Members of the project

Jenni Kuuliala, PI

Jenni Kuuliala is a historian of late medieval and early modern disability, social history of medicine, and hagiography. She is currently studying the religious experience of infirmity in early modern Italy. As the PI of the project, she is also in charge of the practical matters.

In her spare time, Jenni enjoys training agility with her two dogs, reading novels, and nature.

You can find Jenni’s professional website here. Her Twitter handle is @jenni_kuu.

Daniel Blackie

Daniel Blackie is a disability historian and author (with D. M. Turner) of Disability in the Industrial Revolution. As our resident expert in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century history, Daniel’s role in the project is to hunt down and analyse historical evidence from the period 1700–1850. Daniel will begin his work as a senior research fellow officially in August 2022.

When he’s not exploring archives or libraries, or hunching over a laptop, Daniel enjoys hiking, football (watching, not playing!), and losing himself in soul-soothing jazz.

You can find Daniel on Twitter @daniel_blackie.

Riikka Miettinen

Photo of Riikka Miettinen.

Riikka Miettinen is a Senior Research Fellow at the Research Council of Finland Centre of Excellence in the History of Experiences. Her current research discusses social history of insanity in early modern Sweden. In this project she examines religious influences and activities in the everyday lives and treatment of people who had bodily and mental impairments in early modern Sweden (incl. Finland). Alongside disability history, Riikka’s research interests include history of madness, suicides, poverty and the landless in early modern Sweden and Finland.

You can find Riikka’s institutional website here.