In Praise of Touching
Why is working with museum objects so appealing to researchers? There can be little doubt that object-centred research has been coveted by academics and curators alike since at least the nineteenth century. A wealth of scholarly work has interrogated the museum object from philosophical, historical and sociological perspectives. You might justifiably think already we know everything there is to know about how to engage with objects. So why are researchers (including myself) still obsessed with something as simplistic as touching them?
The Eternal Quest for a Good Night Sleep
Saving the Sunshine: Health, Chronobiology, and Daylight Saving Time (DST)
Sir Patrick Manson at Home: 21 Queen Anne Street as hybrid space
This article explores the geographies of Patrick Manson’s home, arguing it was a crucial spatial context for his research and social networks. Published as a part of the McCarthy Award for the History of Medicine.
Seen and Unseen: The Representation of Visible and Hidden Disease in the Waxworks of Joseph Towne at the Gordon Museum
An open access article on the waxworks of Joseph Towne for 19: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century
The Colyer Collection at the Hunterian Museum
Ming: The Forgotten Celebrity
A short note for the Archives of Natural History exploring the life and afterlife of the London Zoo panda Ming. This research contributes to a growing interest in the afterlives of animals in museums and tracks the decline of interest in comparative anatomy at the Royal College of Surgeons.