From January 9, 2023, AboutFace, which is funded by my UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship, will be moving to King’s College London. There, I will take up a new role as Professor of Modern History and Director of the Centre for Technology and the Body, a new Centre that is part of the university’s Digital Futures Institute. The theme of the Institute is Living Well With Technology, and the Centre for Technology and the Body will explore and advise on many aspects of technology and the body, including the transplant surgery that is at the heart of AboutFace research.
Over the coming weeks, the AboutFace project will be advised by its Lived Experience Advisory Panel (LEAP) and the Advisory Board, to ensure that the project’s repositioning ensures that it continues to ask critical questions about the history and ethics of face transplants, within the broader context of the cultural meanings of the face. The project website and social media presence will undergo a redesign to take account of these changes.
This is an exciting development for the AboutFace project, and by being integrated across King’s College London, which specialises in interdisciplinary research, my work will continue to show the importance of the arts and humanities to science and practice. With partners all around the world, it will help shape the work of surgical teams and seek to positively enhance the experience of patients and their families.
The project will engage with a wide range of technological influences on the human face, from surgical innovation to digital cultures, drawing on core themes that this project has engaged with since its inception: facial recognition technologies, appearance, identity and transformation.
Stay tuned for more news!