Dr Emma Merkling

Associate Lecturer and Postdoctoral Fellow

I specialise in interdisciplinary research on late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century British art, science, and occultism. In 2023 and 2024 I will be working on two sequential projects on Victorian women painters and ninteenth-century Anglo-Italian artistic networks: one on Annie Swynnerton (1844–1933) and her symbolist networks in Rome; the other on Evelyn De Morgan (1855–1919) and occultic receptions of the Renaissance in her spiritualist-artistic circles in Florence.

Since 2021, I have co-hosted Drawing Blood, a podcast about visual culture, the history of science and medicine, and the macabre; and since 2022 have held the role of Deputy Associate Director of Research at Durham University’s Centre for Nineteenth-Century Studies International.

In 2021 I completed a PhD at the Courtauld on the spiritualist art and automatic writings of Evelyn De Morgan in relation to late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century physics, mathematics, psychology, philosophy of science, statistics, and psychical research. Part of this research has been published with Yale University Press (2022) and is forthcoming in Art History this summer (2023).

If you found this page while searching for a publication by me for which you do not have institutional access, please email me and I will happily provide you with a pdf.

 


Education

  • PhD History of Art, The Courtauld Institute of Art (2021): ‘Imponderable: Physics, Mathematics, Psychical Research, and Evelyn De Morgan’s Spiritualist Art, 1885–1910’, supervised by Professor Caroline Arscott and examined by Professor Sally Shuttleworth and Dr Suzannah Biernoff
  • MA History of Art, The Courtauld Institute of Art (2017): ‘The Sensate Body: Consciousness in Albert Moore’s Art’
  • BA Art History and Archaeology, Columbia College, Columbia University (2015)

Postdoctoral and Doctoral Fellowships

Publications

Teaching

  • 2021 – 2022: Associate Lecturer, Body Politics: Art, Gender and Class in the Victorian Metropolis (BA3), The Courtauld Institute of Art
  • 2020: Teaching Assistant, Summer University: ‘Art and Identity’ (pre-BA, non-selective state schools), The Courtauld Institute of Art
  • 2019 – 2020: Teaching Assistant, Core Methodologies (MA), The Courtauld Institute of Art
  • 2019 – 2020: Guest Lecturer, Victorian Science and Aesthetic Movement Art (MA), The Courtauld Institute of Art
  • 2017 – 2018: Guest Lecturer, Victorian Science and Aesthetic Movement Art (MA), The Courtauld Institute of Art

Grants and Awards

  • Seed Funding Research Grant for the project ‘Biomedicine and Belief: Spiritualism, Observation, and Margery Crandon’s Extraordinary Body c. 1920–35′, International Research Network for the Study of Science and Belief in Society (2022–23)
  • Oppenheimer Memorial Trust Grant for International Study (2017–2020)
  • Lord Jacob Rothschild Scholarship, The Courtauld Institute of Art (2018–2020)
  • Research Support Grant for project ‘Evelyn De Morgan in Florence, 1895–1914,’ Paul Mellon Centre (2019)
  • Friends of The Courtauld Institute of Art Scholarship, The Courtauld Institute of Art (2017–2018)
  • Paule Vézelay Award for Best Dissertation in Modern and Contemporary Art, The Courtauld Institute of Art (2017)
  • Edmond J. Safra Scholarship, The Courtauld Institute of Art (2016–2018)
  • Phi Beta Kappa Honor Society, Columbia University (2015)

Online Essays and Other Media

Conference Papers and Invited Lectures

Professional Experience

Research Interests

  • Nineteenth-century art
  • Spiritualist art
  • Nineteenth-century history of science and alternative science
  • History of physics, mathematics, psychical research, physiological psychology, medicine, philosophy of science, ecology
  • Symbolism
  • Horror
  • Fin-de-siècle painting
  • History and theory of photography
  • Women artists
  • Spiritualism, occultism, and heterodox belief
  • History of magic

Citations