I study how writing— literary, clinical, and personal—has been used to understand and transform experiences of illness, identity, and care through the nineteenth century into the present.
Melissa Rampelli, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of English & Health Humanities | Holy Family University
About
Melissa Rampelli, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of English at Holy Family University in Philadelphia. Her research sits at the intersection of Victorian literature, the history of medicine, and gender studies, asking how the stories we tell about women’s bodies and minds have defined, and continue to define, what we call health.
She is the author of Narratives of Women’s Health and Hysteria in the Nineteenth-Century Novel (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023), and her articles appear in the Journal of Medical Humanities, Humanities, Modern Language Studies, and Psychology Today.
Research
Scholarship on hysteria, gender, and the literary imagination from Victorian fiction to contemporary psychology.
Teaching
Courses in Victorian literature and culture, literature and medicine, composition, and expressive writing at Holy Family University.
Public Writing
Essays extending my research into public conversations about narrative, mental health, and the lives of women.
Book
Narratives of Women’s Health and Hysteria in the Nineteenth-Century Novel, Palgrave Macmillan, 2023.
