A Wellcome Trust Strategic Award of £2 million for a Centre
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In July 2008, King’s College London was awarded a £2 million award in the new Wellcome Trust Strategic Award scheme to establish one of two centres of excellence for the study of the emerging field of Medical Humanities.
The other centre will be at Durham University (£1.8 million). Brian Hurwitz, Professor of Medicine and the Arts will direct the centre which will open in 2009. Together with more financial assistance from King’s College London, the grant will provide funding over five years for PhD and postdoctoral research, the design and teaching of a new MSc programme, a seminar and conference programme, and international collaboration with others working in the field.
The theme of the interdisciplinary centre’s research is Boundaries of Illness and co-applicants from the Departments of English, History and Philosophy, the Institute of Psychiatry, and The Florence Nightingale School of Nursing and Midwifery have designed strands of research.
Professor Anne Marie Rafferty, Head of FNSNM is leading the strand, ‘Nursing and Identity: Crossing Borders’. She is working together with Dr Rosemary Wall, FNSNM, and Dr Anna Snaith, Department of English, and Professor Ginette Vincendeau, Department of Film Studies. Two new researchers will be appointed, thanks to funding from the Wellcome Trust, to research this strand.
A post-doctoral researcher with expertise in life and travel writing will work with Professor Anne Marie Rafferty and Dr RosemaryWall, with mentorship from Dr Snaith, on the existing history of colonial nursing project. The researcher will explore the role of nurses as representatives of empire and as single women in the colonies, and at their self-representation and identity by looking at nurses’ correspondence, memoirs, and oral histories. Nurses’ activities as travellers, explorers and amateur anthropologists, in addition to their perceptions of tropical conditions, disease and the body, will also be investigated.
A PhD candidate will also contribute to the existing Nurses in Film project, led by Professor Anne Marie Rafferty. The film studies student will benefit from mentorship from Vincendeau, in addition to support from FNSNM, and will analyse recruitment and training films on nursing, exploring the blurring of the border between fact and fiction in their portrayals of nursing roles and responsibilities. Colonial films will form one chapter of the thesis for this project, the rest examining UK, US, Australian and European films.
The other centre will be at Durham University (£1.8 million). Brian Hurwitz, Professor of Medicine and the Arts will direct the centre which will open in 2009. Together with more financial assistance from King’s College London, the grant will provide funding over five years for PhD and postdoctoral research, the design and teaching of a new MSc programme, a seminar and conference programme, and international collaboration with others working in the field.
The theme of the interdisciplinary centre’s research is Boundaries of Illness and co-applicants from the Departments of English, History and Philosophy, the Institute of Psychiatry, and The Florence Nightingale School of Nursing and Midwifery have designed strands of research.
Professor Anne Marie Rafferty, Head of FNSNM is leading the strand, ‘Nursing and Identity: Crossing Borders’. She is working together with Dr Rosemary Wall, FNSNM, and Dr Anna Snaith, Department of English, and Professor Ginette Vincendeau, Department of Film Studies. Two new researchers will be appointed, thanks to funding from the Wellcome Trust, to research this strand.
A post-doctoral researcher with expertise in life and travel writing will work with Professor Anne Marie Rafferty and Dr RosemaryWall, with mentorship from Dr Snaith, on the existing history of colonial nursing project. The researcher will explore the role of nurses as representatives of empire and as single women in the colonies, and at their self-representation and identity by looking at nurses’ correspondence, memoirs, and oral histories. Nurses’ activities as travellers, explorers and amateur anthropologists, in addition to their perceptions of tropical conditions, disease and the body, will also be investigated.
A PhD candidate will also contribute to the existing Nurses in Film project, led by Professor Anne Marie Rafferty. The film studies student will benefit from mentorship from Vincendeau, in addition to support from FNSNM, and will analyse recruitment and training films on nursing, exploring the blurring of the border between fact and fiction in their portrayals of nursing roles and responsibilities. Colonial films will form one chapter of the thesis for this project, the rest examining UK, US, Australian and European films.