Alanna Skuse

Dr Alanna Skuse portrait

Areas of interest

My research focuses on medicine, identity and embodiment in the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. My first book, Constructions of Cancer in Early Modern England: Ravenous Natures (Palgrave, 2015) examined both the allegorical uses of cancer and its medical diagnosis and treatment. My second book, Surgery and Selfhood in Early Modern England: Altered Bodies and Contexts of Identity (Cambridge, 2021) looks at the cultural and social impact of body-altering surgeries such as amputation, mastectomies, and castration. It argues that such surgeries became central to debates about the relationship between body and mind and the resurrection of the same body after death. My latest book, Hurt Feelings: wounding oneself in early modern England (Palgrave, 2025) continues this focus on identity and embodiment by considering the uses of self-wounding as communication, protest, self-management, or self-punishment.

In addition, I am interested in public engagement around the medical humanities. I write non-fiction history for adults and children. My adults’ book The Surgeon, The Midwife, The Quack: How to Stay Alive in Renaissance England was released in 2025 by OneWorld, and my children’s book, Blood, Guts and Nasty Cuts: the thrilling history of medicine is released in September 2026 by DK. I talk at history and literature events and deliver public lectures for all age groups.

I also run focussed public engagement and participatory research programmes with vulnerable groups, and have worked with charities including SIFT self-injury support and Oxfordshire Recovery College.

My current research focuses on ideas of proof, evidence and ‘quackery’ from the 1600s to the present day.

Postgraduate supervision

I am interested in co-supervising postgraduate students in early modern studies and health humanities.

Teaching

I am the module convenor for EN2EMM: Early Modern and Medieval. I also teach across a range of undergraduate and graduate courses, and am DEL assessment lead for parts 1 and 2.

Research centres and groups

I am co-director of the interdisciplinary Centre for Health Humanities alongside Dr. Marjorie Gehrhardt and Professor Mary Lewis. The Centre aims to promote research which links the arts, humanities and sciences to better understand and support human health. It offers small grants to support researchers, runs seminar series and workshops, and supports grant collaborations.

Selected publications

Books

  • Hurt Feelings: wounding oneself in early modern England (Palgrave, 2025 (open access).
  • Altered States: the surgically changed body in Early Modern England (Cambridge University Press, 2021 (open access).
  • 'Ravenous Natures': Constructions of Cancer in Early Modern England, c.1580 - 1720'. ('Literature and Science' series, Palgrave Macmillan, 2015 (open access).
  • Surgery and Selfhood in Early Modern England: Altered Bodies and Contexts of Identity (Cambridge University Press, 2021 (open access).
  • Constructions of Cancer in Early Modern England, c.1580 – 1720: Ravenous Natures. ('Literature and Science' series, Palgrave Macmillan, 2015 (open access).
 

Journal articles and book chapters

  • ‘Medicine’ in Sarah Toulalan, ed., Early Modern Bodies (Routledge, 2026).
  • ‘Biting one’s tongue: autoglossotomy and agency in The Spanish Tragedy’ Renaissance Studies 36.2 (2022), pp. 278-294 (open access).
  • "With one stroak of his razour": tales of self-castration in early modern England.' Social History of Medicine 33.2, (2020), pp. 377-393 (open access).
  • "Keep your face out of my way or I'll bite off your nose": Homoplastics, Sympathy, and the Noble Body in the Tatler, 1710' Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies 17:4 (2017), pp.113-132.
    'Missing Parts in The Shoemaker's Holiday' Renaissance Drama 45:2 (Fall 2017) pp. 161-179 (open access).
  • The Worm and the Flesh: Cankered Bodies in Shakespeare's Sonnets' in Sujata Iyengar, ed, Disability, Health and Happiness in the Shakespearean Body (N.Y; Oxon: Routledge, 2015), pp.240-60.
  • 'Wombs, Worms and Wolves: Constructing Cancer in Early Modern England' Social History of Medicine 27:4, (2014) pp.632-648. (open access).
     

Publications

Loading your publications ...