File(s) under permanent embargo
Sleep and Dream-States in Literature, Science, and Medicine, 1700-1899
The purpose of this study has been to contribute to the emerging interdisciplinary field of historical sleep studies, which spans the biological and social sciences, legal studies, and the humanities. As an interdisciplinary scholar based primarily in the humanities, my goals have been twofold: to develop a critical archive for the use of scholars in this emerging field; and to demonstrate how that archive might be used to productive effect in literary studies. To that end, this project begins with a critical introduction to the field of sleep studies and its relationship to eighteenth- and nineteenth-century thought and follows with two distinct but connected sections: the archive itself and a short series of literary case-studies drawn from across the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. My hope is that these case studies will show how the materials in the archive allow literary scholars to produce new insights about familiar, canonical texts.
History
Degree Type
- Doctor of Philosophy
Department
- English
Campus location
- West Lafayette