific collections. Bristol, UK: Intellect Books, 2021, pp.TBC.
- Juler E. Forms, Organic and Mercurial: Karl Blossfeldt, Francis Bruguière and British Modernist Sculpture. In: Meyer Stump, U, ed. No Two Alike: Karl Blossfeldt, Francis Bruguière, Thomas Ruff. Vienna: Verlag fur Moderne Kunst, 2018.
- Juler E. Man's Dark Interior: Surrealism, Viscera and the Anatomical Imaginary. In: Whitehead, Anne and Woods, Angela, ed. The Edinburgh Companion to the Critical Medical Humanities. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2016, pp.356-376.
- Juler E. David Altmejd: Flux. 3rd Dimension: The PMSA Magazine and Newsletter 2015.
- Juler E. A Bridge between Science and Art? The Artistic Reception of On Growth and Form in Interwar Britain, c. 1930–42. Interdisciplinary Science Reviews 2013, 38(1), 35-48.
- Juler Edward. The Key to a Hidden World: Photomicrography and Close-up Nature Photography in Interwar Britain. History of Photography 2012, 36(1).
- Juler E. Glimpsed Phantoms of Sensation: Or, a Psychogeographical Investigation of Various Anatomical Specimens with Reference to Christine Borland’s Cet être-là, c’est à toi de le créer!. In: Edward Juler & Alistair Robinson, ed. Post-Specimen Encounters Between Art, Science and Curating: Rethinking Art Practice and Objecthood through Scientific Collections. Bristol: Intellect, 2020, pp.140-161.
- Juler Edward, Robinson Alistair. Introduction. In: Edward Juler & Alistair Robinson, ed. Post-Specimen: Object Encounters in Art, Science and Curating. Bristol: Intellect, 2020. In Preparation.
- Juler Edward, Robinson Alistair. Introduction. In: Juler, Edward; Robinson, Alistair, ed. Post-Specimen: Object Encounters in Art, Science and Curating. 2020. In Preparation.