Ellena Deeley
Department: English
Discipline: English
Project Summary
Dr Ellena Deeley holds an AHRC-funded PhD in English at the University of Exeter. Her thesis, Contested Subjects: The Configuration of Conjoined Twins in Contemporary World Literature and Screen Media, draws on the lenses of critical disability studies, STS and postcolonial studies to explore how the narrativization of conjoined twins in diverse media forms raises complex questions surrounding the relationship between subjectivity, embodiment and humanness. Drawing on case studies on 20-21st C century world literature and screen media as well as a 19th C case study on the construction of conjoined twins in Victorian medicine and popular culture, the thesis argues that discourse on conjoined twins troubles normative notions of embodiment, subjectivity, individuality, and the human, as these have variously taken shape with reference to notions of racial and ethnic difference, nation, state, and globalization.
Supervisory Team
My thesis was co-supervised by Professor Paul Young at the University of Exeter (English) and Professor Helen Piper (Film) at the University of Bristol through the AHRC SWWDTP.
Wider Research Interests
- Critical Disability Studies
- The Victorian Freak Show
- Postcolonial Studies
- Globalization Theory
- Biopolitics
- Social Studies of Science
- Actor Network Theory
- Literary Studies
- Medical Humanities
