Photo of Dr Stephen Kenny

Dr Stephen Kenny PhD FHEA

Senior Lecturer, 19th and 20th century North American History History

    Teaching

    Histories of Slavery, 'Race' and Medicine

    Histories of Health and Medicine in the United States
    Histories of American Slavery
    Histories of the African American experience
    Histories of the American South

    Since joining the Department in autumn 2005 have taught, coordinated and contributed to a wide range and number of undergraduate and graduate modules. Have also supervised a large number of undergraduate dissertations on a extensive variety of topics exploring histories of bodies, disease, 'race', health, medicine, and slavery in the United States.

    At Masters level teach on both the Cultural History and the International Slavery Studies pathways. Have supervised a large number MA dissertations exploring various social and cultural histories of bodies, disease, 'race', health and medicine in the United States and histories of American slavery.

    Working with Chris Pearson and Christienna Fryar, am a co-supervisor for:

    Victoria Shea (ARHC PhD studentship) 'Racism and companion species relationships in the American South'

    Working with Michael Tadman, was a co-supervisor for:
    Andrea Livesey (ESRC PhD studentship), 'Sexual Violence in the Slaveholding Regimes of Louisiana and Texas' [completed August 2015]

    Working with Mark Peel and Graeme Milne, was a co-supervisor for:
    Emily Trafford (AHRC PhD studentship), ‘Where the Races Meet’:Racial Framing through Live Display at the American West Coast World’s Fairs, 1894-1916' [completed December 2015]

    Working with Richard Huzzey (Durham University) and William Ashworth, was part of the supervisory team for:
    Joe Kelly (ESRC CASE studentship, 2014) 'Supply Chains and Moral Responsibility: Slavery and Capitalism after British Emancipation' [completed 2017]

    Working with Deana Heath and Celia Donert, was a co-supervisor for:
    Beth Wilson (AHRC PhD studentship) '"I ain' mad now and I know taint no use to lie": The Framing, Editing and Manipulation of Emotions in 1930s Ex-Slave Documents' [completed September 2019]

    Working with Graeme Milne, Alex Buchanan, was a co-supervisor for Nicholas Fuqua, ‘Mapping the Architecture of Slavery: Racial Capitalism and the Shaping of Space in Liverpool and Charleston’ [completed 2020]

    A few recommendations ...

    Students interested in histories of slavery, 'race', the body, health and medicine might want to some consult the following key works:

    George J. Annas, The Rights of Patients (2nd edition, 1992 and 3rd edition, 2004)

    Margo DeMello, Body Studies: An Introduction (2014).

    Elizabeth Edwards, Photographs and the Practice of History: A Short Primer (2022)

    Joe Feagin and Kimberley Ducey, Racist America (4th edition, 2018).

    Sharla Fett, Working Cures: Healing, Health, and Power on Southern Slave Plantations (2002).

    Vanessa Northington Gamble, Making a Place for Ourselves: the Black Hospital Movement, 1920-1945 (1995).

    Rana Hogarth, Medicalizing Blackness: Making Racial Difference in the Atlantic World, 1780-1840 (2017).

    Walter Johnson, Soul by Soul: Life Inside the Antebellum Slave Market (1999).

    Susan Lederer, Subjected to Science: Human Experimentation in America Before the Second World War (1995).

    Susan Reverby, Examining Tuskegee: The Infamous Syphilis Study and Its Legacy (2009).

    Dorothy Roberts, Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty (1997).

    Ilisa Barbash, Molly Rogers, Deborah Willis, eds., To Make Their Own Way in the World: The Enduring Legacy of the Zealy Daguerreotypes (2020)

    Gillian Rose, Visual Methodologies: An introduction to researching with visual materials (5th edition, 2022).

    Michael Sappol, A Traffic of Dead Bodies: Anatomy and Embodied Social Identity in 19th-Century America (2002).

    Todd Savitt, Medicine and Slavery: The Diseases and Health Care of Blacks in Antebellum Virginia (1978).

    Christina Sharpe, In the Wake: On Blackness and Being (2016).

    Michael Tadman, Speculators and Slaves: Masters, Traders, and Slaves in the Old South (1996).

    John Harley Warner and James Edmonson, Dissection: Photographs of a Rite of Passage in American Medicine: 1880-1930 (2009).

    Modules for 2023-24

    CRITICAL MEDICAL HUMANITIES

    Module code: HLAC701

    Role: Teaching

    HISTORICAL RESEARCH

    Module code: HIST507

    Role: Module Co-ordinator

    HISTORICAL RESEARCH

    Module code: HIST527

    Role: Module Co-ordinator

    HISTORY DISSERTATION

    Module code: HIST396

    Role: Teaching

    RACISM AND RESISTANCE: AFRICAN AMERICANS SINCE SLAVERY

    Module code: HIST222

    Role: Module Co-ordinator

    RESEARCHING HEALTH, CULTURES AND SOCIETIES

    Module code: HLAC700

    Role: Teaching