Summary
I am a historian of medicine and psychiatry and joined Imperial in 2018. I was previously Lecturer in Cultural and Intellectual History at Queen Mary University of London, and before that undertook postdoctoral research at the University of Oxford on the Diseases of Modern Life project. I primarily teach on the BSc in Humanities, Philosophy and Law, and also lead the BMB Creative Reflection for Professional Practice module. I regularly work with colleagues across the Faculty of Medicine to incorporate the medical humanities into clinical teaching and training. I am also a Lecturer in the History of Science and Medicine for the Horizons programme in the Centre for Languages, Culture and Communication.
My research interests take in the history of psychiatry, Victorian cultural history, the history of pathology and post-mortem work, and the history of medical technologies. Recent publications include the co-authored volume Anxious Times: Medicine and Modernity in Nineteenth-Century Britain (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2019) and the co-edited Sources in the History of Psychiatry, from 1800 to the Present (Routledge, 2022). Besides my historical work, I also write on film and music.
I am a Mental Health First Aider, and encourage both staff and students to approach me if they would like to discuss any mental health issues.
Selected Publications
Journal Articles
Thacker N, Wallis J, Winning J, 2022, 'Capable of being in uncertainties': applied medical humanities in undergraduate medical education, Medical Humanities, Vol:48, ISSN:1468-215X, Pages:325-334
Wallis J, 2018, A Home or a Gaol? Scandal, Secrecy, and the St James's Inebriate Home for Women, Social History of Medicine, Vol:31, ISSN:0951-631X, Pages:774-795
Wallis J, 2017, Bloody technology: the sphygmograph in asylum practice, History of Psychiatry, Vol:28, ISSN:0957-154X, Pages:297-310
Books
, 2023, Memory, Anniversaries and Mental Health in International Historical Perspective, Springer International Publishing, ISBN:9783031229770
, 2022, Sources in the History of Psychiatry, from 1800 to the Present, Routledge, ISBN:9780367541217
Bonea A, Dickson M, Shuttleworth S, et al., 2019, Anxious Times: Medicine and Modernity in Nineteenth-Century Britain, University of Pittsburgh Press, ISBN:9780822945512
Wallis J, 2017, Investigating the Body in the Victorian Asylum Doctors, Patients, and Practices, Palgrave Macmillan, ISBN:9783319567143
Chapters
Wallis J, 2018, A machine in the garden: The compressed air bath and the nineteenth-century health resort, Histories of Technology, the Environment and Modern Britain, Editor(s): Agar, Ward, UCL Press, Pages:76-100, ISBN:9781911576587