{"id":{"repo_id":"uiuc","oai_identifier":"oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/115667"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/uiuc/oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/115667","repository":{"repo_id":"uiuc","name":"University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign","base_url":"https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh"},"display":{"title":"The fasting girl: A literary, digital, and medical history of anorexia from the novel to the clinic (1740-1900)","abstract":"Submission published under a 24 month embargo labeled 'Closed Access', the embargo will last until 2024-05-01","abstract_html":"Submission published under a 24 month embargo labeled 'Closed Access', the embargo will last until 2024-05-01","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Witte, Jessica C"],"institution":"University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign","degree_name":"Ph.D.","degree_level":"Dissertation","degree_discipline":"English","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Markley, Robert","Courtemanche, Eleanor","Underwood, Ted","Littlefield, Melissa","D'Arcy Wood, Gillen"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2022,"date_issued":"2022-05","date_published":"2022-05","updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:24:54Z","subjects":["medical history","anorexia nervosa","digital humanities","victorian literature"],"languages":["en","eng"],"rights":["Copyright 2022 Jessica Witte"],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"https://hdl.handle.net/2142/115667","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Markley, Robert","Courtemanche, Eleanor","Underwood, Ted","Littlefield, Melissa","D'Arcy Wood, Gillen"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Witte, Jessica C"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date","label":"Dc Date","values":["2022-05","2022-03-09"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["text","Thesis"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["English"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Dissertation"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["Ph.D."]},{"key":"thesis:institution_name","label":"Thesis Institution Name","values":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["medical history","anorexia nervosa","digital humanities","victorian literature"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language","label":"Dc Language","values":["en","eng"]},{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["Copyright 2022 Jessica Witte"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["https://hdl.handle.net/2142/115667"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description","label":"Description","values":["Submission published under a 24 month embargo labeled 'Closed Access', the embargo will last until 2024-05-01","The student, Jessica Witte, accepted the attached license on 2022-03-03 at 16:53.","The student, Jessica Witte, submitted this Dissertation for approval on 2022-03-03 at 17:02.","This Dissertation was approved for publication on 2022-03-09 at 15:20.","DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #17521 on 2022-11-11 at 12:18:38","The negative connotations associated with self-starvation during the late nineteenth century represent a drastic shift from the well-established Western ideology of fasting as a positive religious moral practice. As a result of this paradigm shift, doctors in the later nineteenth century were able to classify anorexia nervosa as a disease independent from other illnesses that caused physical wasting, including hypochondria, hysteria, and tuberculosis. In my dissertation project, I rely on three modes of analysis: a close reading of the characterization of fasting and wasting-related illnesses appear in Clarissa, Wuthering Heights, and Dracula; a medical case study of Sarah Jacob, the “Welsh Fasting Girl”; and a quantitative analysis of digital corpora of Lancet and The British Medical Journal, two prominent medical journals that began publishing in the early nineteenth century. The novels provide a narrative of changing attitudes toward fasting in literature that both illuminate—and are illuminated by—the medical history I discuss in the Jacob case and my digital analysis of the emerging scientific vocabulary of anorexia. In this way, my project explores the broader cultural and scientific issues that redefined questions of women’s relationship to their bodies, appetites, and male medical authority."]},{"key":"dc:format","label":"Dc Format","values":["application/pdf"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["The fasting girl: A literary, digital, and medical history of anorexia from the novel to the clinic (1740-1900)"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor":["Markley, Robert","Courtemanche, Eleanor","Underwood, Ted","Littlefield, Melissa","D'Arcy Wood, Gillen"],"dc:creator":["Witte, Jessica C"],"dc:date":["2022-05","2022-03-09"],"dc:description":["Submission published under a 24 month embargo labeled 'Closed Access', the embargo will last until 2024-05-01","The student, Jessica Witte, accepted the attached license on 2022-03-03 at 16:53.","The student, Jessica Witte, submitted this Dissertation for approval on 2022-03-03 at 17:02.","This Dissertation was approved for publication on 2022-03-09 at 15:20.","DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #17521 on 2022-11-11 at 12:18:38","The negative connotations associated with self-starvation during the late nineteenth century represent a drastic shift from the well-established Western ideology of fasting as a positive religious moral practice. As a result of this paradigm shift, doctors in the later nineteenth century were able to classify anorexia nervosa as a disease independent from other illnesses that caused physical wasting, including hypochondria, hysteria, and tuberculosis. In my dissertation project, I rely on three modes of analysis: a close reading of the characterization of fasting and wasting-related illnesses appear in Clarissa, Wuthering Heights, and Dracula; a medical case study of Sarah Jacob, the “Welsh Fasting Girl”; and a quantitative analysis of digital corpora of Lancet and The British Medical Journal, two prominent medical journals that began publishing in the early nineteenth century. The novels provide a narrative of changing attitudes toward fasting in literature that both illuminate—and are illuminated by—the medical history I discuss in the Jacob case and my digital analysis of the emerging scientific vocabulary of anorexia. In this way, my project explores the broader cultural and scientific issues that redefined questions of women’s relationship to their bodies, appetites, and male medical authority."],"dc:format":["application/pdf"],"dc:identifier":["https://hdl.handle.net/2142/115667"],"dc:language":["en","eng"],"dc:rights":["Copyright 2022 Jessica Witte"],"dc:subject":["medical history","anorexia nervosa","digital humanities","victorian literature"],"dc:title":["The fasting girl: A literary, digital, and medical history of anorexia from the novel to the clinic (1740-1900)"],"dc:type":["text","Thesis"],"thesis:degree_discipline":["English"],"thesis:degree_level":["Dissertation"],"thesis:degree_name":["Ph.D."],"thesis:institution_name":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:24:54Z"}