Through his research leadership, policy engagement and public-facing work, Steven advocates for the importance of linguistic sensitivity and high-level intercultural knowledge in addressing global healthcare challenges. In particular, his research examines how modern French literature, culture and thought have responded to, and shaped the representation of, epidemiological crises and end-of-life experiences from the nineteenth century to the present day. His 2020 monograph The Language of Disease: Writing Syphilis in Nineteenth-Century France (Legenda) was described in French Studies as demonstrating "the urgency of a truly critical, comparative, and multilingual medical humanities".

 

Other recent publications include the co-edited volume The Languages of COVID-19: Translational and Multilingual Perspectives on Global Healthcare (Routledge, 2023; open access here), described in The Translator as "a key intervention" that makes "a compelling case" for the importance of linguistic sensitivity in public health. His contributions to the field also include seven guest-edited journal special issues (on, for example, autopathography, thanatology, and cultures of palliative care) and the widely cited Manifesto for a Multilingual Medical Humanities. He has two forthcoming co-edited books: French Studies and the Medical Humanities: Critical Intersections (Liverpool University Press, 2027) and The Edinburgh Companion to the Global Medical Humanities (Edinburgh University Press, 2028).

 

His research has attracted funding from the AHRC (Leadership Fellow), the British Academy, the MHRA, and the Institute of Languages, Cultures and Societies. He serves on the AHRC Peer Review College, contributes to the assessment of UKRI Future Leaders Fellowships and British Academy Knowledge Frontiers awards, and acts as an adviser to the Swiss National Science Foundation. He is also an active collaborator in international research networks, serving on the Advisory Board of Loire Val-Health, an €11.8 million interdisciplinary health research initiative based at the Université de Tours, and as an external member of Maynooth University's Critical Medical Humanities Research Cluster.

 

Steven currently serves as President of the Association for the Study of Modern and Contemporary France (ASMCF). He previously sat on the Editorial Board of Modern and Contemporary France, one of the leading international journals in the field, and has held elected positions within the Society for French Studies, ADEFFI and the Society of Dix-Neuviémistes.

Steven Wilson is an experienced doctoral supervisor, having supervised eight PhD students to successful completion: James Illingworth (2018; with Prof. Margaret Topping); Poppy Boyd (2018; with Dr Rosalind Silvester); Mathew Rickard (2020; with Prof. Claire Moran); Helen McKelvey (2021; with Prof. Maeve McCusker); Rachael Stockdale (2021; with Prof. Claire Moran); Jayne Duff (2022; with Prof. Claire Moran); Jordan McCullough (2023; with Dr Rosalind Silvester); and Mark O'Rawe (2024; with Dr Dominique Jeannerod).

 

He welcomes enquiries from prospective MRes, PhD and postdoctoral researchers interested in exploring the intersections between literary and cultural studies and the Medical or Health Humanities from the nineteenth century to the present day.

 

Steven Wilson is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA), recognising sustained excellence in teaching, student experience enhancement and academic leadership. His commitment to student learning has been recognised through a Queen's University Belfast Teaching Award in a student-nominated category and a QUB Students' Union Education Award for Best Feedback. He has also been shortlisted for the Students' Union's Excellent Use of Feedback Award and nominated for a Staff Excellence Award for outstanding support to students.

An experienced educator with an international profile, Steven has been an Invited Lecturer at the Oxford Medical Humanities Summer School and on the University of St Gallen's Medical Humanities MA programme. He has served as External Examiner at the Universities of Birmingham, Lancaster and Liverpool, contributing across a wide range of undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in French, Modern Languages, Translation and Global Healthcare.

From 2021 to 2024, Steven served as Director of Education in Queen's School of Arts, English and Languages, providing strategic leadership for teaching, curriculum development and student experience across the School.