I specialise in interdisciplinary research on late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century art, science, and the occult in Britain and the US.
My PhD thesis focused on the spiritualist art and automatic writings of English artist Evelyn De Morgan (1855–1919) in relation to late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century physics, mathematics, psychology, philosophy of science, statistics, and psychical research.
Currently, I am working on an INSBS-funded grant project exploring the scientific investigation of the medium Mina ‘Margery’ Crandon (c. 1925) in relation to stereoscopic photography, history of medicine, and observation and validation practices. I am also working on a book project, The Victorian Idyll in Art and Literature: Ecology, Matter, Form (Routledge, forthcoming), with Dr Thomas Hughes. Centring ecological and queer readings, this collection of essays rethinks the ‘idyllic’ by establishing the nature, lineaments, and significance of the idyll as a formal mode in nineteenth-century British culture.
I co-host Drawing Blood, a podcast about visual culture, the history of science and medicine, and the macabre.
Education
- PhD History of Art, The Courtauld Institute of Art (2017 – 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
- Postdoctoral Researcher (Principal Investigator), ‘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, The Courtauld Institute of Art (2022–23)
- Terra Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow, Centre for American Art, The Courtauld Institute of Art (2022)
- Postdoctoral Research Fellow, ‘The Media of Mediumship: Encountering the Material Culture of Modern Occultism in Britain’s Science, Technology, and Magic Collections’, Science Museum Group, Senate House Library, and University of Stirling (2021–22)
- Research Continuity Fellow (Doctoral Research), Paul Mellon Centre (2021)
- Research Continuity Fellow (Doctoral Research), Paul Mellon Centre (2020)
- Visiting Research Fellow, Yale Center for British Art (2018)
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)
Publications
Books
- Thomas Hughes and Emma Merkling (eds), The Victorian Idyll in Art and Literature: Ecology, Matter, Form (Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge), forthcoming.
Chapters
- Emma Merkling, ‘Photographic Idyll: Temporality, Queer Subjects, and an Ecological Erotics in Julia Margaret Cameron’s Maud‘, in The Victorian Idyll in Art and Literature: Ecology, Matter, Form, ed. by Thomas Hughes and Emma Merkling (Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge), forthcoming 2023.
- Emma Merkling, ‘“Symbols Bewitched”: Evelyn De Morgan’s Symbolic Logic’, in Evelyn and William De Morgan: A Marriage of Arts and Crafts, ed. by Margaretta S. Frederick (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2022), pp. 129–39.
Articles and reviews
- Emma Merkling, Elizabeth Prettejohn. Modern Painters, Old Masters: The Art of Imitation from the Pre-Raphaelites to the First World War. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press in association with the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, 2017. 288 pp.; 130 color ills.; 30 b/w ills. Cloth $55.00 (9780300222753). caa reviews (2019). DOI: 10.3202/caa.reviews.2019.129
- Emma Merkling, Review of ‘Annie Swynnerton: Painting Light and Hope,’ Manchester Art Gallery. 19: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century (2019). DOI: http://doi.org/10.16995/ntn.851
- Emma Merkling, ‘The Sensate Body: Consciousness in Albert Moore’s Art.’ immediations 4.3 (2018): 50-70.
Online Essays and Other Media
- ‘Telecommunications and the Occult’ (National Science and Media Museum), 2022
- ‘Using Science to Investigate the Paranormal’ (National Science and Media Museum), 2022
- ‘Spirit Photography and the Occult: Making the Invisible Visible’ (National Science and Media Museum), 2022
- Co-Host, Drawing Blood, an Experimental Humanities Collaborative Network-funded podcast on visual culture, history of science and medicine, and the macabre, 2021–present
- Guest, ‘Fingerprinting Ghosts: Science, Technology & the Occult’, Science and Belief in Society podcast (International Research Network for the Study of Science and Belief in Society, University of Birmingham), 2021
- ‘Eros, Thanatos, and the Throuple: Alfred Gilbert’s Mors Janua Vitae (1908)’, Gender and Sexuality Research Group Blog (The Courtauld Research Forum), 2020
- ‘Evelyn De Morgan’s Reading Lists: A Discovery in the Archives’, De Morgan Foundation Blog (The De Morgan Foundation), 2019
Conference Papers and Invited Lectures
- ‘Science in the Séance Room: Stereographs, Medical Men, and the Testing of “Margery” Crandon’s Extraordinary Body, c. 1925’, with the Gender and Sexuality Research Group (The Courtauld Institute of Art), 14 November 2022 (forthcoming; book here)
- ‘Spirits and the Material World: Spiritualism, Technology, and the Testing of Physical Mediums 1870–1940’, The Science of Things Spiritual: A Symposium (Lily Dale Assembly), 2022
- ‘Science, Séance, Stereoscopy: The Extraordinary Archives of “Margery” Crandon’, American Archives in British Archives Conference at the Centre for American Art (The Courtauld Institute of Art), 2022
- ‘The Occult History of the X-Ray’, Science Museum Lates, 2021
- ‘Ghost-Written: Art, Spirit Transcripts, and the Limits of Embodiment c. 1900’, Art Writing and the Body (Goldsmiths, University of London), 2021
- ‘Self as Boundless Surface: Ether and Alternative Geometries in Evelyn De Morgan’s Portrait of her Husband (1909)’, New Directions in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Art (Digital Seminar Series), 2020
- ‘Bodily Rhythms, Albert Moore’s Beads (1875), and Victorian Physiology’, The British Association of Victorian Studies Annual Conference (University of Dundee), 2019
- ‘Formal Logic and the Real in Evelyn De Morgan’s Art and Spirit Writings’, Science and Spiritualism, 1750-1930 (Leeds Trinity University), 2019
- ‘Formal Logic and the Real in Evelyn De Morgan’s Art and Spirit Writings’, Evelyn De Morgan Centenary Symposium: Feminist, Spiritualist, Pacifist Radical (Guildhall Art Gallery), 2019
- ‘Energy and Exhaustion: Entropy in the Work of Tennyson, Evelyn De Morgan, and H. G. Wells’, with Dr Melissa Dickson (Birmingham), Shows of London (King’s College London), 2018
- ‘The Idyllic in Julia Margaret Cameron’s Maud (1875)’, Midsummer Idyll Symposium (The Courtauld Institute of Art), 2018
- ‘Entropy, Eternity, and the “Heat Death” of the Universe in Evelyn De Morgan’s Mermaid Paintings’, The British Association of Victorian Studies Annual Conference (University of Exeter), 2018
- ‘Energy Physics and Water in Evelyn De Morgan’s Mermaid Paintings’, The London Nineteenth Century Studies Graduate Conference (University of London), 2018
- ‘Bodily Rhythms, Albert Moore’s Beads (1875), and Victorian Physiology’, Rethinking Albert Moore Conference (University of York), 2017
Professional Experience
- Editorial Intern in Academic Publishing Online, 19: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century, 2019 – 2020
- Associate Editor and Reviews Editor, immediations, 2019
- Graduate Research Assistant, The Courtauld Institute of Art, 2018 – 2019
- Curatorial Research Assistant, The Frick Collection, 2015 – 2016
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
- Fin-de-siècle painting
- History and theory of photography
- Women artists
- Spiritualism and occult history
- History of magic