Dr Louise Creechan, from our Institute for Medical Humanities and Department of English Studies, has won a prestigious award to make humanities research more accessible and inclusive for neurodivergent researchers.
Dr Creechan has been awarded a Wellcome Early Career Award to ‘neurodiversify’ the academy.
The five-year project will explore how Victorian assumptions about intelligence have shaped contemporary research practices and neuro-normative ideals of academic excellence.
Through interrogating and challenging these assumptions, it promises to make transformative contributions to literary studies, neurodiversity studies and activism.
Drawing on lived experience
Dr Creechan’s research explores the tension between her expertise as a literary scholar and her own dyslexia.
Reflecting on when she was first introduced to Victorian educational methods when she was herself at primary school, she says: “This was a period where I was struggling academically and had recently been diagnosed with multiple neurodivergent conditions.
I remember this intense sense of recognition as the dunce’s hat was described; I understood that if it were 1896 as opposed to 1996, I would have been wearing it.”
Improving research culture and practice
Dr Creechan’s project challenges the way modern academic practices perpetuate exclusionary models of knowledge production.
It will explore how centring neurodivergence can lead to more creative and inclusive ways of doing research through innovative collaborations with disability activists, graphic illustrators and performance artists, including stand-up comedy and a podcast series.
Through radically reimagining how we do research, the project promises to transform academic practice, research culture and policy.
Leading the way in critical neurodiversity studies
Durham is fast becoming a world-leader in the emerging field of critical neurodiversity studies.
Dr Creechan is working alongside the world’s first Assistant Professor of Critical Neurodiversity Studies, and author of the field-defining Empire of Normality, Dr Robert Chapman.
She also convenes the international Neurodivergent Humanities Network and leads the UK’s first module exploring neurodiversity and the humanities in our postgraduate taught programmes in medical humanities.
In 2024-25, Dr Creechan and Dr Chapman will shed new light on neurodiversity and its links with measures of normality, diversity and function in mental health by co-leading the Measurement Lab in Durham’s Discovery Research Platform.
‘Neurodiversifying the Academy’ runs from November 2024 to October 2029, hosted by our Institute for Medical Humanities and the Department of English Studies.
Find out more
- Learn about the work of Louise Creechan.- Our Department of English Studies is ranked 29th in the QS World University Rankings by Subject 2024. Visit our English Studies webpages for more information on our undergraduate and postgraduate programmes. - Explore our Institute for Medical Humanities and its MA taught programmes.- Find out more about Transformative Humanities at Durham.- Visit The Measurement Lab website.
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