Paid research collaboration opportunity for second year Single and Joint Honours Drama students.
CALL FOR COLLABORATION WITH BARTS PATHOLOGY MUSEUM
Developing a QMUL Model module for undergraduates interested in research on the Barts Pathology Museum collection
Named one of CNN's Ten Weirdest Medical Museums in the World, Barts Pathology Museum develops programmes and events to bring pathology alive.
The Pathology Museum is part of QMUL. It opened in 1879 and is now home to over 5,000 medical specimens collected over two centuries at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital and Medical College.
The building and the specimens have informed medical research whilst also capturing the public imagination. For example, St Bartholomew’s Hospital is the location Sir Arthur Conan Doyle chose for his characters Holmes and Watson to have their first fortuitous meeting.The museum hosts beginner taxidermy classes called "Stuff & Nonsense". It is also home to specimens including the skull John Bellingham who, in 1812 assassinated the British Prime Minister, Spencer Perceval.
Drama has been asked to participate in the development of a new interdisciplinary research-based module based on the collection at Barts Pathology Museum and to identify three second year Drama students (single or joint honours students) who will participate in this paid research project. The aim of this pilot is to develop a module that could be offered as part of the QM Model initiative.
1. Student researchers are paid for 150 hours (50 of which is allocated to carrying out the assessment) at the London living wage rate (approx. £2,516). Payments are organised through QTemps
2. The pilot will last about 12 weeks and the timetabling is flexible, to fit around students' workloads. There will be a couple of training activities you will need to attend.
3. The research topic is entirely open but you will have academic guidance and support to frame this. The specimens can be explored historically, socially, culturally, etc, this might encompass an analysis of the way the body or body part is represented, its medicalisation, fragmentation, politicization. An example of how a specimen may be approached is below.
Find out more at:
If you are interested, please contact CaoimheMcAvinchey, by noon on Thursday 12th October with a paragraph of approx. 200 words explaining why you are interested in the project. Please title the email ‘Pathology Museum Collaboration’. Applications with be shared with colleagues in Student Learning and Barts who are developing the project. We will all students who apply by the middle of Week 5 (25th October).
You must be a second year student to participate.
Below is an example of possible approaches to a specimen:
The Skull of John Bellingham
Background to the specimen:
John Bellingham is an unfamiliar name to many, despite the fact he was the only man to carry out an assassination of a British Prime Minister. In the early 1800s, Bellingham was attempting to return to England from a trip to Russia, when an (allegedly) false accusation resulted in him having his travelling pass withdrawn. He spent a year in a Russian jail then attempted to impeach the Governor-General, which angered the authorities and he was imprisoned again.
Once home, after petitioning the government for compensation over what he considered to be wrongful imprisonment, he decided to take matters into his own hands and shot the then Prime Minister, Spencer Perceval. It was May 1812. He was arrested, tried and sentenced: “That you be taken from hence…to a place of execution, where you shall be hanged by the neck until you be dead; your body to be dissected and anatomised”
Possible approaches to researching a specimen might include:
Historical: researching legal and historical aspects of sentencing practices of the time, and the rationale for why the executed were then dissected, etc.
Political: The political and diplomatic relations between England and Russia at the time, and the extent this to blame for Bellingham’s and others’ treatment.
Literary: Bellingham’s cadaver was experimented on using electric currents: a process known as Galvanism. This is thought to have inspired Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.
Dramatic/Artistic: the specimen could be the basis for a more creative research activity such as a performance or using visual media.
Scientific: the specimen could be research in terms of what it illustrates for forensic medicine, or specific pathologies.