Research
Research
Working as curator and historian in the field of medical humanities, I combine history of science and medicine with the study of material and visual culture. My research focuses on d/Deafness, bodily fluids, and medical heritage.
1. Rendering Deafness Visible
The aim of my current postdoc project titled ‘Deafness in Transition’ (2019–2022) – funded by a Dutch Research Council Rubicon grant – is to uncover cultural experiences and transitions in medical perception of deafness in early modern Europe. I focus on both social and medical perceptions of deafness, which includes both the profoundly deaf and those with hearing difficulty as the result of disease, accident, old age, or changing social and cultural requirements. This provides a new and more inclusive vintage-point to look at d/Deaf history.
Research results include:
- “Fluid Deafness: Earwax and Hardness of Hearing in Early Modern Europe.” Medical History 65 (2021): 366–383.
- “Experiencing Ear Trumpet in the Enlightenment”. Wellcome Collection Exploring Research Seminar, London, October 2021.
- “Een nieuwe blik op doofheid: Het project Deafness in Transition.” VHZ-online (29 January 2021).
2. Blood, Sweat and Tears
My PhD project ‘Blood, Sweat and Tears’ (2013–2018) – part of the Dutch Research Council VIDI-project ‘Vital Matters’ – investigates how the chemistry of bodily fluids helped establish a new medical system in eighteenth-century Europe. Successfully defended in 2018, my dissertation ‘Fluid Bodies’ argues that at the turn of the eighteenth century, the introduction of new chemical research methods and instruments crucially changed the perception of bodily fluids, which contributed to a new understanding of the human body and a new system of medicine.
Research results include:
- Bodily Fluids, Chemistry and Medicine in the Eighteenth-Century Boerhaave School. Palgrave Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Medicine, Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020.
- “Increasing and Reducing: Breastmilk Flows and Female Health.” In Lifestyle and Medicine in the Enlightenment, edited by James Kennaway and Rina Knoeff, 223–39. London: Routledge, 2020.
- “The Nature of Blood: Debating Haematology and Blood Chemistry in the Eighteenth-Century Dutch Republic.” Early Science and Medicine 22 (2017): 271–300.
3. Heritage Matters
Whereas curators are used to analyse objects still extant today, I also study those materials that have not been stored and saved. Although this poses its challenges, I develop innovative methods to reconstruct and present past collections and think about the materiality of materials in the history of science and medicine.
Research results include:
- with Marieke Hendriksen. “Boerhaave’s Furnace: Exploring Early Modern Chemistry through Working Models.” Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte 43 (2020): 385–411.
- “Een Maquette op Grote Schaal: De campus van de Medische Faculteit Rotterdam.” In De Universitaire Campus, edited by Ab Flipse and Abel Streefland, 83–98. Hilversum: Verloren, 2020.
- with Reina de Raat. “Verzameldrift: De anatomische collectie van professor Jan Bleuland.” Geschiedenis der geneeskunde 14 (2010): 138–145.