People say, just get surgery, and I’m like: Bruh, this is after surgery
Cosmetic surgery is back in the news. After six facelifts, a brow lift, neck lift and a lip lift, the reality star Katie Price has new “butterfly lips”, created with tape and filler that make the lips bigger and curled upwards
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ABOUTMe
Since finishing my doctorate in 2000, I have researched and published extensively on the meanings of health, medicine, emotions and the body in the past, and in the present.
My work has featured in many international media outlets, including theNew York Times, the New Yorker, TheGuardian,CNN andBBC Radio. I am aTED speaker and consultant on loneliness and mental health.
In 2019 I became one of the first UKRI Future Leaders Fellows, to undertaking leading research into the emotions and ethics of face transplants. You can find out more aboutAboutFace here.
I am currently Professor of Modern History at King’s College London, whereAboutFace has evolved into theInterface project, exploring the surgery of face transplants alongside other technologies of the face – analogue and digital. I direct theDigital Futures Institute’sCentre for Technology and the Body, which explores all aspects of embodiment, medicine, health and emotions in the past, present and future.
My literary agent is Adam Gauntlett at Peters, Fraser + Dunlop.
Heart
In everyday parlance, the heart is a pump, the brain our emotions centre. So why do we put so much emotional and spiritual investment in our hearts and why are emotions ‘heartfelt’?
My work into the history of emotions and the body shows that prioritising the brain as the centre of emotions is relatively recent. Heart transplants, Valentine’s cards and the language of love are all reminders that the heart is far more than a pump. Find out more by listening to my Radio 4 interview on the subject, recorded in Westminster Abbey.
My book Matters of the Heart offers a new and exciting perspective on the heart as an organ of the body, the soul and culture. You can buy a copy here.
Latest Blog
‘People say, just get surgery, and I’m like: Bruh, this is after surgery’
Cosmetic surgery is back in the news. After six facelifts, a brow lift, neck lift and a lip lift, the reality star Katie Price has new…
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The reconstruction of a 75,000-year-old Neanderthal woman’s face makes her look quite friendly – there’s a problem with that
From a flaky skull, found “as flat as a pizza” on a cave floor in northern Iraq, the face of a 75,000-year-old Neanderthal woman named “Shanidar Z”…
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Standardising healthcare: the case of face and hand transplants
In April I was invited to speak at a U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) held a public committee workshop exploring how to standardise…
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