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Dr Sarah Marks

Positions held:
  • Senior Lecturer, School of Historical Studies
  • UKRI Future Leaders Fellow, School of Historical Studies
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  • Overview

    Overview

    Biography

    Sarah MarksÌýworks across History, Social Sciences and Policy Studies with a focus on ideas, science and medicine in context. She has held over £2.6m in funding for research across Central and Eastern Europe, Britain, and Sub-Saharan Africa. Before joining ÌÇÐÄlogoÈë¿Ú she held a Research Fellowship at Cambridge and taught at UCL STS and School of Slavonic & East European Studies. She is the Director of and serves as an Academic Governor on the ÌÇÐÄlogoÈë¿Ú Governing Body.

    Sarah is Principal Investigator for the (UKRI 2019-27), and co-PI on the Wellcome Collaborative Award (2021-6). She is EditorÌýof Ìýand advisory board member for the . Her research has been taken up by the , , and .

    Administrative responsibilities

    • PhD Senior Tutor, School of Historical Studies
    • Academic Governor, 2023-26
    • Member of Research Committee for School of Historical Studies

    Professional memberships

    • Fellow of the

    • Member of the

    • Member, History of Science Society

    • Member, British Society for the History of Science

  • Research

    Research

    Research interests

    • Interdisciplinary Mental Health Studies
    • Central and Eastern Europe 19th C to the Present
    • Science and Technology Studies
    • History of Science and Medicine 19th C to the present
    • Sub-Saharan Africa 20th C to the Present

    Research overview

    RESEARCH GRANTS (SELECTED)Ìý

    UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship 'Cognitive Behavioural Therapies: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives' (2019-27)

    Ìý(2021-26)

    Wellcome Trust/SSHM Network Grant 'Histories and Legacies of Aversion Therapy, the Psy-Disciplines & LGBTQ+ Communities in Britain' 2022-24

    GCRF 'Oral Histories of Community Mental Health in Ghana' (2019)

    SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

    Journal articles

    ‘From Cochrane to NICE: effectiveness, efficiency and the social-democratic origins of evidence-based medicine in the British NHS, British Journal for the History of Science: Themes, 2026 [accepted in press]

    (with Liang Wan & Simon Huxtable) ‘Brief Encounters: Acupuncture, Pavlov, and Scientific Exchange between China and the Soviet Union, 1952-1965’ Isis, 2026 [accepted in press]

    (with K. Davison, K. Hubbard, H. Spandler & R. Wynter) '', Review of General Psychology, 2024Ìý

    (with S. Chaney & R. Wynter) '"'ÌýWellcome Open Research,Ìý2024Ìý

    (with D. Pick & M. Hallsworth) '', Research for All, 5:2 (2021)Ìý

    ‘’, European Journal of Psychotherapy and Counselling, 2018

    ‘’,ÌýHistory Workshop Journal,2017

    ‘’ Cahiers du monde russe, 2015

    Book

    Mat Savelli and Sarah Marks (eds) Ìý(Palgrave, 2015).

    Ìý

    Journal Special Issues

    ,ÌýHistory of the Human Sciences, vol. 38:5, 2025

    ‘’, History of the Human Sciences, vol. 31:4 2018

    ‘’, History of the Human Sciences, vol. 30:2 2017

    Post doctoral staff

    • Dr David Bannister
    • Dr Sarah Howard
    • Dr Simon Huxtable
    • Dr Becka Hudson
    • Dr Rachel Starr
  • Supervision and teaching

    Supervision and teaching

    Supervision

    Supervisions external to ÌÇÐÄlogoÈë¿Ú:
    3
    Supervisions within ÌÇÐÄlogoÈë¿Ú:
    8

    Completed PhD Students

    Dr Sasha Bergstrom-Katz ‘On Intelligence Tests: Psychological Objects and their Subjects’ (ÌÇÐÄlogoÈë¿Ú, 2023)

    Dr Hannah Blythe 'The use of interpersonal relationships to treat and understand madness in Britain’s first community-based mental health charities, 1879-1939' (University of Cambridge, 2023)

    Dr Becka Hudson 'Pathology and penal risk prediction: investigating the construction of personality disorder and decisions on captivity in British prisons' (ÌÇÐÄlogoÈë¿Ú, 2023)

    Dr Janina Klement 'The Psychiatric Avant Garde: A Transnational Study of Critical Psychiatry’s Reception in Western Europe and the US since 1965' (UCL, 2025)

    Dr Evan Sedgwick-Jell 'Depression as a Political Category in English-Language Popular Non-Fiction Writing' (ÌÇÐÄlogoÈë¿Ú, 2024)

    Dr Kiara Wickremasinghe, 'Innovation in Psychiatric Crisis Care: an Investigation into Peer-Supported Open Dialogue in Inner London' (SOAS, 2025)Ìý

    Dr Keiran Wilson, '(Anti-)Therapeutic jurisprudence: Queer narratives of power and control under The Mental Health Act' (ÌÇÐÄlogoÈë¿Ú, 2026)

    Ìý

    Current PhD Students

    Virginia Barry 'The Gods of Small Things: New Technologies and the Re-framing of Women’s Reproductive Choice Environment' (School of Historical Studies, ÌÇÐÄlogoÈë¿Ú, co-supervised with Robert Topinka)

    Juliette Bouillon 'From Disorder to Identity: The Transformation of ADHD in the Age of Neurodiversity' (University of Cambridge, co-supervised with Nick Hopwood)

    Mary Heffernan 'Psychoanalysis and Ireland, 1911-1998' (School of Historical Studies, ÌÇÐÄlogoÈë¿Ú, co-supervised with Sean Brady)

    Simon Flynn 'Making Meaning: The Influence of Malthus on the Directions of Darwinism (School of Historical Studies, ÌÇÐÄlogoÈë¿Ú, co-supervised with Chandak Sengoopta)

    Alistair Gaskell 'The Cultural Context of Grief in Britain 1945-2000' (School of Historical Studies, ÌÇÐÄlogoÈë¿Ú, co-supervised with Carmen Mangion)

    Rebecca Klette 'Nordic Decay: The reception and application of degeneration theory and the concept of atavism in Scandinavian psychiatry, criminology, and eugenics, 1880-1922' (School of Historical Studies, ÌÇÐÄlogoÈë¿Ú, co-supervised with Carmen Mangion)

    Eleanor Knuckey 'Psychiatric Chronicity in England, 1954-1999' (School of Historical Studies, ÌÇÐÄlogoÈë¿Ú, co-supervised with Janet Weston)

    Jon Thurston 'The Myth of the Therapeutic' (School of Social Sciences, ÌÇÐÄlogoÈë¿Ú)

    Ìý

    Current doctoral researchers

    • JON THURSTON
      Nature of supervision:
      PRINCIPAL SUPERVISOR,
      Title of thesis:
      The Myth of the Therapeutic: Psychiatry, Heroin & Non-Recovery
    • ELEANOR KNUCKEY
      Nature of supervision:
      JOINT PRINCIPAL SUPERVISOR,
      Title of thesis:
      Psychiatric Chronicity in England, 1954-1999
    • MARY HEFFERNAN
      Nature of supervision:
      JOINT PRINCIPAL SUPERVISOR,
      Title of thesis:
      The Hibernoanalysts: A Cultural History of Psychoanalysis in Ireland 1911-1998
    • REBECKA BERNDTSON KLETTE
      Nature of supervision:
      JOINT PRINCIPAL SUPERVISOR,
    • SIMON FLYNN
      Nature of supervision:
      JOINT PRINCIPAL SUPERVISOR,
      Title of thesis:
      Making Meaning: The Influence of Malthus on the Directions of Darwinism

    Doctoral alumni since 2013-14

    • SASHA BERGSTROM-KATZ
      Nature of supervision:
      Joint Principal Supervisor,
      Awarded:
      2023
    • KEIRAN WILSON
      Nature of supervision:
      Joint Principal Supervisor,
      Title of thesis:
      Carceral Power in UK Mental Healthcare: A Mad, Queer, Abolitionist Examination of LGBTQ+ Experiences with the Mental Health Act (1983)
      Description:

      This thesis offers a critical criminological interrogation into the carceral logic that organises the UK’s mental healthcare system. Drawing on an interdisciplinary methodological approach, the research adopts a Mad, queer, abolitionist orientation, operationalised through a novel bricolage framework that integrates discursive and phenomenological approaches to knowledge production. The pluralist methodology of bricolage enables a simultaneous focus on the lived experiences of queer people and on the broader discursive conditions that render those experiences intelligible. Queer experiences thus function as a lens through which this thesis attempts to make visible the carceral logics embedded in the UK’s contemporary approach to mental healthcare. Using episodic narrative interviews carried out with queer people who have been detained under the Mental Health Act (1983), this analysis excavates the power dynamics of carceral logic across three interrelated sites: the legal apparatus of the Act, the carceral layers that form within the space of the psychiatric ward, and the production of psy subjects. This thesis demonstrates how gender, sexuality, and madness are (co-) constructed and disciplined through the carceral logic of the mental healthcare system, revealing how deeply connected the concept of care is with coercive and punitive mechanisms. By queering both the methodological and epistemological foundations of psy research, this thesis contributes to a growing body of critical work seeking to unsettle the persistent conflation of care with control and to disrupt modes of knowledge production about queer mental healthcare experiences.

      Awarded:
      2026
    • BECKA SEGLOW HUDSON
      Nature of supervision:
      Joint Principal Supervisor,
      Title of thesis:
      Pathology and penal risk prediction: investigating the construction of personality disorder and decisions on captivity in British prisons.
      Description:

      This project looks at the construction of the mental disorder, 'personality disorder', widely considered to be the most overrepresented mental disorder in British prisons. The research looks at how this diagnosis is constructed and assessed, particularly through psychometric and risk assessments. It also considers how these tests factor into decision making about people's sentences, management and release. Becka has a background in anthropology and uses ethnographic methods in her research, alongside other tools. The project is historically informed, looking at the development of British prisons and psychometric tools used to assess those held in prison in British history, including in the British Empire.Ìý

      Awarded:
      2024

    Teaching

    I have taught at all levels at ÌÇÐÄlogoÈë¿Ú, from Foundation Year through to PhD across the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. In 2026/27 I'll be offering an MA module, 'Mental Health Past and Present', introducing students to the history of psychiatry and psychology, Mad Studies, the rise of lived experience research, policy perspectives and the value of humanities and social sciences approaches to understanding mental health. This module can also be taken as a stand-along short course.

    I also collaborate with Sarah Patterson to teach a final-year BA module Mind, Body, Self from Antiquity to the Present with contributions from colleagues in Classics, Philosophy and History; and will convene our BA dissertation training module 'Writing the Past' for students in History, Classics and Archaeology.

    Teaching modules

    • Writing the Past: Dissertation
    • Mental Health Past and Present
    • Border Crossings: Histories of Migration, Documents and the State
  • Publications

    Publications

    Article

    • Marks, Sarah (2026) . BJHS Themes 11, ISSN 2058-850X. (In Press)
    • Wynter, R. and Campbell, N. and Chaney, S. and Marks, Sarah (2025) . History of the Human Sciences ISSN 0952-6951.
    • Davison, K. and Hubbard, K. and Marks, Sarah and Spandler, H. and Wynter, R. (2025) . Review of General Psychology 29 (1), pp. 33-48. ISSN 1089-2680.
    • Blythe, H. and Marks, Sarah (2025) . History of the Human Sciences 38 (5), pp. 3-21. ISSN 0952-6951.
    • Wan, L. and Huxtable, Simon and Marks, Sarah (2025) . Isis ISSN 0021-1753. (In Press)
    • Chaney, S. and Marks, Sarah and Wynter, R. (2024) . Wellcome Open Research 9 (208), ISSN 2398-502X.
    • Marks, Sarah (2018) . European Journal of Psychotherapy and Counselling 20 (1), pp. 10-24. ISSN 1364-2537.
    • Marks, Sarah (2018) . History of the Human Sciences 31 (4), pp. 3-12. ISSN 1461-720X.
    • Marks, Sarah (2017) . History Workshop Journal 84, pp. 128-148. ISSN 1363-3554.
    • Marks, Sarah (2015) . Cahiers du monde russe 56 (1), pp. 53-75. ISSN 1252-6576.

    Book

    • Marks, Sarah and Savelli, M., eds. (2015) . Mental Health in Historical Perspective. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 9781137490919.

    Editorial

    • Marks, Sarah (2017) . History of the Human Sciences 30 (2), pp. 3-16. SAGE. ISSN 0952-6951.

    Exhibition

    • Marks, Sarah and Bergstrom-Katz, Sasha and Percival, T. (2023) .
  • Business and community

    Business and community

    I have media training.

    Outreach

    The Causes of Mental Distress

    Sarah has been working with the Wellcome Trust's Mental Health Strategy Team to collate an of theories about the causes of mental distress, how they change over time, and to consider the state of play of the current field of Mental Health Science,Ìýin collaboration withÌýSarah Chaney and Rebecca Wynter. Along with Sarah Chaney, Sally Frampton and Daniel Burt she has also worked to develop a game for the Wellcome Trust to facilitate conversations with stakeholders on topics in Mental Health Science.Ìý

    Centre for Interdisciplinary Research on Mental Health

    As Director of the SarahÌýhas supportedÌýa range of engagement projects led by ÌÇÐÄlogoÈë¿Ú researchers with community groups, clinical and policy partners, schools, artists and arts organisations across the UK, Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka and Ukraine. If your organisation is interested in a conversation about collaboration or an event with our centre please contact our administrator Katy Pettit at k.pettit@bbk.ac.uk

    Psychotechne: Assessment, Testing, Categorisation

    In Spring 2023 Sarah collaborated with artists Sasha Bergstrom-Katz and Tomas Percival to curate an exhibition,Ìý''Ìýat the ÌÇÐÄlogoÈë¿Ú Peltz Gallery, with a parallel events programme. This led to an engagement workshop with of learning disability self-advocates from My Life My Choice, Sunderland People First and the UEL Rix Inclusive Research Group. Read more inÌý.

    Film & Community Project

    In 2025/26 Sarah worked with artist Amy Feneck and researchers Rachel Starr and Joanna Farr (ÌÇÐÄlogoÈë¿Ú Psychological Sciences) to convene a series of creative workshops with MIND in Camden at the LUX arts organization in Highgate, drawing on their archive of Artist Moving Image films. This work was funded by a Wellcome Institutional Fund for Research Culture grant supporting community activities with people with lived experience.ÌýÌý


    Hidden Persuaders Outreach with North London Schools and Freud Museum London

    Along with Professor Daniel Pick and the Hidden Persuaders research group, ÌÇÐÄlogoÈë¿Ú’s Derek Jarman Lab, the Freud Museum, and north London schools, Sarah collaborated on a public engagement project with funding from the Wellcome Trust from 2017-2019. This led to an exhibition,Ìý, led by artist Emma Smith; and a series ofÌýfilmmaking workshops and screeningsÌýon ideas about brainwashing and hidden persuasion in history, science and culture. The participatory short films made by our young participants are available to watch .

    Media contributions

    Sky TV History

    BBC Radio 4

    BBC Radio 3 '

    BBC Radio 4 '