معرفی
Univ.-Prof. Dr. Monika Pietrzak-Franger is a Full Professor for British Cultural and Literary Studies at the Department of English and American Studies, Faculty of Philological and Cultural Studies, University of Vienna. She serves as Head of Department and Deputy Head of Section "Knowledge, Literature and Media" at the Doctoral School of Philological and Cultural Studies. Her work bridges literary studies, cultural studies, and medical humanities with a particular focus on the socio-political dimensions of health, illness, and medical representation.
Dr. Pietrzak-Franger's research spans multiple interconnected fields including Medical Humanities (particularly contagious diseases and their socio-political role and mediality), Adaptation Studies, Intermediality and Transmediality Studies, and Gender Studies. Her work examines how cultural narratives shape our understanding of health and illness, with special attention to visual representations, stigma, and the intersection of medicine with literature and the arts. She has made significant contributions to Victorian studies, particularly around representations of syphilis in the 19th century, which has informed her more recent work on pandemic representation.
Her recent publications demonstrate a clear trajectory toward examining the cultural dimensions of the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath, particularly Long Covid. Through interdisciplinary approaches combining literary analysis, visual culture studies, and medical humanities, she explores how pandemics are narrated, visualized, and experienced across different media platforms and cultural contexts. Her work increasingly focuses on patient narratives, healthcare disparities, and the social dimensions of chronic illness.
Among her notable achievements is the BritCult Award (2015) for her habilitation treatise "Spectres of Syphilis: Medicine, Knowledge and the Spectacle of Victorian (In)Visibility." She has also led significant projects including the Interuniversity Cluster "Post-COVID-19 Care: Medical Humanities and Health Economies at the Frontlines," the interdisciplinary lecture series and conference "COVID-19 beyond Borders: Rethinking Medical Humanities at the Frontlines," and "Post-COVID-19 Art Worlds: Viral Theatre, Precarity and Medical Humanities."
Dr. Pietrzak-Franger supervises numerous doctoral and postdoctoral researchers and has established a vibrant research team focused on Medical Humanities. She has secured significant funding for her interdisciplinary projects and has been instrumental in developing the Medical Humanities field at the University of Vienna. Her "Viral Theatre Podcast" series represents innovative knowledge transfer that bridges academic research with public engagement.
She leads the research team at the Medical Humanities initiative at the University of Vienna, which includes postdoctoral researchers, doctoral candidates, and administrative support staff. The team works at the intersection of literary studies, cultural studies, and medical humanities, with particular expertise in pandemic representation, chronic illness narratives, and the visual culture of health and disease. The group has organized numerous conferences, workshops, and public engagement initiatives including the "Threads of Life: Textiles in Medicine and the Arts" exhibition and conference.
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