Research Interests

I work on the history of science, medicine, and health, focusing on the period 1650-1830. My research address a concern central to the humanities and sciences alike - how do our interactions with the world change our capacity to experience and understand it?

In my first book Aesthetic Science: Representing Nature in the Royal Society of London, 1650-1720 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2020), I addressed these themes by exploring the role of sensory pleasure and other forms of aesthetic experience in the models of empirical science promoted by members of the early Royal Society of London. This book argues that judgments of taste and the pleasures of aesthetic experience had a central role in the emergence of what we now understand as scientific objectivity. In turn, Aesthetic Sciences argues not only that the sciences of the 17th century had a far more significant role in the emergence of aesthetics and art criticism than has so far been recognized, but also that the conceptual resources of taste and aesthetic judgment can make a major contribution to our understanding of the formation of consensus in scientific communities.

Now, I am working on a project that examines the history of habit - the idea that repeated actions give us new dispositions, changing how we experience the world and the things we do in it. This project, leading to a book entitled The Century of Habit, will show that ideas about the loss and acquisition of habits - especially in fields of medicine and health - were fundamental to the key political and scientific debates of the 18th century. Focusing initially on health and medicine, this book will show that new neurological theories enabled medics and their patients to regard key bodily functions and diseases as products of habit - and thus also as dependent on changing cultures and customs. In turn, it will show that these medical ideas and practices informed key debates of the 18th century, ranging from debates about the effects of society on human nature to the emergence of theories of biological evolution at the turn of the 19th century. The book will thus propose a new disciplinary synthesis, revealing that we cannot understand the key intellectual concerns of the past without paying attention to fundamental debates about the workings of the body - such as the role of habit in shaping human dispositions.

Moreover, I have broad research interests linking the histories of science and medicine to the medical humanities, especially at the intersections between medicine and aesthetics. I am thus an active participant in the FHASS Health Hub at Lancaster University, a co-organiser of the Northern Network for Medical Humanities Research 2025 Congress, and currently working with colleagues to edit a landmark volume on the Global Medical Humanities.

I am also engaged in interdisciplinary projects that bridge the gap between research and pedagogy, as well as the gaps between the disciplines. With Lan A. Li at Rice University, I co-direct and sometimes present a series of podcasts, conferences, and public events examining scientific, medical, aesthetic, and scholarly perspectives on the human mind. I also promote the "chemical humanities," both by recreating historical experiments, and most recently by organizing events exploring the role of chemical compounds in human life.

Career Details

I have a PhD in the History and Philosophy of Science from the University of Cambridge. Before coming to Lancaster, I held positions at the University of Oxford, University College London, and New York University. Additionally, I held a Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellowship at University College London, and a postdoctoral fellowship jointly at the California Institute of Technology and The Huntington Library.

Web Links

https://alexwraggemorley.wordpress.com/

External Roles

Along with Lan A. Li of Rice University, I co-direct a series of podcasts dealing with the history and culture of the human mind, entitled Metaphors of the Mind.

PhD Supervision Interests

I would welcome enquiries from students interested in the history of science and medicine in the early modern period. I would particularly like to hear from students interested in the history of the senses and other forms of bodily experience, the interconnections between the arts and sciences, along with projects linking science to religion through aesthetics and/or sensory experience.