Menu
Lorenzo Servitje, PhD, MPH
Associate Professor of Literature and Medicine
Director of Health, Medicine, and Society Program
Lehigh University
Thank you for your interest in my work! Please take a moment to explore my site, where you’ll find details on my background, experience, teaching, research, and more. To learn more or if you would like to discuss an opportunity to work together, feel free to reach out. I'd love to hear from you!
Professional Experience
For the past two decades, I have developed a passion for integrating humanistic and scientific research around health and medicine. This has developed and led me through an eclectic path in my education and career. I have been fortunate to have the opportunity to teach and research these intersections with talented and inspiring students and generous and brilliant colleagues.
My interests and training began in Victorian literature and medical history. The work on the first monograph, Medicine Is War, drove my interest toward more contemporary work and history on antimicrobial resistance and ultimately lead me to go back to school and complete a Master’s in Public Health. Consequently, my interest and expertise have expanded to public health and epidemiology, specifically around antimicrobial resistance and COVID-19; however, my background and training in cultural and literary studies and history remain an anchor to my research and teaching.
Throughout my education and career, I’ve worked on several research projects and have been fortunate to be involved with work published in a variety of different journals and media outlets.
Please consult my curriculum vitae detailing my education, appointments, and career highlights such as key publications, fellowships, and awards I’ve received.
If you’d like more information or if you’re interested in collaborating, please don’t hesitate to reach out.
Featured Talks
“Pharmacokinetics/Pharmacodynamics Scaled: How Antimicrobials Move Through/Affect the Social Body.” Weekly Seminar on Experimental and Clinical Pharmacology. Department of Experimental Pharmacology, College of Pharmacy, University of Minnesota. March 15, 2023.
Play Video
“Health humanities in action: How to follow the literary, historical, and political ‘careers’ of antimicrobials and resistance.” Antimicrobial Resistance Seminar. London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. December 6, 2022.
Play Video
Featured Publications
Monographs
Medicine is most often understood through the metaphor of war. We encounter phrases such as “the war against the coronavirus,” “the front lines of the Ebola crisis,” “a new weapon against antibiotic resistance,” or “the immune system fights cancer” without considering their assumptions, implications, and history. But there is nothing natural about this language. It does not have to be, nor has it always been, the way to understand the relationship between humans and disease. Medicine Is War shows how this “martial metaphor” was popularized throughout the nineteenth century.
Articles
Literary-rhetorical devices like figurative language and analogy can help explain concepts that exceed our capacity to grasp intuitively. It is not surprising these devices are used to discuss virulence, pathogenesis, and antibiotics. Allusions to Robert Louise Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde seem to be used with particular frequency in research pertaining to pathogens, especially in studies contemporary with our evolving understanding of antibiotic resistance.
Literary-rhetorical devices like figurative language and analogy can help explain concepts that exceed our capacity to grasp intuitively. It is not surprising these devices are used to discuss virulence, pathogenesis, and antibiotics. Allusions to Robert Louise Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde seem to be used with particular frequency in research pertaining to pathogens, especially in studies contemporary with our evolving understanding of antibiotic resistance.