Dr Benjamin Dalton

Lecturer in French Studies

Research Interests

My research is situated between French Studies and the Medical and Health Humanities. I explore how contemporary French philosophy and cultural production are currently dialoguing with biomedical science. My research demonstrates how engagements with science and medicine across philosophy, literature and visual art can help us respond to diverse problems facing healthcare and medicine around the globe and transform the ways we think about therapy and care. I am primarily interested in how interdisciplinary research across the Medical and Health Humanities can help us to re-imagine and transform healthcare architectures, spaces and environments, particularly in ways that render these environments more inclusive to patients from marginalized communities. I am Programme Lead for the MA in Global Medical and Health Humanities.

My current project, Transforming the Hospital with Contemporary French Philosophy, argues that contemporary French philosophers are today engaging with biomedical science and clinical architectures in ways which can propose new kinds of healthcare spaces and hospital environments. Bringing together thinkers such as Catherine Malabou, Paul B. Preciado, Jean-Luc Nancy and Isabelle Stengers, I argue that there has been a shift in the relationship between French philosophy and the hospital: whereas Michel Foucault’s influential critique Birth of the Clinic (1963) once characterised a philosophical distrust of the hospital, my new project seeks to analyse how contemporary French philosophers are engaging positively and dynamically with medical science in order to propose new clinical environments for empowering and emancipatory healthcare. I have published work from this project in recent articles: ‘The Plastic Clinic: Catherine Malabou’s Architectural Therapeutics’ (Essays in French Literature & Culture, 2021); ‘Jean-Luc Nancy and the Hospital: Imagining Clinical Environments of Strangeness and Multiplicity’ (Nottingham French Studies, 2023); ‘Paul B. Preciado’s Queer Hospital: Healthcare Architectures for Pleasure, Transformation and Subversion’ (The Senses & Society, 2024); ‘Gentle Biologies: Reconceptualizing Bodily Metamorphosis and Healthcare between Catherine Malabou and Anne Dufourmantelle’ (Paragraph, 2024); and ‘Malabou, Medicine and Film: Screening Brain Injury, Organ Transplantation and Plasticity in Katell Quillévéré’s Heal The Living’ (Film-Philosophy, 2024).

I am particularly interested in how philosophy can propose empowering healthcare environments for LGBTQIA+ patients, and am founder and leader of the Queer Medical Humanities Network at Lancaster University and co-author alongside Chase Ledin of ‘Queer Medical Humanities’ (The Year’s Work in Critical and Cultural Theory, 2024). I am also co-editor alongside Alice Pember of the Special Issue of Modern and Contemporary France on ‘Robin Campilo’s 120 Battements par minute (2017): Screening AIDS, Activism and Queer Identity in Contemporary France’(2022). Bringing my work on queer and LGBTQIA+ healthcare into practical application in relation to my research on the hospital, I am currently Co-I on the funded interdisciplinary project ‘The Queer Lives of the Hospital: An Archive of LGBTQIA+ Experiences of Healthcare Environments’ (2025).

My research has also explored the work of the contemporary French philosopher Catherine Malabou, who writes at the intersections of philosophy and the biomedical sciences, in particular neuroscience. Malabou’s central concept of ‘plasticity’ describes how organic lifeforms change and transform throughout life, as can be seen for instance in the neuroplasticity of the human brain which adapts and re-models itself constantly. My work brings Malabou’s interdisciplinary philosophy of biological mutability and plasticity into contact with depictions of bodily transformation and metamorphosis in contemporary French literature and film. My publications on Malabou, literature and film include: ‘Cruising the Queer Forest with Alain Guiraudie: Woods, Plastics, Plasticities’ (chapter in Beasts of the Forest, John Libbey, 2019); ‘Forms of Freedoms: Marie Darrieussecq, Catherine Malabou, and the Plasticity of Science’ (Dalhousie French Studies, 2020); ‘Queer, Plastic Residues: Biological Mutability and Queer Resistance in Robin Campillo’s 120 BPM (2017) and the Work of Catherine Malabou’ (Modern and Contemporary France, 2022); and ‘Plasticity and Formlessness between Malabou and Bataille’ (MLN, 2022). I have also published an interview with Malabou (‘What Should We Do With Plasticity: An Interview with Catherine Malabou’, Paragraph, 2019); and an interview with the contemporary French novelist Marie Darrieussecq on the subject of (neuro)plasticity (‘Extraordinaire plasticité: Conversation avec Marie Darrieussecq’, French Studies, 2024). I recently co-edited the Special Issue of Film-Philosophy on ‘Catherine Malabou, Plasticity and Film’(2024) alongside Ben Tyrer.

My forthcoming monograph is the first book-length study of Catherine Malabou’s work in relation to literature and film: Catherine Malabou and Contemporary French Literature and Film: Witnessing Plasticity (Edinburgh University Press, forthcoming 2026).

Creative Methodologies for Inclusive Healthcare Design Fututres
01/01/2025 → …
Research

Performing Hospitals: Representations of the Hospital in Contemporary Theatre
01/12/2024 → …
Research

The Queer Lives of the Hospital: An Archive of LGBTQIA+ Experiences of Hospital Environments
01/03/2024 → …
Research

Queer Medical Humanities
21/07/2023 → …
Research

Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Strategic Internationalisation Fund 2022/2023
01/04/2023 → 31/07/2023
Other

Transforming the Hospital with Contemporary French Philosophy
01/07/2020 → …
Research

Plasticity in Contemporary French Thought, Literature and Film: Witnessing Transformations with Catherine Malabou
01/09/2015 → 01/07/2020
Research

Queer Methodologies in Medical Humanities PhD School
Participation in workshop, seminar, course

Is the future of the hospital queer? Building 'Our Queer Hospital'
Invited talk

Seminar and podcast series: Conversations about Arts, Humanities and Health
Participation in workshop, seminar, course

Film-Philosophy Special Issue Launch: Catherine Malabou, Plasticity and Film
Public Lecture/ Debate/Seminar

LICA Research Seminar: "Film & Philosophy: Catherine Malabou, Plasticity and Film"
Participation in workshop, seminar, course

National Centre for Research Methods: MethodsCon 2024: Futures
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience

French Studies and the Medical Humanities: Critical Intersectionalities
Participation in workshop, seminar, course

French Studies and the Medical Humanities: Critical Intersectionalities
Participation in conference - Academic

Our Queer Hospital
Participation in workshop, seminar, course

Society for French Studies Annual Conference 2024
Participation in conference - Academic

DeLC Postgraduate Study Day
Participation in conference - Academic

Sensing Through Description
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience

How to build a queer hospital: redesigning clinical spaces with Paul B. Preciado and the Queer Medical Humanities
Invited talk

Queer Medical Humanities Network: Public Research Showcase
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience

Build Your Own Hospital
Types of Public engagement and outreach - Festival/Exhibition

The DAPHNE Project": A Celebration of Anne Hirsch-Henecke’s County South sculpture Daphne
Symposium

LGBTQ&A
Public Lecture/ Debate/Seminar

French Studies (Journal)
Publication peer-review

Guest lecture: How can French philosophy help us to transform the hospital?
Invited talk

Building Blocks for Clinicians
Participation in workshop, seminar, course

Our Queer Hospital
Participation in workshop, seminar, course

"Plastic, it’s fantastic!” Take 2: Barbie meets Chemical Engineering, French Philosophy, and Neuroscience
Oral presentation

"Plastic, it’s fantastic!”: Barbie meets Chemical Engineering, French Philosophy, and Neuroscience​
Oral presentation

Inclusive Healthcare Spaces
Public Lecture/ Debate/Seminar

Queer Medical Humanities Network: Talk at the Health@Lancaster Collaboration Café
Invited talk

Tangence (Journal)
Publication peer-review

Languages in Science GLOBAL
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience

Queer Medical Humanities Network: Seed Meeting
Participation in workshop, seminar, course

Society for French Studies Annual Conference 2023
Participation in conference - Academic

Society for French Studies Annual Conference 2023
Participation in conference - Academic

DeLC EDI Wellbeing Event for Students and Staff
Other

EDI in the IPY: Student Workshop Afternoon
Participation in workshop, seminar, course

Application Journey Post-PhD
Public Lecture/ Debate/Seminar

FASS Health Hub Showcase
Types of Public engagement and outreach - Festival/Exhibition

Wellbeing and health research in the arts, humanities and social sciences
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience

'Rebuilding the Hospital with Jean-Luc Nancy: Approaches to Clinical Environments through Contemporary French Philosophy'
Invited talk

Brown Bag research session
Participation in workshop, seminar, course

Catherine Malabou, (neuro)plasticity, and the hospital: caring for transforming bodies
Invited talk

Relaxing with Catherine Malabou: Approaches to letting go in philosophy and neuroscience
Invited talk

Society for French Studies 2022 annual conference
Participation in conference - Academic

Listening to the neuro-plastic body in the work of Catherine Malabou: Witnessing bodily transformation
Invited talk

Senses and Modern Health/care Environments: Exploring Interdisciplinary and InternationalOpportunities
Participation in conference - Academic

Modern and Contemporary France (Journal)
Editorial activity

Contemporary Womxn's Writing and the Medical Humanities
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience

Contemporary Womxn's Writing and the Medical Humanities
Participation in conference - Academic

Contemporary Women's Writing and the Medical Humanities: Online seminar Series
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience

Contemporary Women's Writing and the Medical Humanities: Online seminar Series
Participation in workshop, seminar, course

Narrating the Brain
Public Lecture/ Debate/Seminar

Dean's Awards: Early Career Teacher of the Year (Highly Commended)
Prize (including medals and awards)

  • FASS Health Hub
  • Queer Medical Humanities Network
  • Transcultural Writing, Practice and Research Network