Uploaded February 2022 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Learn how you can use our library to access Wellcome Collection materials in the open stacks and Rare Materials Room. Four researchers will tell you about how they work with items from the collections to produce artwork, podcasts and academic research papers.
You will hear from:
– Dr Carly Boxer on working with medieval European manuscripts
– Shireen Hamza on cultures of Islam and medicine in medieval India
– Delphine Sims on 19th-century colonial photography
– and performance artist Sophie Woolley on collections relating to disability
About your contributors
Carly B Boxer (she/they)
Speaker
Carly B Boxer is the Nancy and Robert J Carney Postdoctoral Fellow in Medieval Art and Architecture at Rice University in Houston, Texas. Boxer is a historian of medieval art whose work centres on the connections between medieval image-making practices and period ideas about vision, knowledge, and the capacity of images to structure and guide thought. Boxer’s current book project analyses manuscripts related to medicine, health and healing made in late-medieval England to propose that images in these books not only taught their readers how to perform surgical procedures or produce medicines, but also trained readers in how the human body ought to look, and how it should be looked at.
Shireen Hamza (she/they)
Speaker
Shireen Hamza is a PhD candidate in the Department of the History of Science, Harvard, with a secondary field in Critical Media Practice. She is completing a dissertation on Islam and medicine in the medieval Indian Ocean world, and has also published on the history of sexuality. She is also a managing editor of the Ottoman History Podcast.
Delphine Sims (she/her)
Speaker
Delphine Sims is a curator, writer, and PhD candidate in the History of Art Department at UC Berkeley. With a focus on the history of photography and Blackness, she has curated and organised public programming for the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Autograph ABP, and SF Camerawork. In addition to exhibition-catalogue contributions, her writing can be found in Matte magazine, The Believer and Aperture.
Sophie Woolley (she/her)
Speaker
Sophie Woolley is a writer and performer from London, working across theatre, radio and TV. In 2019 she set up Augmented Productions, which became an associate company of Told by an Idiot. In 2020 she toured her solo show, Augmented. In 2021 she appeared in Best in Lockdown (An Idiot Film) and Veneer (Film 4/ Mutt & Jeff Pictures). Recent TV-writer credits include ‘EastEnders’ and ‘Casualty’.
Julia Nurse (she/her)
Facilitator
Julia is a collections research specialist at Wellcome Collection with a background in Art History and Museum Studies. She currently runs the Exploring Research programme, and has a particular interest in the medieval and early modern periods, especially the interaction of medicine, science and art within print culture.
Ross MacFarlane (he/him)
Facilitator
Ross MacFarlane is a research development specialist at Wellcome Collection. He has researched, written and lectured on the collections and other topics at the intersection of death, folklore and medicine.
William Schupbach
Facilitator
William Schupbach is a research development specialist at Wellcome Collection and author of ‘The Paradox of Rembrandt’s “Anatomy Of Dr Tulp”’.
Find us on Facebook: facebook.com/wellcomecollection
Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/explorewellcome
See us on Instagram: instagram.com/wellcomecollection
Learn how you can use our library to access Wellcome Collection materials in the open stacks and Rare Materials Room. Four researchers will tell you about how they work with items from the collections to produce artwork, podcasts and academic research papers.
You will hear from:
– Dr Carly Boxer on working with medieval European manuscripts
– Shireen Hamza on cultures of Islam and medicine in medieval India
– Delphine Sims on 19th-century colonial photography
– and performance artist Sophie Woolley on collections relating to disability
About your contributors
Carly B Boxer (she/they)
Speaker
Carly B Boxer is the Nancy and Robert J Carney Postdoctoral Fellow in Medieval Art and Architecture at Rice University in Houston, Texas. Boxer is a historian of medieval art whose work centres on the connections between medieval image-making practices and period ideas about vision, knowledge, and the capacity of images to structure and guide thought. Boxer’s current book project analyses manuscripts related to medicine, health and healing made in late-medieval England to propose that images in these books not only taught their readers how to perform surgical procedures or produce medicines, but also trained readers in how the human body ought to look, and how it should be looked at.
Shireen Hamza (she/they)
Speaker
Shireen Hamza is a PhD candidate in the Department of the History of Science, Harvard, with a secondary field in Critical Media Practice. She is completing a dissertation on Islam and medicine in the medieval Indian Ocean world, and has also published on the history of sexuality. She is also a managing editor of the Ottoman History Podcast.
Delphine Sims (she/her)
Speaker
Delphine Sims is a curator, writer, and PhD candidate in the History of Art Department at UC Berkeley. With a focus on the history of photography and Blackness, she has curated and organised public programming for the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Autograph ABP, and SF Camerawork. In addition to exhibition-catalogue contributions, her writing can be found in Matte magazine, The Believer and Aperture.
Sophie Woolley (she/her)
Speaker
Sophie Woolley is a writer and performer from London, working across theatre, radio and TV. In 2019 she set up Augmented Productions, which became an associate company of Told by an Idiot. In 2020 she toured her solo show, Augmented. In 2021 she appeared in Best in Lockdown (An Idiot Film) and Veneer (Film 4/ Mutt & Jeff Pictures). Recent TV-writer credits include ‘EastEnders’ and ‘Casualty’.
Julia Nurse (she/her)
Facilitator
Julia is a collections research specialist at Wellcome Collection with a background in Art History and Museum Studies. She currently runs the Exploring Research programme, and has a particular interest in the medieval and early modern periods, especially the interaction of medicine, science and art within print culture.
Ross MacFarlane (he/him)
Facilitator
Ross MacFarlane is a research development specialist at Wellcome Collection. He has researched, written and lectured on the collections and other topics at the intersection of death, folklore and medicine.
William Schupbach
Facilitator
William Schupbach is a research development specialist at Wellcome Collection and author of ‘The Paradox of Rembrandt’s “Anatomy Of Dr Tulp”’.
Find us on Facebook: facebook.com/wellcomecollection
Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/explorewellcome
See us on Instagram: instagram.com/wellcomecollection
