James Stark

I joined Leeds in 2008 as a doctoral researcher after undergraduate and postgraduate study at Cambridge and Manchester respectively. Following this I spent a year as an AHRC-funded Knowledge Transfer Fellow before undertaking a three-year postdoctoral Fellowship associated with the Arts Engaged project. In 2015 I was appointed University Academic Fellow for Medical Humanities, being promoted to Associate Professor in 2017.

My current research focuses on the history of rejuvenation and anti-ageing in the twentieth century, exploring in particular the links between biomedical and socio-cultural approaches to ageing, vitality and beauty. This has culminated in The Cult of Youth - a monograph based on this work - published by Cambridge University Press in early 2020. Supported by a major AHRC Leadership Fellowship my project, Endless Possibilities of Rejuvenation (2016-18), built on a Wellcome Seed Award which brought together for the first time a cohort of researchers from across the arts and humanities to investigate the concept and practices of regeneration in medicine. My other research interests include the role of patenting and ownership in medicine and healthcare, the history of medical technologies and the history of infectious disease and public health.