About

SHaME was an interdisciplinary research hub for scholarship on the interlinks between sexual violence, medicine, and psychiatry. Sexual harms are experienced by people across different societies and are often shrouded in complex feelings around shame. We aimed to move beyond shame to address this global health crisis.

We were focused on promoting human health through providing unprecedented insights into the role of medicine and psychiatry in understanding, interpreting, treating, prosecuting, and preventing sexual violence.

We placed medical professionals at the heart of debates, and our project spanned both historical and contemporary, regional and global perspectives. Sexual harms are experienced by people across different societies. It can happen to anyone, at any age and at any time. Often these events are shrouded in shame and many things are never uncovered or understood. Our interdisciplinary project sought to understand the role played by medical professionals, including psychiatrists, in understanding and dealing with sexual harms.

People

SHaME was an interdisciplinary team exploring diverse aspects of sexual harms across time and geographical region. We pursued collaborations with survivors, artists, scholars, practitioners and activists.

Dr Rhea Sookdeosingh

Rhea Sookdeosingh is the Public Engagement Lead for the project. She is an experienced public engagement practitioner and has previously worked in capacity-building roles at Birkbeck and the University of…

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Dr Ruth Beecher

Dr Ruth Beecher is an historian of medicine, welfare and childhood in Britain, Ireland and the US and is the principal investigator of the Recovery Histories project. Her previous role…

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Dr Adeline Moussion Esteve

Dr Adeline Moussion Esteve is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow on the project. She is a social anthropologist. Her research focuses on gender-based violence, situated within the framework of critical trauma…

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Associate Fellows

In addition to our core team, SHaME supported a thriving network of Associate Fellows.

Dr Louise Hide

Dr Louise Hide is a Wellcome Trust Fellow in Medical Humanities and joins SHaME as a Senior Associate Fellow. A social and cultural historian who has published on the history of psychiatry and its institutions, her current project is titled ‘Cultures of Harm in Residential Institutions for Long-term Adult Care, Britain 1945-1980s’. She recently co…

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James Gray

James Gray is a critically acclaimed documentary filmmaker, and a Senior Adviser to the SHaME project. Over the past decade, he has written, produced and directed over twenty hours of factual television for all the major UK broadcasters, with a particular focus on history and documentary subjects. He has made films on a diverse range…

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Dr Stephanie Wright

Dr Stephanie Wright is an Associate of the SHaME project, where she was previously a postdoctoral researcher before going to a lectureship at the University of Lancaster. She is a social historian of modern Spain with broader interests in the history of psychiatry, disability, and gender. Her previous research examined the experiences of maimed veterans…

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Advisory Board

The project had a distinguished international Advisory Board to help formulate our research strategy, review and analyse our findings at different stages, and contribute to our dissemination strategy.

Lord Ian Blair, Baron Blair of Boughton

London

Professor Jennifer Temkin

City University London

Professor Stephen M. Robertson

George Mason University

Professor Carine M. Mardorossian

University at Buffalo, The State University of New York

Dr Carine Minne

London

Professor Philip Dwyer

University of Newcastle (Australia)

Professor Ivan Crozier

Independent Scholar, Marseille

Professor Susan Brownmiller

Independent Scholar, New York

Professor Joanna Bourke

Joanna Bourke (Chair of Advisory Group) is Professor Emerita of History at Birkbeck, University of London, Professor Emerita of Rhetoric at Gresham College, and a Fellow of the British Academy.…

Dr Regina Mühlhäuser

SVAC (Sexual Violence in Armed Conflict) Hamburg Foundation for the Advancement of Research and Culture

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