Rate My Professor Jana Funke

Professor Jana Funke is Professor of Modern Literature and Sexuality Studies in the Department of English and Creative Writing at the University of Exeter. Her research focuses on modernist literature and culture, the history of sexuality and sexual science, feminist theory, gender studies, queer theory, and medical humanities. She serves as one of the Coordinators of the University's LGBTQ+ Staff Network. Funke has directed several major research projects that bridge academic scholarship with public engagement. In 2025, she co-directs the AHRC-funded 100 Years of The Well of Loneliness project, which recovers the hidden history of Radclyffe Hall's once-banned novel through international collaboration. Previously, she was Joint Investigator on a Wellcome Trust-funded seven-year project on the cross-disciplinary history of sexual science from 1890 to 1940, titled Rethinking Sexology, co-directed with Professor Kate Fisher. She co-directed the Transformations project with Gendered Intelligence, producing the Adventures in Time and Gender podcast and website, and the Out and About: Queering the Museum project with the Royal Albert Memorial Museum. In 2014, she participated in the AHRC and Wellcome Trust-funded New Generations in Medical Humanities Programme.