Monica Greco BA MA PhD
Medical rationality; vitalism; psychomatics; social theory in relation to emotions and affect, subjectivity/selfhood, the body, the ‘psy’ disciplines; medical humanities.
I joined the department in 1996 after completing my PhD at the European University Institute (Florence). Prior to that I completed a BA in History with Latin and an MA in Critical Theory, both at the University of Sussex.
In 2002-3 I was an Alexander Von Humboldt Research Fellow at the Institut für Sozialforschung in Frankfurt, and I am currently a member of the executive committee of the Humboldt UK association.
Teaching
My teaching reflects my interests in historically informed sociology and theoretical perspectives on the body, subjectivity, medicine. I convene the undergraduate core course The Making of the Modern World and have offered undergraduate options in Emotions and Social Life; The Body: Social Theory and Social Practice and Medicine as Culture, as well as an MA option called Nature and Culture (based on readings of key thinkers including Canguilhem, Stengers, Serres, Latour).
Areas of supervision
I welcome applications from prospective research students wishing to work in any of my areas of teaching or research.
Supervised to completion:
- Paul Stronge ‘Open to suggestion: Ordering, Risk and Invention in Community Mental Health Work’ (ESRC funded; graduated 2009, co-supervised with Mike Michael)
- Vanessa Arena ‘Ethics, Inc.: A Sociological Account of the Contemporary Market for Corporate Social Responsibility (graduated 2011, co-supervised with Mariam Fraser)
Current PhD students:
- Francesca Ammaturo, on multisexual citizenship (ESRC funded; co-supervised with Marsha Rosengarten)
- Caroline Pearce, on constructions of depressions in the context of a ‘happiness agenda’ (co-supervised with Kirsten Campbell)
- Naomi James, on re-authorship and narrative construction through the use of participatory video in community mental health and illness (co-supervised with Caroline Knowles)
Research interests
I have a long standing research interest in the implications of dualist thought for medicine and for social-scientific approaches to medicine, particularly around questions concerning the relation between personal agency and health/disease. Theoretically, this interest has led me to engage with aspects of the history and philosophy of science and medicine (particularly the work of Canguilhem), and with aspects of psychoanalytic theory. Empirically, my work analyses how medical dualism has been problematised and/or enacted in the context of a number of historical and contemporary examples: my early work focused on psychosomatic medicine; more recent work focuses on medical humanities/narrative medicine, and on the sociology of medically unexplained symptoms.
Selected publications
Greco, Monica. 2009. Thinking beyond polemics: approaching the health society through Foucault. Österreichische Zeitschrift für Soziologie, 34(2), pp. 13-27. ISSN 1011-0070 [Article]
Greco, Monica. 2009. On the art of life: a vitalist reading of medical humanities. In: Joanna Latimer and Michael Schillmeier, eds. Un/knowing Bodies. Wiley-Blackwell , . ISBN 978-1405190831 [Book Section]
Greco, Monica. 2009. Thinking beyond polemics: Approaching the health society through Foucault. Oesterreichische Zeitschrift fuer Soziologie, 34(2), pp. 13-27. [Article]
Greco, Monica and Stenner, Paul, eds. 2008. Emotions: a social science reader. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-42564-3 [Edited Book]
Greco, Monica. 2008. Governmentality and the value of introspection. In: Vera Saller, Mirna Wurgler and Regina Weiss, eds. New Psychiatric Diagnoses as Reflection of Social Change. Seismo Verlag , . ISBN 978-3-03777-055-9 [Book Section]
Greco, Monica. 2007. On the vitality of vitalism. In: God Iwele, Laura K Kerr and VY Mudimbe, eds. The Normal and Its Orders: Reading Georges Canguilhem. Editions Malaika , . ISBN 978-2923284064 [Book Section]
Greco, Monica. 2005. On the vitality of vitalism. Theory Culture & Society, 22(1), pp. 15-27. ISSN 02632764 [Article]
Greco, Monica. 2004. The politics of indeterminacy and the right to health. Theory Culture & Society, 21, pp. 1-22. ISSN 02632764 [Article]
Greco, Monica. 2004. The ambivalence of error: "scientific ideology" in the history of the life sciences and psychosomatic medicine. Social Science & Medicine, 58(4), pp. 687-696. ISSN 02779536 [Article]
Fraser, Mariam and Greco, Monica. 2004. The Body: A Reader. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-34007-6 [Book]
Greco, Monica. 2001. Inconspicuous anomalies: alexithymia and ethical relations to the self. Health, 5(4), pp. 471-492. ISSN 14617196 [Article]