Whitney Dirks

Whitney Dirks specializes in early modern English social and medical history with an emphasis on bodies and unusual anatomies, and her first book, Monstrous Bodies and Knowledge Transfer in Early Modern England (Amsterdam University Press) is out for review. The book revolves around a unique legal case involving the alleged kidnapping of a pair of neonatal conjoined twins born in 1680, which is contextualized in terms of broader cultural beliefs about monstrosity between 1450 and 1800. Her most recent article, "'Weighty Celebrity': Corpulency, Monstrosity, and Freakery in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century England," was published in Disability Studies Quarterly (https://dsq-sds.org/article/view/6602/5410). Future projects will examine the centuries-long urban legend of a pig-faced woman residing in London and the popular versus medical understandings of intersex in early modern England.

Courses Taught