This week saw the publication of a special edition of Women’s History Review: Love, Desire and Melancholy: Inspired by Constance Maynard, edited by Centre members Angharad Eyre,  Jane Mackelworth and Elsa Richardson. You can read their introductory essay ‘Inspired by Constance Maynard: exploring women’s sexual, emotional and religious lives through their writings’ here. This special issue arose from a conference hosted by the Centre for the History of the Emotions in 2012 and you can read more about it in blog posts by Angharad and Thomas Dixon on the History of Emotions blog.

Constance Maynard

Welcome to our two new colleagues who will be working with us on our Wellcome Trust ‘Living With Feeling’ collaborative award.

Dr Helen Stark has worked in a range of academic, administrative, and engagement roles, including managing the AHRC-funded ‘Voices and Books, 1500-1800’ network. Her PhD in English Literature at Newcastle University was awarded in 2013 for a thesis entitled ‘Men of Feeling: Masculinities and National Identities, 1761-1817’. Helen will be working full-time from 1 January onwards, supporting us on all aspects of the project.

Dr Sarah Chaney is a historian of psychiatry with experience of engagement and museum work, including managing a Wellcome Trust People Award at Bethlem Museum of the Mind. Her PhD was entitled ‘Self-Mutilation and Psychiatry: Impulse, Identity and the Unconscious in British Explanations of Self-Inflicted Injury, c. 1864 – 1914’ – and was awarded by UCL in 2013. Sarah will work with us two days a week (alongside managing the exhibitions programme at the Royal College of Nursing), focussing especially on events and engagement.