Dr Beatriz Pichel

Beatriz is specialist in photographic history, history of medicine and medical humanities, history of emotions and the cultural history of war. After finishing her degree in Philosophy at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM), she specialised in the history of sciences. Her PhD, awarded in 2012 (UAM), examined how photographic practices in First World War France shaped ideas and experiences of death at war. During her doctoral years, Beatriz developed great interest in photographic history, the history of the body and the history of emotions, and was fascinated by medical photography. In 2014, she joined the PHRC as a Wellcome Trust Research Fellow. Her postdoctoral project focused on photography and emotions in psychology and theatre at the turn of the nineteenth century in France. She has published on this topic in History of the Human Sciences (2015), Fotogeschichte (2016) and Media History (2018), and is working with Dr Dolores Martin Moruno on the edition of a collective volume on Emotional Bodies. Studies on the Historical Performativity of Emotions, which will be published with University of Illinois Press. Beatriz is currently finishing her first monograph on photography and war experiences during the First World War. Her new project, Photography and the Making of the Medical Sciences in France, 1860-1914, has been awarded a British Academy Small Research Grant, and will be published as a monograph with Palgrave, in the series 'Medicine and Biomedical Sciences in Modern History'.

Beatriz welcomes applications from prospective PhD students interested in the areas of photographic history, medical history, gender history and the history of emotions.

Photographic History Research Centre

Click here to view a full listing of Beatriz Pichel's publications and outputs.

• 2018: Reading Photography in French Nineteenth-Century Periodicals”, Media History, Special Issue “Working with Nineteenth-Century Medical and Health Periodicals” (online first), OA

• 2016: “Les Gueules Cassées: Photography and the Making of Disfigurement”, Journal of War and Culture Studies Special Issue “Assessing the Legacy of the Gueules Cassées: From surgery to art”. Published online first.

• 2016: “The Psychology of the Smile in Georges Dumas: A Photographic Study”, in Fotogeschichte. Summer, 140: 36, 13-24.
• 2015: “From Facial Expressions to Bodily Gestures: Photography, Passions and Movement in Nineteenth-Century Sciences in France”, History of the Human Sciences, online first 27 December, vol 29 (1), 2016, pp. 27-48. OA. http://hhs.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/12/24/0952695115618592.full.pdf?ijkey=C9mKzGQyQGIxqMa&keytype=finite

-        Photographic History / History of Photography

-        Medical Humanities

-        History of Medicine

-        Cultural History

-        History of Emotions

-        History of the Body

-        Gender and Women’s History

-        History of War

-        Visual Science and Technology Studies

•  Photography History
•  History
• History of Science and Medicine
• Gender History

• PhD in History and Philosophy of Sciences, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain (2012)
• M.A. in Sciences and Culture Studies, UAM, Spain (2008)
• B.A. in Philosophy, UAM, Spain (2006)

I currently teach three undergraduate modules:

-        HIST2011 Visualising the Modern World

-        HIST3026 Photography and Conflict

-        HIST2022 From Newton to Nuclear: An Introduction to the History of Science

I also collaborate teaching in other undergraduate modules in History, and postgraduate modules in the MA Photographic History

Social History Society

Society for the Social History of Medicine

Photography and the Making of Modern Medicine in France (1870-1914)

British Academy/ Leverhulme Small Research Grant

January 2019- December 2020

This project will explore the emergence and development of medical photography in France between 1860 and 1914. The main outcome of this project will be a monograph, which will retell important episodes of the history of medicine such as the birth of experimental psychology and the development of specialised medical journals from a photographic point of view. By examining images as well as photographic materials and discourses, the book will argue that photographic practices contributed to the making of medical knowledge, the shaping of medical specialisms and the communication of scientific ideas. Unique in its scope and approach, this project aims to demonstrate the fundamental role that photography played in the shaping of the medical field in France and to provide a model of analysis of photographic sources that is useful for medical and cultural historians as well as photographic historians.

“Normalising the MedicalPortrait. Photographic Protocols in French Institutions Around 1900”. Society for the Social History of Medicine, Conference, 11-13 July 2018, University of Liverpool, UK

“Photographic Protocols in French Medical Institutions Around 1900”, Medicine in Focus. 10 May 2018, University of Leeds, UK

“Doctors and Patients at the Photographic Studio”, European Social Science History Conference, 4-6 April 2018, Belfast, Ireland

“The Multiple Meanings of Medical Photography: A French Case Study”. French Studies and the Medical Humanities, 10-11 November 2017, ILMR, UK

“The Multiple Meanings of Medical Photography”, British Society for the History of Medicine, 13-15 September 2017, Royal College of Surgeons, Edinburgh, UK

“Photography, Physiology and Emotions at the Collège de France and beyond”, Reading Bodies, Writing Minds, 13^th April 2017, University of Nottingham, UK

“Medicine in the Photographic Studio”, Society for Social History of Medicine Conference “Medicine in its place”, 7^th -10^th July 2016, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK.“Photographing Emotions in the Nineteenth Century”, Social History Society Conference, 21^st -23^rd March 2016, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK.

“Reading Photography in French Nineteenth Century Periodicals”, Workshop “Working with Nineteenth-Century Medical and Health Periodicals”, 30^th May 2015, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.

“Photographing the Emotional Body in the Nineteenth Century”, Colloquium “The History of the Body: Approaches and Directions”, 16^th May 2015, Institute of Historical Research, London, UK.

“Portraying the Gueules Cassées: Photography and the Making of Disfigurement”, 1914FACES2014 Conference “Les gueules cassées: disfigurement and its legacies”, 12^th 14^th March 2015, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK.

“Between Science and Art. Chronophotographs and Drawings as Research Tools in Physiology (1895-1906)”, Hybrid Photography, 18^th-21^st February 2015, Freie Universität, Berlin.

“Historical Perspectives on the Medical Photographs of the Gueules Cassées. Disfigurement and Expressions Between 1862 and 1932”, Workshop 1914FACES2014 Workshop “Visual Evidence and the Archive”, 18^th September 2014, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK.

“De la section photographique de l’armée a los fotógrafos amateur. La cámara como instrumento de apropiación durante la Primera Guerra Mundial”, XIV Congreso de la Sociedad Española de Historia de la Ciencia y de la Técnica, 11^th September 2014, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Madrid, Spain.

“From Facial Expressions to Bodily Gestures. The Question of Movement in French Photography (1862-1902)”, Keynote Speaker. METABODY 4^th International forum, 11^th July 2014, Universidad de Madrid, Madrid, Spain.

“Children in Pain. Photography and the Performance of Pain in British Hospitals” with Leticia Fernández-Fontecha, Session “Portraiture and Pain”, Association of Art Historians Annual Conference, Royal College of Art, 10-12 April 2014, London, UK.

“Photography and the Science of the Emotions at the Turn of the Nineteenth Century”, SDN Conference “The Emotions”, 28^th-30^th March 2014, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK.

“Knowing the Male Body. Photographic Portraits of Facial Disfigurement During and After the Great War”, 24^th International Congress on History of Science, Technology and Medicine, 22^nd -28^th July 2013, University of Manchester, UK.

“First World War Photography and the Making of History”, Workshop  “Professional Photography and Amateur Snapshots”, 27^th-29^th June 2013, University of Nottingham, UK. 

I currently supervise students working on the history of women institutional photographers in the nineneeth century, visual education in Imperial Britain and the historical photographic archive of the Victoria & Albert Museum.

I welcome research students interested in interdisciplinary projects on photographic history, the history of medicine, the history of emotions, women’s history and gender studies, cultural history, medical humanities and visual STS, as well as related disciplines.

British Academy/Leverhulme Small Research Grant, Ref: SRG18R1\181193. Awarded for the project: “Photography and the Making of Modern Medicine in France (1860-1914)January 2019- December 2020.

Wellcome Trust Research Fellowship in Medical Humanities, Ref: 103101/Z/13/Z. Awarded for the project: “The Emotional Body: Medical and Theatrical Practices at the Turn of the Nineteenth Century in France”. Photographic History Research Centre, De Montfort University. February 2014- January 2016, non-costed extension until 31^st of August 2016.

Wellcome Trust Small Grant: organization of the conference “Emotional Bodies”, Geneva, 20-22 October 2014

Research Investment Fund (RIF 9), De Montfort University. Workshop “Visualising Reproduction in Medical, Social and Historical Contexts: An Interdisciplinary Inquiry”. July 2017 – July 2018.

Reviewer for History of the Human Sciences

Reviewer for Bloomsbury 

In relation to my article published in History of the Human Sciences (2015), I was interviewed in their new website http://www.histhum.com/?p=91