HRC Postdoctoral Research Fellows 2022-23

Annabel Dukes

My PhD maps the development of Middle English lyrics from their emergence from other genres in the twelfth century to their joining the lyric’s main cross-linguistic body in the thirteenth century. The thesis exposes the mechanisms by which the sometimes haphazard cross-contamination of genres, forms, contexts, topics and agendas generates ethically significant innovations in lyrics. In doing so, it contributes to our understanding of how genres can develop in advance of their cultures. I find the lyric constitutes a democratisation of vernacular theology, making it not just something that occurred in long texts, but something people did with short memorised texts.

During the HRC fellowship, I will conduct further research into the impact of the length in the Middle English lyrics. The vast majority of extant Middle English poems from twelfth and early thirteenth-century manuscripts are less than twelve lines long. They circulated in margins, longer texts and people’s minds. I will consider how these forms of transmission produced distinctive relationships with other genres and between different versions of the same poem. I will also consider the strategies by which poets and interpreters created meaning in small spaces and how narrative changes as it is fitted into the confines of a lyric.

Frances Long

My doctoral research explored children’s sleep in the long eighteenth century. Although histories of adult sleep have flourished in recent years, this was the first study that examined the sleep of children as a distinct group. One of the most interesting strands of that research concerned the use of the cradle: a synecdoche for infancy because of its importance in housing both sleeping and waking infants.

Despite its importance both in childcare and in performances of familial affection and socioeconomic status, the cradle has also been overlooked by historians of sleep, childhood, and material culture. My current research project fills that gap.

Taking an interdisciplinary approach, I examine visual depictions of cradles and surviving objects in museum collections alongside more traditional historical sources like published childcare manuals and egodocuments to establish the ways cradles were used, thought about, and interpreted by eighteenth-century adults and children.I will also explore traditional methods of basketmaking to test whether this was a viable method of cradle production.

In the process, I will build and deepen links with heritage organisations and traditional craftspeople. Alongside this, I will revise my thesis for publication as a monograph on children’s sleep, and prepare my next project, which extends my existing research on sleep as a problem relevant to the history of the body. I will also complete revisions on an article on sleep and mortuary sculpture.

Jess Bates

People living in Britain over 11,000 years ago have been assumed as living a largely mobile way of life so opportunities to explore the habitual behaviours and activities of hunter-gatherers living at the end of the last Ice Age are rare.

My doctoral research explored how three of the earliest hut-like structures found in Britain were used by their inhabitants. By assessing the use and spatial distribution of flint tools recovered from the Early Mesolithic site of Star Carr in North Yorkshire (9300-8500 cal BC), internal organisation was identified within the structures, particularly for messier tasks like butchery. These spaces also had different functions, highlighting diversity in how structures were used.

With the HRC Postdoctoral Fellowship I plan on developing my doctoral thesis into two publications, one focused on key results from my research which will be an important contribution to our understanding of British Mesolithic structures. A second paper will cover a related research project looking at a specific tool type from Star Carr.

Also during the HRC Fellowship I will aim to develop a postdoctoral project at the University of York, exploring the use of Mesolithic structures across Britain. By analysing further sites, connections in the use and internal organisation of structures over a temporal and spatial scale across Britain can be examined. This work would provide the first inter-site microwear study of British Mesolithic structures and serve as an important reference point for anyone researching the early phases of settlement in Britain.

Alongside my research, I hope to contribute to the HRC community through organising an event called 'Crafting Communities' for members of the HRC, University and wider community. The event would involve a day of 1.5hr workshops at the York Experimental Archaeology Research (YEAR) centre where invited craftspeople would lead small groups to undertake a range of craft-based activities outdoors.

Emmie Price-Goodfellow

It is a truth almost universally acknowledged that storytelling is a meaningful and productive activity. Between c.1170 and c.1230, French and German monks of the medieval Cistercian Order produced a number of exempla collections – collections of exemplary miracle stories – to educate their fellows. These were widely copied and disseminated, and as such were perhaps the paramount Cistercian literary production of this period, mimicking the real life monastic practice of teaching by example.

My interdisciplinary doctoral thesis explored the ways in which these Cistercian authors collected, wrote, rewrote and arranged moral stories to produce texts that would form their fellows according to Cistercian norms and values. It revealed the unique character of each collection, the specific agenda of its author, and the myriad conceptions of Cistercian life and spirituality that existed in this period.

During the HRC fellowship, I will be working on turning the thesis into a monograph, tentatively entitled "An Age of Example: Cistercian Exempla Collections and Teaching by Example, 1170–1230". I also hope to work on an article, exploring further the story of a transgender monk, Joseph, who appears in two of the exempla collections. This article would study Joseph and his life as one that was celebrated as exemplary, and explore the construction and development of his legend, and the role his trans identity played in this.

Since the end of my PhD I have been working as Assistant Producer on the BBC podcast 'You're Dead To Me', as well as continuing to organise a medieval seminar series with another York academic. I hope to continue with both public and academic history work throughout the course of the HRC fellowship.

Jacopo Frascaroli

In the last few years, a new theory known as “predictive processing” (PP) has gradually taken hold in the sciences of mind and life. Originally conceived as a general theory of brain function, PP has proven to have enormous explanatory reach and is now increasingly seen as a potential unifying principle underlying perception, action, reason, attention, emotion, learning and even, according to the advocates of its most general formulation, life and sentience as such.

More recently, PP has attracted the attention of a number of scholars working on art and aesthetics from a variety of perspectives. A convergence of interests and results is emerging in this area between philosophers and art historians on the one hand, and neuroscientists and cognitive scientists on the other. To the former, PP is offering a promising way to unify all art forms under a common analytical framework, as well as a fresh take on many long-standing problems in aesthetics. To the latter, the arts and aesthetics are offering powerful tools to investigate the fundaments of the predictive brain, affording a unique perspective on how predictions are formed and deployed in the processing of richly structured sensory streams.

My work is at the centre of this burgeoning interdisciplinary enterprise, which I contributed to pioneer and consolidate decisively throughout my PhD. In the next academic year, I aim to further this ambitious research programme, finalising the three single-authored and the two co-authored papers I have in preparation, co-editing a theme issue on the topic, and reworking my doctoral dissertation, which will hopefully become the basis for the first comprehensive monograph on this novel approach to art and aesthetics. The HRC and the University of York will be the ideal place to pursue this interdisciplinary research agenda. As a HRC Postdoctoral Research Fellow, I will participate in ongoing research activities with colleagues in other A&H departments, organise workshops and events on the topics of my project and foster new collaborations between researchers in York and beyond, thanks to the extensive research network I have built throughout my PhD.

The upshot of these various efforts promises to be the foundation of a new major approach to art and aesthetics, as well as the establishment of a framework within which philosophy, art and cognitive science can interact in a particularly convincing way, avoiding colonialist or sectarian attitudes and collaborating as equal partners in illuminating crucial aspects of the human mind.

Anna Detari

My doctoral research examined Musician’s Focal Dystonia, a debilitating, task-specific neurological movement disorder which affects highly skilled musicians, ending many successful careers. Our understanding of the origins of the condition is very limited, and the currently available treatment strategies cannot reliably rehabilitate the impaired playing skills of the affected musicians.

Opposing the narrow and reductionist medical approach to understanding and treating the condition, I broadened the inquiry and built a more holistic, biopsychosocial model of the disorder, including psychological, psychosocial, and behavioural factors. I also discussed the practical implications of my findings in terms of treatment and preventative strategies.

The HRC Doctoral Fellowship will allow me to examine these factors in relation to other frequently observed performance-related injuries in professional musicians and music students. I also aim to submit the two, yet unpublished chapters of my thesis to peer-reviewed journals and organise a public knowledge-exchange event for music educators to share information about preventative strategies.

Lastly, I will lay the groundwork for a larger postdoctoral project about neurodiversity among professional musicians and its potential implications for physical and mental health.

Yu Wang

My doctoral research investigated the interpretation and distribution of generic pronouns in Mandarin Chinese at the interface of syntax, semantics and pragmatics, inspired by research on generic pronouns in English and other languages.

During the HRC Postdoctoral Research Fellowship, I will further my research and write papers in some new aspects that were not covered in my thesis

Kyveli Lignou-Tsamantani

My doctoral research examined the ethics and politics of the spectatorship of atrocity images in a contemporary artistic context. The case studies of the thesis – which were created post-9/11 – obscured, covered or erased existing photographs, or provided alternative visualisations for images that were never seen or sometimes never captured.

The research questions addressed two different modes of visibility in visual culture: iconic/viral and censored images. Since these appear as opposites in terms of visibility, one might expect that greater visibility results in a better ethical acknowledgement of the photographed person’s suffering or death. However, my analysis demonstrated that this is not always the case. Hence, my thesis proposed that artistically induced invisibility can be a visual mode that assists an ethically engaged spectatorship.

During the HRC Postdoctoral Fellowship, I will be revising my thesis into a monograph, and I will undertake research for a new chapter that will expand the analysis to artworks which use photographic negatives of violent images. I will also lay the foundations for a new project in which I will further my research in examining visualisations of human rights violations.

Furthermore, in 2022-2023 I will co-organise a research strand on visual ethics at the Centre for Modern Studies.

Finally, I will continue co-organising SZWG, an online international writing group.