Hello everyone! My name is Helen and I am currently studying for an MA in English Literature at Cardiff University. This term I decided to break the mould in terms of the traditional university module, in the desperate hope of gaining some much needed but dreaded “employability skills,” by taking a module in project management and advanced research.
My research interests encompass all things Victorian, having previously written a dissertation on Thomas Hardy’s early novels and taken modules in Victorian gender and monstrosity as well as neo-Victorian metatextualities. But with this project I wanted to try something different to the entirely textual approach I’ve done previously by examining Victorian visual culture and how this relates to our own age of the digital.
Initial forays into my potential project has included delving into the macabre world of Victorian post-mortem photography, I predict some uneasy, sleepless nights ahead!
Project Management and Advanced Research 
It’s great to see how your research interests in Victorian culture and its visual manifestations are connecting organically between your module choices, Helen. I think that there is definitely some great potential to begin thinking about how you might map your work on literature and science onto your wider affinities with Victorian visual cultures in various ways. Thinking about the techniques and ‘language’ of visual representations of the body, whether post-mortem or otherwise, would be very revealing, particularly as an exhibition-type project.
There might also be revealing ways of connecting domestic or familial post-mortem photography with more clinical or professional forms: do they share a similar visual language or are they discrete practices? What about the longer tradition of displaying the body for clinical purposes in earlier periods? Could an exhibition or database of these artefacts reveal differences in the reproduction media in how the body is treated or disclosed (e.g. illustration vs photography)? What about the relationship between the aesthetic and the instrumental? Anna Morandi Mazzolini, a famous Bolognese anatomist, produced with her husband an array of amazingly detailed and accurate wax models and effigies, many of which were styled according to classical aesthetic practices, so they look almost like works of art as much as they are instructional tools.
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Thank you Anthony. Developing upon what you said about looking at the language of the body I’ve been exploring the staging and choreography within post-mortem photography and the manner in which it often stands to mimic traditional Victorian family photographs and portraits.
I briefly studied Anna Morandi Mazzonlini’s models in a module back in second year and at the time thought they were completely fascinating. I’d really like to encorporate this within my project, perhaps mapping the presentation of bodies from these early models, through to Victorian photography and perhaps through to how we revisit these concepts in 21st century film (Alejandro Amenábar’s 2001 film ‘The Others’ springs to mind.) Looking forward to discussing all this with you on monday! 🙂
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This sounds very interesting, Helen! As it happens, I visited a museum in Bologna that housed many of Mazzolini’s effigies (as well as those of her husband). It was very fascinating and quite disturbing to see these artefacts in person: the story behind them and her appointment as the first female Professor of Anatomy in Bologna is equally intriguing. I have a recent book study about her life and work at home: I’ll be sure to bring it in for our meeting.
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