Rosa Appignanesi

Thesis title: "Touching, Imagination, Imitation": Hypnotic States in Literatures of Performance, 1880-1914

My research explores the intersection of theatrical performance and clinical studies on hypnotic states in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Focusing on the resurgence of interest in hypnosis from the 1880s to 1914, I argue that theatrical performance holds a privileged formal relationship: both rely on mass spectatorship, the depiction of extreme emotional and physical states, and incite confusion between the real and the represented.

I am interested in the capacity for bodily persuasion revealed by hypnosis, and how this problematises contemporary theories of artistic production. Writers considered include Oscar Wilde, Maurice Maeterlinck, Gertrude Stein and George Du Maurier. I am generously funded by the Lincoln Kingsgate Scholarship. 

Supervisor: Ankhi Mukherjee