Dr Asha Hornsby
Research Fellow
- Phone
- +44 (0)1334 46 1878
- arh37@st-andrews.ac.uk
- Office
- Room 102
- Location
- Beethoven Lodge
Biography
After gaining her undergraduate degree in English & History and her masters in English Literary Studies at the Universities of Exeter and Durham, Asha completed her PhD at UCL. Following a stint as a visiting research fellow at UCL's Institute of Advanced Studies, she taught at the Universities of Nottingham and St Andrews. She returned to the School of English in 2024 as a British Academy postdoctoral fellow.
Research areas
Dr Hornsby's research scrutinises the interplay between scientific medicine, public health anxieties, and nineteenth-century literary culture. One key research strand concerns animal experimentation, and her monograph Vivisection and Late-Victorian Literary Culture (Cambridge: CUP, 2025) is the first sustained literary-critical study of the topic. She has also published related research in the Victorian Review and the Journal of Victorian Culture.
A second major research strand, supported by the British Academy (2024-26), concerns global seafaring and disease. Her article, published in the Review of English Studies, explores nautical metaphors in late-nineteenth century literary culture, and she is preparing a chapter for an edited collection about Scottish whaling surgeons and the Shetland Isles. Her second monograph Contagious Crossings: how marine medicine made waves in Victorian culture is in progress.
Selected publications
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Vivisection and late-Victorian literary culture
Hornsby, A., 6 Feb 2025, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 334 p. (Cambridge studies in nineteenth-century literature and culture)Research output: Book/Report › Book
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Open access
'A slashing review is a thing that they like’: vivisection and Victorian literary criticism
Hornsby, A., 29 Jan 2024, In: Journal of Victorian Culture. 29, 1Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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Open access
Nautical metaphors and late-Victorian literary culture
Hornsby, A., 29 May 2024, (E-pub ahead of print) In: Review of English Studies. Early View, 20 p., hgae036.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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Review of Humane Professions: The Defence of Experimental Medicine, 1876-1914, by Rob Boddice
Hornsby, A., 2023, In: Journal of British Studies. 62, 1Research output: Contribution to journal › Book/Film/Article review › peer-review
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Vivisection
Hornsby, A., 11 Nov 2023, The Palgrave encyclopedia of Victorian women's writing. Scholl, L. & Morris, E. (eds.). Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 5 p.Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Entry for encyclopedia/dictionary
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Unfeeling Brutes? The 1875 Royal Commission on Vivisection and the Science of Suffering
Hornsby, A., 2019, In: Victorian Periodicals Review. 45, 1, p. 97-115Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review