The Department of Comparative Literature is delighted to announce that Lesley Gray has completed her PhD for the thesis entitled: ‘Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Mesmer and His Legacy: Literature, Culture and Science’, under the supervision of Dr Patricia Novillo-Corvalán.
The second half of the eighteenth century saw the emergence of Franz Anton Mesmer’s theories and therapies concerning the curative power of animal magnetism, an innate force that he claimed could be harnessed and directed to great healing effect. By selecting as case studies three previously neglected figures in the mesmerism scholarship, namely, Ada Lovelace and two physician-writers, Santiago Ramón y Cajal and Arthur Conan Doyle, as well as incorporating a cutting-edge discussion of Mesmer’s life, ‘art’, and complicated relationship with the scientific community, this thesis offers new perspectives through which to re-examine the complex phenomenon of mesmerism, its possible medical applicability, and the manifold literary representations it elicited.
Our congratulations to Lesley Gray.
Interested in postgraduate study at the University of Kent? Find out more about the PhD in Comparative Literature.
