The Centre for Medieval and Early Modern Studies & The Centre for the History of Medicine, Ethics and Medical Humanities are happy to welcome Margaret Pelling (Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine, University of Oxford) to present the lecture ‘Barbershop Music: Literary Stereotype or Social Practice?’ on Thursday 17th February 2017. All are welcome, please feel free to join us!
Margaret Pelling is a Senior Research Associate at the Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine in Oxford. Her earlier research was concerned with the history of public health in 19th-century Britain, and in particular the epidemiological ideas of figures such as William Budd, John Snow, William Farr and John Simon. Her research now focuses primarily on English history between 1500 and 1700, focusing on the less-regarded lower orders of medical practitioners, from barbers and barber surgeons to nurses and ‘old women’, but also on the health experience of different groups such as children, apprentices, men without women, and the elderly, and aspects of shared experience such as diet and urbanisation. Her work is also concerned with iconography, the gender- and status-related problems experienced by male practitioners, the links between medicine and politics, and the relationship between the public and the private. She is currently planning to take forward work on barbers, with particular interest in their ubiquity, their role in self-representation and cosmetic improvement, and their functions in literature and culture, as well as the importance to males of all periods of the hair and the beard.
