Sarah Jane Bodell

Current Research

Project Title:

'Work amongst the Sick Poor': Home Medical Missions and the Transition from Victorian Charity to the Welfare State.

I am a final year doctoral candidate in the department of History studying Protestant evangelical medical missions to the poor in London in the early-to-mid twentieth century. 'Home missions' offer a unique opportunity for studying the transition from Victorian charity to the welfare state. These institutions have been altogether overlooked due to scholarly biases against religion as a mode of historical analysis.

Themes of my work on home medical missions include:

Conduits of empire, uniting imperial and metropolitan histories
Intersection of medicine and religion
Women and gender
Urban and medical spaces
Demographic change and care for the aged
Bermondsey Medical Mission network

Roberta Bivins and Hilary Marland are my supervisors.


Bermondsey Medical Mission, 1929 (Credit:  Wellcome Library)

Previous Research

My MA dissertation was titled Changing Paradigms of Medicine?: Medical Missionaries and the Partition of India. This work explored how medical missionaries have historically reacted to demographic disasters (such as famine and earthquake), how this influenced their activities in the wake of Partition violence in 1947 (through an extensive network of refugee camps), and how these activities created a critical bridge between the paradigm of colonial medicine and the postcolonial rise of development and global health.


Jagadhri Mission Hospital, 1921
(Credit:  New Zealand Presbyterian Archives)

My undergraduate thesis was a comparative social history of gynaecological and breast cancers titled 'A Continuing Battle: Historical Trends, Successes, and Challenges in Understanding and Treating Women’s Cancers to 2008'.

My research interests include colonial and postcolonial histories, epistemic knowledge and power, medical discourses, gender, religions, visual culture, local economies, race, space, and demography.

Education

2012-2018 PhD - History, University of Warwick
2011-2012 MA (Merit) - History of Medicine, University of Warwick
2008-2010 MA - Bioethics and Medical Humanities, University of Louisville
2004-2008 BA (summa cum laude) - History, Humanities, and Political Science, University of Louisville

Funding

2012-2015 Richard and Anne Crossman Memorial Scholarship (Warwick)
2014 Callum MacDonald Memorial Bursary (Warwick)
2013 Humanities Research Fund Travel Grant (Warwick)
2013 Society for the Social History of Medicine Student Bursary
2011-2012 International Office Scholarship (Warwick)
2009-2010 Karen Cooper Memorial Scholarship
2008-2010 Department of Philosophy Fellowship (Louisville)
2008-2010 Mary Craik Scholarship, Women and Gender Studies (Louisville)
2007-2008 Harry L. and Cecilia H. Smith History Scholarship (Louisville)
2004-2008 Provost Hallmark Scholarship (Louisville)

Awards

2008 Phi Beta Kappa of Kentuckiana Scholastic Achievement Award
2008 University Honors Scholar (Louisville)
2005-2008 Dean's List (Louisville)

Conference Papers

~~April 2015 - ' "The over-whelming perplexities of our present day life": Untangling the relationship between~~
~~Christianity, medicine, and modernity in home medical missions to the poor, c. 1904-1939~~ ~~', Being Modern: Science and Culture in the Early 20th Century~~ ~~, Queen Mary University of London~~ [Cancelled due to illness]
February 2015 - '"Upon Them is Falling the Strain that Should Be . . . the Burden of the Fathers": Gendered
Approaches and Attitudes of Medical Missions to the Poor, London c. 1900-1960', History Unlimited: Interdisciplinary Postgraduate Health History Seminar, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow
September 2014 - 'Medical Missionary Women on the Home Front in the First and Second World Wars', Women's History Network Annual Conference - Home Fronts: Gender, War, and Conflict, University of Worcester
May 2014 - ' Call the Missionary: The Social Milieu of Medical Mission Work in London, (post-NHS) c. 1948-1960', University of Warwick History Postgraduate Conference [Cancelled due to illness]
December 2013 - 'A Colony in the Metropole: The Bermondsey Medical Mission, c. 1904-1964', Colonial/Postcolonial New Researchers' Workshop, Institute of Historical Research, University of London
August 2013 - 'Charting Social and Demographic Shifts through Medicine: How the Bermondsey Medical Mission Found Itself in Kent, c. 1930-1960', Congress of the British Society for the History of Medicine, Canterbury Lodge and Cathedral
July 2013 - 'Changing Paradigms of Medicine?: Medical Missionaries and the Partition of India', Medical Knowledge Traditions at Work Panel (Wellcome Trust Sponsored), International Congress of History of Science, Technology and Medicine, University of Manchester
October 2012 - 'Partition and the Punjab: Medical Missionaries and Shifting Paradigms of Medicine', Science, Technology, & Medicine in India: The Problem of Poverty, Jawaharlal Nehru University - University of Warwick Workshop (at Warwick)
June 2012 - '"A Key Which May Be Said to Fit Every Lock": Examining Power Through Medical Missionary Women in India', University of Warwick History Postgraduate Conference
March 2008 - 'Women and the 1990 Nicaraguan Presidential Election', Kentucky Regional Phi Alpha Theta History Conference, University of Louisville (Runner-up in undergraduate competition)

Organisational Responsibilities

2013-Present British Society for the History of Science Postgraduate Ambassador
2013-2014 Centre for the History of Medicine Work in Progress (WIP) Coordinator
2012-2013 Warwick History Postgraduate Conference History Postgraduate Conference, Organising Committee Co-Chair (with John Morgan)
2012-2013 Retrospectives: A Postgraduate History Journal, Webmaster, Editorial Board, Co-founder
(formerly retrospectives.org.uk)
2012-2013 History of Medicine Reading Lunch, Coordinator, Webmaster (with Jenny Crane)
2008-2010 Graduate Student Council, Bioethics Program Representative
2006-2008 Honors Student Council, Vice President, Publicity Chair, Co-founder
2005-2008 Phi Alpha Theta (History Honors Society), Chapter President, Webmaster, Publicity Chair, Regional Conference Organiser, Best Chapter - 'Honorable Mention' Recipient (2008)

Publications, Projects, and Outreach

2016 (forthcoming) '"Worthy of the Best Traditions of English Women": Medical Missionary Work on the Home Front in the First World War', Women's History Review (Special Issue: Home Fronts: Gender, War, and Conflict).
2015 'Call the Medical Missionary: Religion and Health Care in Twentieth-Century Britain', Nursing Clio (January 2015).
2013 'Meeting Report: The 24th International Congress for the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine', The Gazette of the Society for the Social History of Medicine 63 (November 2013), pp. 5-6. Available online.
2009-2010 'Health Literacy: Module for Physicians', Bioethics Capstone Project, University of Louisville; Co-director, Researcher, Webmaster, Editor
2009 'The Living Will Campaign', Bioethics and Public Health Project, University of Louisville; Co-director, Researcher, Webmaster
2008-Present 'Finding Eve: A Young Woman's Guide to Gynecology and Obstetrics', Online weblog; Founder, Editor, Writer

Professional Memberships

Teaching

Autumn 2009 Instructor, Survey of Ancient History: Minoan Civilization to the Byzantine Empire; University of Louisville, "Special Topics Supplemented College Reading" (GEN 105)
Autumn 2009 Instructor, Survey of Medieval History: Constantine the Great to the Renaissance; University of Louisville, "Special Topics Supplemented College Reading" (GEN 105)

Web Design

2015-Present, British Theatre Consortium, Web Support Technician
2014, History and Policy Forum on Parenting, Web Support Technician
2013-Present, Warwick Creative Exchange, Web Support Technician
2013-2014, British Black and Asian Shakespeare, Web Support Technician
2012-2013, Retrospectives: A Postgraduate History Journal, Webmaster and System Adminsitrator
(formerly retrospectives.org.uk)

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