Our editorial team has grown!
I’m Fred Spence and I’ll be The Polyphony’s Editor-in-Chief for 2021. I’ve been an Associate Editor since The Polyphony’s launch in 2018 and it’s been a pleasure to watch the website develop in that time. Thanks to outgoing Editor-in-Chief Fiona Johnstone for your leadership this past year.
We’re also very happy to introduce three new Associate Editors, Chase Ledin, Anna Jamieson and Jen Allan, who join myself, Fiona, Harriet and Tehseen. Thank you to everyone who applied – we had a high volume of excellent applications and the choice was a difficult one! We’re pleased to welcome Chase, Anna and Jen to the team, not just because of their experience and talents, but because of their vision and the editorial point of view each will bring to The Polyphony.
Chase Ledin is a PhD candidate in the Centre for Biomedicine, Self and Society at the University of Edinburgh. His project explores the cultural implications of ‘post-AIDS’ discourse in the Global North since the mid-1990s. In particular, the project draws on archival materials, moving-image productions, public health campaigns, and related ephemera to interrogate the evolution of the ‘end of AIDS’ representational politics across biomedical, social, and cultural platforms. His interdisciplinary scholarship cuts across medical humanities, science and technology studies, queer cultural studies, and film studies. Outwith research, Chase is interested in the development of queer sexual health education and policy in Scotland and the movement to standardise HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) use across the United Kingdom. His creative work contributes to ongoing projects to historicize and archive HIV/AIDS narratives and includes critical writing about polyamory, the ethics of sexual health education, and the cultural histories of sexual objects.
Anna Jamieson is an interdisciplinary cultural historian specialising in visual and material cultures of the late eighteenth century. Awarded her PhD in cultural, social and institutional responses to female insanity from Birkbeck, University of London, in 2020, Anna is currently a Birkbeck Wellcome Trust Postdoctoral Researcher, working on women’s mental illness, eighteenth-century private madhouses and asylum tourism. Later this year, she will undertake a John Rylands Research Institute Postdoctoral Fellowship, for a project titled ‘“A Touch of the Blue Devils”: Women, Mental Health and Self-Care in England, 1750- 1850’. With an interest in gender and the history of psychiatry, patient agency and consumerism, dark tourism, spectacle and enfreakment, Anna is particularly keen to publish articles that address the lived experience of illnesses, spaces of healthcare and their stereotypes, and the intersections between medical humanities and material culture. Additionally, she is interested in forging ties between postgraduate and early career researchers from both clinical and non-clinical medical humanities backgrounds, and to publish pieces that address the methodological challenges of working in an interdisciplinary field.
Jen Allan is a clinically trained doctor, writer, and academic with a background in the medical humanities and psychology. In 2020, she completed a MA in Health Humanities at UCL, for which her thesis examined languages of encounter between the living and the dead in the unspeakable catastrophe of mass death and disappearance. She is currently working as a junior clinical fellow in A&E, in addition to a part-time RA post with the UCL Grand Challenges Inquiry on the Case for the Humanities. Jen is keen to publish work from a broad range of voices — academic, clinical, and creative alike — in order to explore different perspectives of health and illness. Her particular interests include but are not limited to: the history of ancient medicine and mental health; stigma, shame, and epistemic injustice in illness; intimacy and desire; monstrosity and monster theory; and the anthropology of death and mourning rituals.
We’re always keen to hear your ideas about posts, takeovers and reviews so please do get in touch with one of our editors or use our contact form. Our Guidelines for Authors page has all the information you need to know about what makes a good post. We particularly encourage non-academic contributors as well as contributors from outside of the UK or working on non-UK contexts.
Welcome Chase, Anna and Jen and thanks to all of our readers and contributors so far!
