Dr Lucy Burke
Tel: 0161 247 1765
E-mail: l.burke@mmu.ac.uk
Room: Geoffrey Manton Building, All Saints Campus
Research Specialisms
My research primarily focuses upon cultural representations of cognitive disability and the ethical significance of literary discourse in this context. I am also interested in the ways in which contemporary literary and cinematic texts explore bioethical problems, from organ transplants to the termination of life support. As such, my research encompasses two inter-related fields: Literary and Cultural Disability Studies and the Medical Humanities.
I have been at the forefront of the development of the former area in the UK through my involvement on the editorial board of the Journal of Literary and Cultural Disability Studies and the organisation of the international conference, Present Difference: The Cultural Production of Disability, January 6-8, 2010. The conference brought together academics, writers, artists, film-makers and broadcasters to discuss the contemporary cultural production of disability and included events at the Cornerhouse Cinema and the BBC.
Two monographs: Representing Alzheimer’s (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press) and The Idiots (Basingstoke: Palgrave), Controversies Series will be available in 2011.
Recent Publications
Editor, special issue of the Journal of Literary and Cultural Disability Studies, Volume 2, Number 1 / May 2008, ISSN 1757-6458 (Print) 1757-6466 (Online)
Introduction: Thinking about Cognitive Impairment, in Journal of Literary and Cultural Disability Studies, Volume 2, Number 1 / May 2008, pp1-4
‘The Country of My Disease’: Genes and Genealogy in Alzheimer’s life writing’, Journal of Literary and Cultural Disability Studies Volume 2, Number 1 / May 2008, pp.63-74
Editor, with David Bolt, Dan Goodley, Rebecca Lawthom, Rebecca Mallett (eds) special edition of The Review of Disability Studies, an International Journal, ISSN 1552-9215, Special Issue, Theorizing Culture and Disability: Interdisciplinary Dialogues, volume 6, issue 3, 2010, pp1-76
Editor, with Simon Faulkner and Jim Aulich, The Politics of Cultural Memory, (Newcastle upon Tyne, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2010), ISBN (10): 1-84718-934-2, ISBN (13): 9781847189349, 253 pages
With Simon Faulkner, ‘Introduction: Memory is Ordinary’ in Burke, Faulkner and Aulich (eds) The Politics of Cultural Memory (2010), pp1-25