Yr Athro Martin Willis

Trosolwg

I joined the School of English, Communication and Philosophy at Cardiff University in September 2015 as Professor of English Literature. Before that I held a Personal Chair in Science, Literature and Communication in the Department of English at the University of Westminster.

My research focuses on literature, science and medicine, 1800 to the present.

Of my eight books in this area, the most recent are Literature and Science (Palgrave, 2015) andVision, Science and Literature, 1870-1920: Ocular Horizons (Pickering & Chatto, 2011). My present research has two strands: the representations of seizure conditions in literature and art from the early nineteenth century to the present, and the depiction of science and medicine in Victorian travel guidebooks to Britain and Europe.

My contribution to this area of scholarship is also recognised in my position as Chair of the British Society for Literature and Science and as Editor of the Journal of Literature and Science.

My teaching expertise is in Literature and Science, Literature and Medicine, and more broadly in Nineteenth-century Literature. My central teaching focus, however, emerges from my research on the relationships between literature, science and medicine: what might be called the Science Humanities. I have taught this widely, to both undergraduate and postgraduate students and have supervised MA and PhD research in this area.

In addition I have had the opportunity to influence the research and teaching of literature, science and medicine internationally through cross-University initiatives, external examining, and a range of international lectures, seminars and public activities.

I would welcome enquiries from potential research students interested in studying literature, science and medicine; and queries from public groups or media outlets interested in my research and scholarship.

For further information on my present research projects and publications please click the relevant tab above.

Additional publications

Books

2015 – Literature and Science. Readers’ Guides to Essential Criticism (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan)
2011 – Vision, Science and Literature, 1870-1920: Ocular Horizons (London: Pickering and Chatto)
2008 – Victorian Literature Handbook, ed. Alexandra Warwick and Martin Willis (London: Continuum Press)
2007 – Jack the Ripper: Media, Culture, History, ed. Alexandra Warwick and Martin Willis (Manchester: Manchester University Press)
2006 – Mesmerists, Monsters and Machines: Science Fiction and the Cultures of Science in the Nineteenth Century (Ohio: Kent State University Press)
2006 – Repositioning Victorian Sciences: Shifting Centres in Nineteenth-Century Thinking, ed. David Clifford, Elisabeth Wadge, Alex Warwick and Martin Willis (London: Anthem Press)
2006 – Victorian Literary Mesmerism, ed. Martin Willis and Catherine Wynne (Amsterdam: Rodopi Press)

Journal articles and book chapters

2015 – ‘Silas Marner, Catalepsy and Mid-Victorian Medicine: George Eliot’s Ethics of Care’, Journal of Victorian Culture 20.3: 326-40.
2013 – ‘Imaginary Investments: Illness Narratives Beyond the Gaze’, with Keir Waddington and Richard Marsden, Journal of Literature and Science 6.1: 55-73
2012 – ‘Objects of Terror Transformed: Victorian Realism and the Gothic’ in The Edinburgh Companion to Victorian Gothic, ed. William Hughes and Andrew Smith (Edinburgh:Edinburgh University Press, 2012), pp. 15-28.
2012 – ‘On Wonder: Situating the Spectacle in Spiritualism, Magic and Science’ in Popular Exhibitions, Science and Showmanship 1840-1910, ed. Joe Kember, John Plunkett and Jill Sullivan (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2012), pp. 167-182.
2011 – ‘Reading General Paralysis of the Insane’, with Keir Waddington and Rhys Thomas, Practical Neurology 11:6 (Dec): 366-69.
2008 – ‘Le Fanu’s “Carmilla”, Ireland, and Diseased Vision’, Essays and Studies: 111-130.
2008 – ‘Changes in Critical Approaches’, in The Victorian Literature Handbook, ed. Alexandra Warwick and Martin Willis (London: Continuum), pp.177-89
2007 – ‘“The Invisible Giant”, Dracula and Disease’, Studies in the Novel 39:3 : 301-25.
2006 – ‘Unmasking Immorality: Popular Opposition to Laboratory Science in Late Victorian Britain’, in Repositioning Victorian Sciences: Shifting Centres in Nineteenth-Century Scientific Thinking (London: Anthem Press), pp.207-18.
2006 – ‘Jack the Ripper, Sherlock Holmes and the Narrative of Detection’, in Jack The Ripper: Media, Culture, History ed. Alexandra Warwick and Martin Willis (Manchester: Manchester University Press), pp.144-58.
2006 – ‘George Eliot’s The Lifted Veil and the Cultural Politics of Clairvoyance’, in Victorian Literary Mesmerism, ed. Martin Willis and Catherine Wynne (Amsterdam: Rodopi Press), pp.145-62.
2005 – ‘Science, Economics and Authorship in George Eliot’s ‘The Lifted Veil’, Journal of Victorian Culture 10:2: 184-209.
2003 – ‘Hard-wear: the millennium, technology and Brosnan’s Bond’ in The James Bond Phenomenon: A Critical Reader, ed. Christoph Lindner (Manchester: Manchester University Press), pp.151-65
2002 – ‘Behind Closed Doors: Creating Cultures of Professional Science in the 1890s’ in Culture Institutions, ed. Martin Hewitt (Leeds: Leeds Centre for Victorian Studies), pp.110-23
2002 – ‘Edison as Time Traveller’ in Twentieth Century Literary Criticism, Vol. 133 (Farmington: Thomson Gale), pp.221-24
1999 – ‘Edison as Time Traveller: H.G. Wells’ Inspiration for his First Scientific Character’ Science Fiction Studies 26:2: 284-94.
1995 – ‘Frankenstein and the Soul’, Essays In Criticism 45:1: 24-35.
1995 – ‘Preternatural Narrative in the Work of Arthur Machen’ in Short Story Criticism, Vol. 20 (Farmington: Gale Research Press), pp.205-07
1994 – ‘Scientific Portraits in Magical Frames: The Construction of Preternatural Narrative in the Work of E.T.A. Hoffmann’, Extrapolation 35:3: 186-200.

Journal special issues

2013 – ‘Rethinking Approaches to Illness Narratives’, Journal of Literature and Science 6.1: issue co-editor and intro, iv-v.
2000 – ‘Weird Science’, Victorian Review 26:1: issue editor and Intro, 1-5.