Wendy D. Churchill
Dr. Wendy D. Churchill (Early Modern Britain and its Empire; Social History of Medicine; Early Modern Atlantic World; Early Modern Women's and Gender History) received her Ph.D. in History from McMaster University in 2005. During 2005-06, she held a Hannah Postdoctoral Fellowship (Associated Medical Services, Inc.) at the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at University College London (UCL). She began teaching in the Department of History at the University of New Brunswick, Fredericton in 2006 and is now an Associate Professor. She was the recipient of a UNB Merit Award for 2012-13.
Her research and publications in the social history of medicine have focussed on the themes of gender, race, and class in the context of early modern Britain and its empire. She has published articles in The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History (2012), Social History of Medicine (2005), Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences (2005), and Vesalius (2001). She has also published chapters in the following edited collections: From Books to Bezoars: Sir Hans Sloane and his Collections, eds. Alison Walker, Arthur MacGregor, and Michael Hunter (2012); Ireland and Medicine in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, eds. James Kelly and Fiona Clarke (2010). Her first monograph, Female Patients in Early Modern Britain: Gender, Diagnosis, and Treatment (2012) was published by Ashgate within its The History of Medicine in Context Series.
Her current research project explores how medical conduct functioned within multiple contexts and settings by examining the influence of professional, social, and moral codes on patient-practitioner relationships in Britain and its empire from the seventeenth through early nineteenth centuries. It has received funding from Associated Medical Services Inc., the University of New Brunswick, the McCain Foundation, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). She is in the process of drafting her second monograph manuscript arising out of this research.
Collaborative research and digital story mapping projects
Dr. Churchill is the Principal Investigator (PI) of “Revolutionary and Loyalist Era Medicine,” a collaborative research and story mapping project with Dr. Bonnie Huskins which explores the social, cultural, and geo-political dimensions of health and medicine throughout British Atlantic world between the 1760s and the 1830s. It examines the experiences of patients and practitioners in various health care and geo-political settings across multiple locations throughout the British Isles, North America, the West Indies, and Africa.
“An Engineer’s Empire: The Life and Career of William Booth (1748–1826),” with Dr. Bonnie Huskins (the Principal Investigator), is a research-based, interactive digital story mapping project. It focusses on William Booth, a British military engineer who was posted to Gibraltar, Nova Scotia, the British Isles and the Channel Islands during the late eighteenth century.
Teaching and supervision
Dr. Churchill teaches various courses and offers graduate supervision in the following areas: early modern Britain and its empire; social history of medicine; early modern Atlantic World; early modern women's and gender history.
She has been previously nominated for the Allan P. Stuart Award for Excellence in Teaching and short-listed for the Arts Faculty Award for Excellence in Teaching (full-time instructor category). In 2012, she received the University of New Brunswick Student Union Teaching Excellence Award.
Since 2014, she has been actively collaborating with UNB Libraries’ librarians and library staff to integrate skills-based training into her undergraduate lecture courses and Honours seminars. This work has focussed on the acquisition and development of student skills that are transferable to future employment and/or graduate work by incorporating in-library training sessions and workshops, blog assignments based on manuscript documents, and research papers using late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century British Atlantic World newspapers in microform and digital formats.
Publications
Female Patients in Early Modern Britain: Gender, Diagnosis, and Treatment, Series: The History of Medicine in Context (Farnham, Surrey, England and Burlington, VT, USA: Ashgate Publishing, December 2012), 298 pp. ISBN: 978-1-4094-3877-9 (hardcover); ISBN 978-1-4094-3878-6 (ebook PDF); ISBN 978-1-4094-7113-4 (ebook ePUB).
“Sloane’s Perspectives on the Medical Knowledge and Health Practices of Non-Europeans,” in Alison Walker, Arthur MacGregor, and Michael Hunter, eds., From Books to Bezoars: Sir Hans Sloane and his Collections (London: The British Library, 2012), 90-98 and 266-69. ISBN: 978-0-7123-5880-4.
“Gendered Medical Advice within Anglo-Irish Correspondence: A Case Study of the Cary-Jurin Letters,” in James Kelly and Fiona Clarke, eds., Ireland and Medicine in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, The History of Medicine in Context (Farnham, Surrey, England and Burlington, VT, USA: Ashgate Publishing, 2010), Chapter 7, 163-82.
Guest posts on academic blogs
with Bonnie Huskins, “Using The Loyalist Collection in the classroom: Integrating professional skills development in UNB History courses,” CHA’s Teaching and Learning Blog, Canadian Historical Association. June 3, 2019.
“World War II Airmen and the Café Tea Room,” Studeamus bellum causa pacis, The Gregg Centre for the Study of War and Society, UNB. September 13, 2013.
Select refereed conference presentations
[Upcoming; abstract formally accepted] “Atlantic Medicine at Home and Abroad: A British Military Engineer's Experiences of Health and Medicine in Gibraltar, England, and Nova Scotia, 1782–1789.” Northeast Conference on British Studies (NECBS), to be held at McGill University, Montreal. Upcoming Oct. 4-5, 2019.
“The Rewards and Challenges of Skills Development in Undergraduate Courses on Health and Medicine during the Revolutionary and Loyalist Eras” as part of roundtable on “Primary Research, Story Maps, Blogs and Historiography: Integrating Loyalist and Revolutionary Era History into the Classroom.” The annual meeting of the Canadian Historical Society, University of British Columbia. Vancouver, BC. June 5, 2019.
“Linguistic Interpretation and Non-Verbal Communication within British Medicine during the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries.” The annual meeting of the Canadian Society for the History of Medicine, University of British Columbia. Vancouver, BC. June 3, 2019.
“‘I lost my Health and indeed My Senses’: Military rights, masculinity, and professional identity in William Booth’s 1782 Gibraltar experience.” The annual Atlantic Medieval and Early Modern Group (AMEMG) Conference, UNB. Fredericton, NB. October 14, 2017.
“The Assessment and Management of Risk in British Medicine, circa 1700–1820.” The annual meeting of the Canadian Society for the History of Medicine, Ottawa, May 30, 2015.
“Humanity as a Tool of Professional Self-Fashioning in British Military Medicine, 1775–1815.” The 20th annual Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture Conference, Halifax, NS, June 13, 2014.
“Cultures of Masculinities in British Military Medicine, circa 1760-1820,” North American Conference on British Studies (NACBS), Montreal, November 10, 2012.
“The Right to Care: Military Men and British Imperial Medicine, 1780–1820.” 80th Anglo-American Conference of Historians: Health in History. Institute of Historical Research, London, U.K., June 29, 2011.
“The Medical Rights of Military Men in the British Empire, 1780–1820.” The annual meeting of the Canadian Society for the History of Medicine, UNB and St. Thomas University. Fredericton, NB. May 30, 2011.
“Hans Sloane’s Perspectives on the Medical Knowledge and Health Practices of Non-Europeans.” From Books to Bezoars: An international conference celebrating the 350th anniversary of the birth of Sir Hans Sloane, physician, naturalist and collector. The British Library, London, U.K. June 7, 2010.
“The Gendered Nature of Patient Consent within Early Modern British Medicine.” The annual meeting of the American Association for the History of Medicine. Montreal, Quebec. May 6, 2007.
Select invited papers and presentations
“The Conflicted Role of British Military Medicine in the Humane Treatment of Patients during the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries.” SSHRC Connection Grant symposium/colloquium on Medical Power and Practice in the Transatlantic North: Canada and Sweden in Focus (Principal Investigator: Sasha Mullally). UNB, Fredericton, NB. Upcoming August 22, 2019.
“Research and Teaching with Newspaper Collections.” Launch Event: New Brunswick Historical Newspapers Online. UNB Libraries, UNB, Fredericton, NB. March 21, 2019.
“Cultures of Masculinities in British Military Medicine, circa 1760–1820.” Network for the Study of Civilians, Soldiers, and Society (NSCSS), UNB and St. Thomas University, Fredericton, NB. March 15, 2013.
“The Rights of Military Men in Late Eighteenth- and Early Nineteenth-Century British Imperial Medicine.” History of Health/Medicine/Science/Technology Discussion Group, UNB and St. Thomas University, Fredericton, NB. January 19, 2012.
“Responses to Non-European Bodies in British Military Medicine during the Long Eighteenth Century.” Tri-Campus Colloquium (TCC) of History Departments at St. Thomas University and UNB (Fredericton and Saint John). St. Thomas University, Fredericton, NB, March 25, 2010.
“Responses to Non-European Bodies in British Military Medicine during the Long Eighteenth Century.” British Asia-British Atlantic Network’s Conference on Early Modern Imperial-Indigenous Military Conflict and Cooperation. Co-sponsored by the Gorsebrook Research Institute for Atlantic Canada Studies (Saint Mary’s University) and Milton F. Gregg Centre for the Study of War and Society (UNB, Fredericton), with additional funding from SSHRC. UNB, Fredericton, New Brunswick. August 14, 2009.
“Gendered Medical Advice within Anglo-Irish Correspondence during the Eighteenth Century: the Cary-Jurin Case Study.” Symposium on Ireland and Medicine in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. Centre for Eighteenth-Century Studies at Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast, Northern Ireland. April 26, 2008.
