Skip navigation

Professor Clark Lawlor

Professor

Department: Humanities

ADSS Clarklower Facultystaff 255I studied English literature at the University of Oxford before specialising in eighteenth-century literature for my MA and PhD at the University of Warwick, although I also retained an interest in American Literature. I then spent a year teaching at Northumbria University as a Visiting Lecturer before taking up post-doctoral research fellowship at the University of Aberdeen for three years, where I worked in the field of literature and medicine. After that I spent a year doing further post-doctoral research at the Johns Hopkins University in the USA and Oxford University, UK. I then returned to Newcastle and, having taught at both Northumbria and Newcastle Universities for a year, I took up a full post at Northumbria in 2000. I became a Reader in 2007 and a Professor in 2013. I have published widely in eighteenth-century and Romantic literature and am reviewer and referee for several international journals and major presses in the areas of literature and/or the history of medicine. I have been Principal Investigator for two Major Leverhulme projects: Fashionable Diseases: Medicine, Literature and Culture, ca. 1660-1832 (2013-2016), and Writing Doctors: Representation and Medical Personality ca. 1660-1832 (2018-2021).

Campus Address

Office: Lipman 106 (Institute of the Humanities)



I research literary and artistic representations and their effects on the realities of medicine, and vice-versa. My core periods are the 'long eighteenth century' and Romantic periods, but I have written on cultural histories of disease, especially, consumption/tuberculosis, and melancholia and depression, from Classical times to the present day. I show how literary templates help to construct social percpetions and therefore lived experience of diseases. I have been involved in, or run, Leverhulme Trust  major research projects on depression, fashionable diseases, and medical writings. See the following:PI Writing Doctors: Representation and Medical Personality ca. 1660-1832 http://writingdoctors.info/  A Leverhulme Trust Major Project; PI Fashionable Diseases: Medicine, Literature and Culture, ca. 1660-1832 http://www.fashionablediseases.info/ A Leverhulme Trust Major Project; Co-Director  Before Depression: Representation and Culture of the English Malady, 1660-1800 (2006-9), £223,000 www.beforedepression.com

  • Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
  • Myth and (Mis)information: Constructing the Medical Professions in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century English Literature and Culture , Ingram, A., Lawlor, C., Williams, H. 16 Apr 2024
  • Literature and Medicine: The Eighteenth Century, Lawlor, C., Mangham, A. 3 Jun 2021
  • Romantic Consumption: The Paradox of Fashionable Breath, Lawlor, C. 2021, The Life of Breath in Literature, Culture and Medicine, Cham, Switzerland, Palgrave Macmillan
  • Sleep and Stress Management in Enlightenment Literature and Poetry, Lawlor, C., Blackwood, A. 6 Jun 2020, In: Interface Focus
  • 'Chaos dark and deep': Grotesque selves and self-fashioning in Pope's Dunciad, Lawlor, C. 2019, Writing and constructing the self in Great Britain in the long eighteenth century, Manchester University Press
  • ‘The gloom of anxiety’: fear in the long eighteenth century’, Lawlor, C., Ingram, A. 1 Jan 2018, Dreadful Passions: Fear in the Literary and Medical Imagination, Medieval to Modern, Palgrave Macmillan
  • Fashionable Diseases: Special issue of Literature and Medicine, Andrews, J., Lawlor, C. 21 Dec 2017
  • Fashion and Illness in Eighteenth‐Century and Romantic Literature and Culture: Special issue of the Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Lawlor, C., O'Connell, A. 1 Dec 2017
  • Fashioning Illness in the Long Eighteenth Century, O'connell, A., Lawlor, C. 1 Dec 2017, In: Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies
  • Introduction "An Exclusive Privilege … to Complain": Framing Fashionable Diseases in the Long Eighteenth Century, Andrews, J., Lawlor, C. 31 Dec 2017, In: Literature and Medicine

  • Laurence Sullivan 'Every Woman Her Own Physician’: Literary Portrayals of Lay Women Medical Practitioners on the Page and Stage in Eighteenth-Century Britain Start Date: 07/01/2019 End Date: 12/02/2023
  • Leanne Cane ‘As To the Education of Youth’: The Novels of Charlotte Smith and the Eighteenth-Century and Romantic Education Debates Start Date: 01/10/2015 End Date: 04/03/2020
  • Anna Hope Bodily Transformations in the eighteenth century Start Date: 10/01/2011 End Date: 10/11/2014
  • Mike Dale The social and yprofessional development of massage as socially and professionally accepted practice and treatment in Britain between 1750 and 1950 Start Date: 01/10/2010 End Date: 01/10/2015
  • Ashleigh Blackwood Managing Maternity: Reproduction and the Literary Imagination in the Eighteenth Century Start Date: 02/10/2012 End Date: 31/01/2018

English PhD June 30 1994


a sign in front of a crowd
+

Northumbria Open Days

Open Days are a great way for you to get a feel of the University, the city of Newcastle upon Tyne and the course(s) you are interested in.

Research at Northumbria
+

Research at Northumbria

Research is the life blood of a University and at Northumbria University we pride ourselves on research that makes a difference; research that has application and affects people's lives.

NU World
+

Explore NU World

Find out what life here is all about. From studying to socialising, term time to downtime, we’ve got it covered.


Latest News and Features

Some members of History’s editorial team (from left to right): Daniel Laqua (editor-in-chief), Katarzyna Kosior (reviews editor), Lewis Kimberley (editorial assistant), Charotte Alston (deputy editor) and Henry Miller (online editor).
Dr Elliott Johnson, Vice Chancellor’s Fellow in Public Policy at Northumbria University.
Balfour Beatty graduates at Northumbria's winter congregation
NIHR multiple and complex needs
Paramedics at work
Joint Institute of Clean Hydrogen
More news

Back to top