Dr Hosanna Krienke
Hosanna Krienke specializes in nineteenth-century British Literature, history of science and medicine, gender studies, disability studies, and medical humanities. She received her PhD in English from Northwestern University, and her MA at Boston College.
As a post-doc on the Diseases of Modern Life project, Hosanna Krienke helped design public engagement events, represented the project at various conferences, and researched the Victorian convalescence movement. For many nineteenth-century reformers, post-acute convalescent care seemed to offer a potent solution to various moral, social, and physical ills. In the face of such modern pressures like information overload, crowded urban living, and hectic work schedules, campaigners believed that an expansive period of rest following serious illness was critical to life-long health. Her work on the project has resulted in a book-length manuscript (currently under review) tentatively titled Convalescent Time and a forthcoming article in Victorian Review, “‘The Wholesome Application’ of Novels: Gender and Rehabilitative Reading in The Moonstone.”
Publications
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THE “AFTER-LIFE” OF ILLNESS: READING AGAINST THE DEATHBED IN GASKELL'S RUTH AND NINETEENTH-CENTURY CONVALESCENT DEVOTIONALS
March 2017|Journal article|Victorian Literature and Culture<jats:p><jats:sc>Nineteenth-century religious ideology</jats:sc> is adamant about the spiritual outcome that should arise from the experience of illness: “The time of sickness is a season when every afflicted person should resolve, with the assistance of God's grace that if his health be restored, he will ever afterwards live a truly religious life” (Church of England Tract Society, <jats:italic>M</jats:italic>a<jats:italic>nual of Instructions</jats:italic> 8). However, sickroom visitors consistently report that, even when a patient makes such a resolution, physical recovery often coincides with a spiritual relapse. As one writer laments, “The friends of religion, whose warning and consoling voices are heard at the bed of sickness, are often compelled to witness the dispersion of their fairest prospects of good, at the period of returning health” (Fry, <jats:italic>A</jats:italic> Present <jats:italic>for the Convalescent</jats:italic> vii-viii).</jats:p>