Alison Winter (19 November 1965 – 22 June 2016) was an American academic.

Biography

Born on 19 November 1965 in

New Haven, Connecticut New Haven is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut and is part of the New York City metropolitan area. With a population of 134,023 ...

, Winter spent her early childhood in

Bonn The federal city of Bonn ( lat, Bonna) is a city on the banks of the Rhine in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with a population of over 300,000. About south-southeast of Cologne, Bonn is in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ru ...

, Germany, and attended high school in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where her father taught mathematics at the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

. His influence led her to study the history of science at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chic ...

beginning in 1983. Winter moved to the United Kingdom for graduate study, where she met

Adrian Johns Vice Admiral Sir Adrian James Johns, (born 1 September 1951) is a former senior officer in the Royal Navy, serving as Second Sea Lord between 2005 and 2008. He was the Governor of Gibraltar between 2009 and 2013. Early life and education Joh ...

in 1987. The two married in 1992. Winter completed her

M. Phil The Master of Philosophy (MPhil; Latin ' or ') is a postgraduate degree. In the United States, an MPhil typically includes a taught portion and a significant research portion, during which a thesis project is conducted under supervision. An MPhil m ...

at the

University of Cambridge , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

in 1991, followed by a

PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * ''Piled Higher and Deeper ''Piled Higher and Deeper'' (also known as ''PhD Comics''), is a newsp ...

in 1993. She began teaching at the

California Institute of Technology The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech or CIT)The university itself only spells its short form as "Caltech"; the institution considers other spellings such a"Cal Tech" and "CalTech" incorrect. The institute is also occasional ...

in 1994, and returned to Chicago as a faculty member in 2001. Winter's doctoral dissertation was published by the

University of Chicago Press The University of Chicago Press is the largest and one of the oldest university presses in the United States. It is operated by the University of Chicago and publishes a wide variety of academic titles, including '' The Chicago Manual of Style'' ...

as the book ''Mesmerized: Powers of Mind in Victorian Britain'' in 1998. The work covered the early history of

animal magnetism Animal magnetism, also known as mesmerism, was a protoscientific theory developed by German doctor Franz Mesmer in the 18th century in relation to what he claimed to be an invisible natural force (''Lebensmagnetismus'') possessed by all liv ...

and

Franz Mesmer Franz Anton Mesmer (; ; 23 May 1734 – 5 March 1815) was a German physician with an interest in astronomy. He theorised the existence of a natural energy transference occurring between all animated and inanimate objects; this he called "anim ...

, as well as its spread throughout England from the 1830s to the 1870s, and focused on the work of John Elliotson. Research for Winter's second book ''Memory: Fragments of a Modern History'' was funded by the

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

Andrew W. Mellon Foundation The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation of New York City in the United States, simply known as Mellon Foundation, is a private foundation with five core areas of interest, and endowed with wealth accumulated by Andrew Mellon of the Mellon family of Pit ...

, and

National Science Foundation The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National ...

. ''Memory'' was written in eleven chapters that can be read separately, as each chapter covers a different topic and several examples relating to memory. Alluding to its title, ''Memory'' sought to help readers "understand the broad historical developments precisely by bringing fragments of memory's history to life." Following its publication by the University of Chicago Press in 2012, Winter received the

Gordon J. Laing Award The Gordon J. Laing Award is conferred annually, by the University of Chicago's Board of University Publications, on the faculty author, editor, or translator whose book has brought the greatest distinction to the list of the University of Chicago ...

in 2014. Winter was diagnosed with

glioblastoma Glioblastoma, previously known as glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), is one of the most aggressive types of cancer that begin within the brain. Initially, signs and symptoms of glioblastoma are nonspecific. They may include headaches, personality cha ...

in 2015, and died of a brain tumor on 22 June 2016, aged 50.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Winter, Alison 2016 deaths 20th-century American women writers 21st-century American women writers Writers from New Haven, Connecticut University of Chicago alumni Alumni of the University of Oxford California Institute of Technology faculty University of Chicago faculty American women historians 20th-century American historians 21st-century American historians Deaths from brain cancer in the United States Deaths from cancer in Illinois Historians of psychology American historians of science Historians from Connecticut 1965 births