Columbia Global Centers | Paris
June 14-15, 2019
“Health Beyond Borders”
The CHCI Health and Medical Humanities Network is a partnership of over 30 universities worldwide working in the medical and health humanities. In 2019, the annual Summer Institute of the CHCI HMHN will be hosted by Columbia Global Centers | Paris, with the theme, “Health Beyond Borders.”
Human health is shaped by borders—from the protected space of the hospital to the international
boundaries that govern the health of populations. But even as borders offer a way of delineating
health and disease in physical space, the border itself is often understood as a boundary to be
transcended or a frontier to be crossed. The notion of moving beyond borders helps to make sense
of broader trends in global health, from debates about migration, contested sovereignty, and
environmental accords to the boundary-crossing work of clinicians such as the Médecins sans
frontières. Within the medical and health humanities, the border provides a rich zone for
investigation into how well-being is constituted across a continuum of individuals and populations.
Importantly, at the heart of the concept of the border is the issue of representation : borders are
necessarily shaped as much by human expression as they are by physical markers.
This conference explores the interdisciplinary facets of the border, from the metaphorical to the
political: What counts as a border in an embodied, geographical, legal, or artistic context? What are
the debates around borders in medical practice, from hospitalist medicine to epidemiology? How
and why do health practitioners refer to the border for its rhetorical power, and how does the
border work productively as a figure in narrative medicine, medical memoirs, and creative
literature? What are the processes and structures that define well-being across borders, from
nationalist immigration policies to environmental protections? How do we understand efforts to
confront, dismantle, or transcend borders in healthcare? What role do borders play in the formation
of state-sanctioned health policies, and how might these enable or obstruct initiatives in global
health? And how might the concept of the boundary reshape our visions of a future health beyond
borders?
Keynote Speakers
Jens Brockmeier (The American University of Paris), Ghada Hatem (Maison des Femmes, Paris),
Samuel Roberts (Columbia University), Craig Spencer (Columbia University)
Call for Papers
We invite proposa
ls for traditional 20-minute papers (350-word abstracts), and for complete panels
(350-word abstracts for each paper accompanied by a cover-letter describing the aims of the panel
as a whole). All papers are subject to the vetting of the conference committee.
Deadline for paper proposals and complete panels: January 15, 2019.
Please send all proposals to Liz Bowen ( elb2157@columbia.edu ). All proposals must include your
name, academic affiliation (if any), and preferred email address. Questions may be addressed to Dr.
Loren Wolfe ( lw2505@columbia.edu ) and Dr. Arden Hegele ( aah2155@columbia.edu ).
Conference Steering Committee (Columbia University and Columbia Global Centers | Paris)
Arden Hegele, Loren Wolfe, Eileen Gillooly, Rishi Goyal
CHCI Steering Committee
Rishi Goyal (Columbia University), Brian Hurwitz (King’s College London), Deborah Jenson (Duke
University), Maheshvari Naidu (University of KwaZulu-Natal), Kathryn Rhine (University of Kansas)
Access and support requirements: The conference is located at Columbia Global Centers | Paris
(Reid Hall), in Montparnasse. If you have any access or support requirements please let us know as
soon as possible so that we can do our best to facilitate your needs.
CFP: Health Humanities Summer School: Columbia Global Centers Paris and
Alliance Network
Columbia Global Centers | Paris
June 17-19 2019
The CHCI Health and Medical Humanities Network is a partnership of over 30 universities worldwide working in the medical and health humanities. In 2019, the annual Summer Institute of the HMHN
will be hosted by Columbia Global Centers | Paris, with the theme, “Health Beyond Borders.”
As part of this Summer Institute, and partnering with the Alliance Network, we are organizing a
3-day intensive summer school on June 17-19, following the conference (June 14-15). We invite
applications from graduate students and early career researchers from a range of disciplines,
including but not limited to anthropology, cultural studies, gender studies, history, journalism, law,
languages, literatures, medicine, narrative medicine, psychology, political science, peace studies,
film, audio-visual arts, theatre studies, and the creative and performing arts to apply for this
international, cross-disciplinary summer school. Faculty and participants of the summer school will
explore perspectives, approaches, frameworks, and frames of reference on the topic of the health
and medical humanities.
The summer school will be delivered through a range of seminars, discussions, participant
presentations, workshops, film and performance viewings, and site visits. Participants will present a
workshop paper at the summer school which will be pre-circulated to faculty and fellow participants
prior to arrival.
Participants are expected to engage and contribute to every aspect of the summer school. Through
this summer school, we are hoping to inspire a network of scholars in the area of health humanities
to continue to support and work with one another after the summer school has ended.
We accept applications from graduate students and early career researchers who received their PhD
after September 2013. We are committed to assembling a diverse and inclusive academic
community. Toward this end, we especially encourage applications from members of
underrepresented groups and those whose interests contribute to realizing this goal.
Application
If you would like to apply for the Health Humanities Summer School, please send a CV, brief
statement of interest, and 350-word paper abstract to Liz Bowen ( elb2157@columbia.edu ) by
January 15, 2019. You will be required to enroll at the CHCI Medical and Health Humanities Network Summer Institute on June 14-15 (student rates available).
We will notify successful applicants by the beginning of March. Funding opportunities are available
for a limited number of Columbia graduate students to travel to the summer school .
Access and support requirements: The conference is located at Columbia Global Centers | Paris
(Reid Hall), in Montparnasse. If you have any access or support requirements please let us know as
soon as possible so that we can do our best to facilitate your needs.
Showing posts with label Medicine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Medicine. Show all posts
Monday, November 26, 2018
Sunday, July 15, 2018
Exhibition - Personifying Plague
A new exhibition in the Whipple Library - Personifying Plague: Visualisations of Plague in Western Medical History - will be on view from 3pm on Thursday 19th of July until the end of October.
The exhibition has been curated by Ranana Dine, and was inspired by research she undertook during her MPhil in Health, Medicine and Society.
The exhibition has been curated by Ranana Dine, and was inspired by research she undertook during her MPhil in Health, Medicine and Society.
Monday, February 12, 2018
Thirteenth Cambridge Wellcome Lecture in the History of Medicine
Thursday, 1 March 2018
3.30pm in Seminar Room 2, Department of History and Philosophy of Science
Professor Alisha Rankin (Tufts University)
Poison trials, panaceas and proof: debates about testing and testimony in early modern European medicine
At the courts of sixteenth-century Europe, a number of princely physicians and surgeons tested promising poison antidotes on condemned criminals. These tests were contrived trials, in which a convict took a deadly poison followed by the antidote. The medics sometimes shared detailed descriptions of their poison trials in printed publications or private correspondence, much as they shared case histories of ill patients. Yet these very same physicians disputed the value of remarkably similar tests on animals conducted by charlatans and empirics in marketplace shows. Sometimes, however, these worlds overlapped directly. In 1583, an empiric named Andreas Berthold published a work in Latin praising the virtues of a marvellous new drug, a clay called 'Silesian terra sigillata'. Berthold presented the drug as a perfect Paracelsian remedy for poison and, like most antidotes, useful against many other illnesses as well. While such lofty claims might easily have been disregarded, Berthold noted that his readers did not have to 'trust me on my bare words'. He concluded his book with three testimonial letters from powerful figures – two German princes and one town mayor – about trials they had conducted on the drug in 1580 and 1581. In all three cases, physicians had given poison to test subjects (two used dogs, one a condemned criminal), followed by the antidote. In every case, the subjects who were given the Silesian terra sigillata survived the poison. These testimonial letters provided official legitimacy to an alchemical empiric, in the form of tests conducted by physicians. Meanwhile, other alchemists began to use a different form of testimony to demonstrate the marvellous effects of their antidote cure-alls: testimonial letters from patients describing their miraculous recoveries, which physicians derided as a perversion of the case history. Some of these alchemists likewise ridiculed the poison trial as a lowly and irrelevant form of proof. This talk examines the overlap between the genres of poison antidote and panacea and the debates these drugs engendered in attempts to 'prove' their efficacy.
There will be tea before the lecture, at 3pm in Seminar Room 1, and a drinks reception afterwards, at 5pm in Seminar Room 1. A dinner will follow. Please email Lauren Kassell if you would like to join us.
***************************************************
Plus, earlier in the day (11:30-1pm, Seminar Room 1, HPS), Professor Rankin will discuss a draft chapter on 'Testing the Kunstkammer: bezoar, power and fraud in the sixteenth-century global drug trade’ (abstract below). If you would like a copy of it, please email me.
In 1563, the imperial surgeon Claudius Richardus wrote a glowing account of the virtues of bezoar stone, prized for its properties as an antidote and a cure-all. After giving a long description of the drug's appearance and virtues, Richardus recounted a series of tests of the drug he had personally conducted at the behest of the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand I: two in which patients under his care received bezoar in the midst of a serious illness and two in which he tested the bezoar in deliberate trials using poison on condemned criminals. All four men experienced miraculous recoveries. His testimony appeared to demonstrate the incontrovertible efficacy of bezoar. Yet bezoar stone was not just a drug. It was also an exotic, highly valued item in the princely Kunstkammer, or chamber of curiosities – often embedded in gold filigree to brighten up its dull brown exterior or set into drinking cups studded with gemstones or other rarities. It commanded a regal price in the marketplaces in Goa and Cochin, and fraud was a constant concern. The prince who could demonstrate he possessed a bezoar that worked had a powerful weapon indeed. In his 1589 treatise on bezoar and other exotic antidotes, German physician Johann Wittich proclaimed a grave need for 'powerful and artful substances that have been proven adequately in a trial'. This paper examines the role of testing exotic poison antidotes in the context of the expanding global drug trade in the sixteenth century.
These events are organised by the Casebooks Project and funded by the Wellcome Trust.
Professor Alisha Rankin (Tufts University)
Poison trials, panaceas and proof: debates about testing and testimony in early modern European medicine
At the courts of sixteenth-century Europe, a number of princely physicians and surgeons tested promising poison antidotes on condemned criminals. These tests were contrived trials, in which a convict took a deadly poison followed by the antidote. The medics sometimes shared detailed descriptions of their poison trials in printed publications or private correspondence, much as they shared case histories of ill patients. Yet these very same physicians disputed the value of remarkably similar tests on animals conducted by charlatans and empirics in marketplace shows. Sometimes, however, these worlds overlapped directly. In 1583, an empiric named Andreas Berthold published a work in Latin praising the virtues of a marvellous new drug, a clay called 'Silesian terra sigillata'. Berthold presented the drug as a perfect Paracelsian remedy for poison and, like most antidotes, useful against many other illnesses as well. While such lofty claims might easily have been disregarded, Berthold noted that his readers did not have to 'trust me on my bare words'. He concluded his book with three testimonial letters from powerful figures – two German princes and one town mayor – about trials they had conducted on the drug in 1580 and 1581. In all three cases, physicians had given poison to test subjects (two used dogs, one a condemned criminal), followed by the antidote. In every case, the subjects who were given the Silesian terra sigillata survived the poison. These testimonial letters provided official legitimacy to an alchemical empiric, in the form of tests conducted by physicians. Meanwhile, other alchemists began to use a different form of testimony to demonstrate the marvellous effects of their antidote cure-alls: testimonial letters from patients describing their miraculous recoveries, which physicians derided as a perversion of the case history. Some of these alchemists likewise ridiculed the poison trial as a lowly and irrelevant form of proof. This talk examines the overlap between the genres of poison antidote and panacea and the debates these drugs engendered in attempts to 'prove' their efficacy.
There will be tea before the lecture, at 3pm in Seminar Room 1, and a drinks reception afterwards, at 5pm in Seminar Room 1. A dinner will follow. Please email Lauren Kassell if you would like to join us.
***************************************************
Plus, earlier in the day (11:30-1pm, Seminar Room 1, HPS), Professor Rankin will discuss a draft chapter on 'Testing the Kunstkammer: bezoar, power and fraud in the sixteenth-century global drug trade’ (abstract below). If you would like a copy of it, please email me.
In 1563, the imperial surgeon Claudius Richardus wrote a glowing account of the virtues of bezoar stone, prized for its properties as an antidote and a cure-all. After giving a long description of the drug's appearance and virtues, Richardus recounted a series of tests of the drug he had personally conducted at the behest of the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand I: two in which patients under his care received bezoar in the midst of a serious illness and two in which he tested the bezoar in deliberate trials using poison on condemned criminals. All four men experienced miraculous recoveries. His testimony appeared to demonstrate the incontrovertible efficacy of bezoar. Yet bezoar stone was not just a drug. It was also an exotic, highly valued item in the princely Kunstkammer, or chamber of curiosities – often embedded in gold filigree to brighten up its dull brown exterior or set into drinking cups studded with gemstones or other rarities. It commanded a regal price in the marketplaces in Goa and Cochin, and fraud was a constant concern. The prince who could demonstrate he possessed a bezoar that worked had a powerful weapon indeed. In his 1589 treatise on bezoar and other exotic antidotes, German physician Johann Wittich proclaimed a grave need for 'powerful and artful substances that have been proven adequately in a trial'. This paper examines the role of testing exotic poison antidotes in the context of the expanding global drug trade in the sixteenth century.
These events are organised by the Casebooks Project and funded by the Wellcome Trust.
Monday, October 23, 2017
HPS group - Casebooks Therapy
'Casebooks Therapy' is an informal reading group for those interested in using the manuscripts of Simon Forman and Richard Napier in their research. The aim of the reading group is to improve palaeography skills, as well as to provide guidance about how to make sense of Forman's and Napier's records. No familiarity with early modern handwriting is necessary, and the group is open to all. Attendees are invited to suggest a particular page or case from the casebooks that they have trouble reading to work through collaboratively. Participants should bring a laptop.
Meetings are held on occasional Wednesdays, 4.30–6pm in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science, Free School Lane. The first session is on 25 October and will introduce Forman, Napier and their casebooks. Dates of subsequent meetings will depend on interest. Please email Lauren to add your name to the list if you haven't already.
Meetings are held on occasional Wednesdays, 4.30–6pm in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science, Free School Lane. The first session is on 25 October and will introduce Forman, Napier and their casebooks. Dates of subsequent meetings will depend on interest. Please email Lauren to add your name to the list if you haven't already.
Wednesday, October 11, 2017
Illness Reading Group
What does it mean to be ill? - A reading group on Illness
Illness, care, and medicine have taken on greater and greater importance in intellectual debates. The emergence of the medical humanities, alongside other developments, can be seen to represent this, but at a more fundamental level, illness has announced itself as an important issue across a wide range of fields. Even so, the concept of illness remains remarkably elusive and difficult to fully grasp. Indeed, one of the reasons that illness resists definition is precisely the interdisciplinary demands that come with it: as a concept it stretches and surpasses the boundaries of traditional disciplines. This reading group is designed to address this question, bringing together members of the universities from the humanities and sciences.
For Michaelmas term, we will be reading Havi Carel's book, The Phenomenology of Illness (OUP 2016). Each week, we will take a chapter from the book and use it to direct and anchor our discussions. The book can be found on Oxford Scholarship Online via iDiscover. Those interested are invited to read the introduction and first chapter for the first meeting.
Our first meeting will take place at The University Centre (right next to the Mill Pub), on the third floor from 19:00 - 20:00 on Tuesday the 17th of October. Meetings will take place weekly throughout the term. A tentative schedule is below.
All students and staff are welcome to attend. Please send an email to cf410@cam.ac.uk if you wish to be added to the mailing list for the group.
The group is collaboratively organised by members of the French, History and Philosophy of Science, and Public Health Departments.
17 October: Introduction, Ch 1 Why Use Phenomenology to Study Illness?
24 October: Ch 2 Phenomenological Features of the Body
31 October: Ch 3 The Body in Illness
7 November: Ch 4 Bodily Doubt
14 November: Ch 5 A Phenomenology of Breathlessness
21 November: Ch 6 Is Well-Being Possible in Illness?
28 November: Ch 7 Illness as Being-towards-Death, Ch 8 Epistemic Injustice in Healthcare
5 December: Ch 9 The Philosophical Role of Illness
Organisers: Joseph Wu, Rebecca Love, & Cillian Ó Fathaigh
Illness, care, and medicine have taken on greater and greater importance in intellectual debates. The emergence of the medical humanities, alongside other developments, can be seen to represent this, but at a more fundamental level, illness has announced itself as an important issue across a wide range of fields. Even so, the concept of illness remains remarkably elusive and difficult to fully grasp. Indeed, one of the reasons that illness resists definition is precisely the interdisciplinary demands that come with it: as a concept it stretches and surpasses the boundaries of traditional disciplines. This reading group is designed to address this question, bringing together members of the universities from the humanities and sciences.
For Michaelmas term, we will be reading Havi Carel's book, The Phenomenology of Illness (OUP 2016). Each week, we will take a chapter from the book and use it to direct and anchor our discussions. The book can be found on Oxford Scholarship Online via iDiscover. Those interested are invited to read the introduction and first chapter for the first meeting.
Our first meeting will take place at The University Centre (right next to the Mill Pub), on the third floor from 19:00 - 20:00 on Tuesday the 17th of October. Meetings will take place weekly throughout the term. A tentative schedule is below.
All students and staff are welcome to attend. Please send an email to cf410@cam.ac.uk if you wish to be added to the mailing list for the group.
The group is collaboratively organised by members of the French, History and Philosophy of Science, and Public Health Departments.
17 October: Introduction, Ch 1 Why Use Phenomenology to Study Illness?
24 October: Ch 2 Phenomenological Features of the Body
31 October: Ch 3 The Body in Illness
7 November: Ch 4 Bodily Doubt
14 November: Ch 5 A Phenomenology of Breathlessness
21 November: Ch 6 Is Well-Being Possible in Illness?
28 November: Ch 7 Illness as Being-towards-Death, Ch 8 Epistemic Injustice in Healthcare
5 December: Ch 9 The Philosophical Role of Illness
Organisers: Joseph Wu, Rebecca Love, & Cillian Ó Fathaigh
Thursday, September 28, 2017
Sound Talking: an interdisciplinary workshop on 'language describing sound / sound emulating language'
Friday 3 November 2017, London Science Museum
Info and registration here
Sound Talking is a one-day event at the London Science Museum that seeks to explore the complex relationships between language and sound, both historically and in the present day. It aims to identify the perspectives and methodologies of current research in the ever-widening field of sound studies, and to locate productive interactions between disciplines. Bringing together audio engineers, psychiatrists, linguists, musicologists, and historians of literature and medicine, we will be asking questions about sound as a point of linguistic engagement. We will consider the terminology used to discuss sound, the invention of words that capture sonic experience, and the use and manipulation of sound to emulate linguistic descriptions. Talks will address singing voice research, the history of onomatopoeias, new music production tools, auditory neuroscience, sounds in literature, and the sounds of the insane asylum.
Speakers: - Ian Rawes (London Sound Survey) - Melissa Dickson (University of Oxford) - Jonathan Andrews (Newcastle University) - Maria Chait (UCL Ear Institute) - David Howard (Royal Holloway University of London) - Brecht De Man (Queen Mary University of London) - Mandy Parnell (Black Saloon Studios) - Trevor Cox (Salford University)
For more information, see here, or contact the workshop chairs: Melissa Dickson and Brecht De Man
Info and registration here
Sound Talking is a one-day event at the London Science Museum that seeks to explore the complex relationships between language and sound, both historically and in the present day. It aims to identify the perspectives and methodologies of current research in the ever-widening field of sound studies, and to locate productive interactions between disciplines. Bringing together audio engineers, psychiatrists, linguists, musicologists, and historians of literature and medicine, we will be asking questions about sound as a point of linguistic engagement. We will consider the terminology used to discuss sound, the invention of words that capture sonic experience, and the use and manipulation of sound to emulate linguistic descriptions. Talks will address singing voice research, the history of onomatopoeias, new music production tools, auditory neuroscience, sounds in literature, and the sounds of the insane asylum.
Speakers: - Ian Rawes (London Sound Survey) - Melissa Dickson (University of Oxford) - Jonathan Andrews (Newcastle University) - Maria Chait (UCL Ear Institute) - David Howard (Royal Holloway University of London) - Brecht De Man (Queen Mary University of London) - Mandy Parnell (Black Saloon Studios) - Trevor Cox (Salford University)
For more information, see here, or contact the workshop chairs: Melissa Dickson and Brecht De Man
Monday, May 08, 2017
Show - Song of Contagion
Song of Contagion hits the stage in London on June 13-17th. The show mashes
the world's great musical traditions together into a show that explores how
industry lobbying, patient activism and media hype interact to distort
priority setting in global health.
You can book tickets here.
More about the show and the project here.
If you've never been to Wilton's, it's worth coming to the show just to see this fantastic Victoran-era music hall in all its crumbling, East End glory (the BBC Proms follow us to Wilton's in July). Come also, of course, because Song of Contagion will be thought-provoking and damned good fun. Wilton's is within walking distance of the last cholera outbreak in London (1866) - the subject of one of our songs.
On Saturday June 17th, London historian, guide and all-round great entertainer Sophie Campbell will lead a walk exploring how the disease, and the great Victorian engineering project that wiped it out, affected Londoners. Sign up here.
If you've never been to Wilton's, it's worth coming to the show just to see this fantastic Victoran-era music hall in all its crumbling, East End glory (the BBC Proms follow us to Wilton's in July). Come also, of course, because Song of Contagion will be thought-provoking and damned good fun. Wilton's is within walking distance of the last cholera outbreak in London (1866) - the subject of one of our songs.
On Saturday June 17th, London historian, guide and all-round great entertainer Sophie Campbell will lead a walk exploring how the disease, and the great Victorian engineering project that wiped it out, affected Londoners. Sign up here.
Tuesday, March 07, 2017
CASEBOOKS: Six contemporary artists and an extraordinary medical archive
The exhibition is accompanied by a series of events, beginning with the Private View on Thursday 16 March and the Artists and Curator Seminar on Friday 17 March. All events take place at Ambika P3 (opposite Baker Street tube). Details online and below.
———
CASEBOOKS: Six contemporary artists and an extraordinary medical archive
Jasmina Cibic, Federico Díaz, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Rémy Markowitsch, Lindsay Seers, Tunga
Private View: Thursday 16 March 2017, 6:30 - 8:30pm, Ambika P3, University of Westminster, 35 Marylebone Road, London NW1 5LS, Baker Street Station
Exhibition continues: 17 March - 23 April 2017
———
ARTIST & CURATOR SEMINAR
Fri 17 March 2017, 4 - 6 pm Ambika P3, University of Westminster, 35 Marylebone Road, London NW1 5LS, Baker Street Station. Book a place here.
The CASEBOOKS exhibition is one of the most collaborative projects to take place at Ambika P3. It brings together researchers on the Casebooks Project, based at the University of Cambridge, with the curatorial team at the University of Westminster. This seminar is an opportunity to explore the issues brought about by the exhibition from the perspective of the artists and the Ambika P3 curator. Artists will present their projects and a round table will be convened to discuss the following topics:
4.00 – 4.15: Introductions Lauren Kassell Michael Mazière
4.15 – 5.15: Artists' presentations
6.00 – 6.30: Drinks
Visit our website for the latest updates to the Casebooks Project: A Digital Edition of Simon Forman's and Richard Napier's Medical Records.
———
CASEBOOKS: Six contemporary artists and an extraordinary medical archive
Jasmina Cibic, Federico Díaz, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Rémy Markowitsch, Lindsay Seers, Tunga
Private View: Thursday 16 March 2017, 6:30 - 8:30pm, Ambika P3, University of Westminster, 35 Marylebone Road, London NW1 5LS, Baker Street Station
Exhibition continues: 17 March - 23 April 2017
———
ARTIST & CURATOR SEMINAR
Fri 17 March 2017, 4 - 6 pm Ambika P3, University of Westminster, 35 Marylebone Road, London NW1 5LS, Baker Street Station. Book a place here.
The CASEBOOKS exhibition is one of the most collaborative projects to take place at Ambika P3. It brings together researchers on the Casebooks Project, based at the University of Cambridge, with the curatorial team at the University of Westminster. This seminar is an opportunity to explore the issues brought about by the exhibition from the perspective of the artists and the Ambika P3 curator. Artists will present their projects and a round table will be convened to discuss the following topics:
- How did the artists engage with the Casebooks Project ?
- What are the levels at which audiences engage with the artworks and the historical and digital artefacts through the exhibition?
- Have the casebooks provided a common theme to the exhibition?
- Can a collaborative exhibition such as this create new links between art, history and science?
4.00 – 4.15: Introductions Lauren Kassell Michael Mazière
4.15 – 5.15: Artists' presentations
Jasmina Cibic: Unforseen Foreseens; Federico Díaz: BIG LIGHT Space of Augmented Suggestion ; Mark Hellar: Lynn Hershman Leeson’s, Real-Fiction Botnik and Venus of the Anthropocene; Rémy Markowitsch: The Casebooks Calf; Lindsay Seers: Mental Metal ; Rana Saner: Tunga’s Me, You and the Moon5.15 – 6.00: Round table and Q&A from the audience chaired by Lauren Kassell
6.00 – 6.30: Drinks
Visit our website for the latest updates to the Casebooks Project: A Digital Edition of Simon Forman's and Richard Napier's Medical Records.
Friday, March 03, 2017
Noisy Embyros
Dates: 9 – 25 March
Private View: Thursday 16 March, 5.00pm
Noisy Embryos
is a multi-channel, audio-visual installation that reflects on the
relationship between scientists
and the animals they observe by juxtaposing videos of snail embryos
generated under laboratory conditions with the 'messiness' of the
natural environment and of the process of data collection in the field.
It draws on interdisciplinary research carried out
by artists Deborah Robinson and David Strang and biologist Simon Rundle
during field trips at locations used by naturalist Carl Linnaeus and
film maker Andrei Tarkovsky on the Swedish island of Gotland.Cambridge Science Festival 2017:
Noisy Embryos: From the bane of embryology to indicators of the Anthropocene
Thursday 16 March, 6.30pm-8pm
Thursday 16 March, 6.30pm-8pm
This
interdisciplinary talk links the history of variation in embryology
(Nick Hopwood, Cambridge) to the current use of embryos as indicators
of climate change (Simon Rundle, Plymouth) to introduce how the
audio-visual exhibition
Noisy Embryos (Deborah Robinson and David Strang, Plymouth) responds to the uses of embryos in scientific research.
This talk will take place in room RUS110, in the Ruskin Building, no need to book, just turn up.
We look forward to seeing you at the Ruskin GallerySaturday, December 03, 2016
CFP - 'Gut Feeling: Digestive Health in Nineteenth-Century Culture'
An interdisciplinary workshop, 26-27 May 2017, University of Aberdeen
Gut health has become a buzzword in contemporary culture. Ground-breaking research is pointing to potential links between the gut and such diverse areas as our mood, weight, and thought processes. The current debates on the digestive system and our physical and mental health, however, are not without precedent. The stomach occupied a central place in the development of medicine in the nineteenth century and the number of medical, literary and popular publications on digestion proliferated from this period onwards. With the exception of anorexia and obesity, however, few scholars have examined the cultural significance of the gut in the modern period, confirming the lowly status the abdomen has endured in the Western intellectual tradition.
This workshop aims to develop a new understanding of gut health in modern history by establishing a dialogue between different scholars on this aspect of the body. The preoccupation with guts and the bowels in the Early Modern period developed a new urgency in the nineteenth century through the rapid progress of medicine and the increased concern with the stomach as a site of self-fashioning. The obsession with the gut during this period was a highly cosmopolitan phenomenon crossing many fields of experience, and the workshop aims to bring together scholars from a range of specialisms, including English studies, Modern Languages, History, History of Medicine, Anthropology, Philosophy, Visual Studies, Religious Studies and History of Science.
Applications from postgraduate and early career scholars are particularly welcome.
Topics include, but are not limited to:
Interdisciplinary approaches and international comparisons are strongly encouraged.
Contributors will be invited to submit developed papers for consideration for publication after the event.
Proposals should be no more than 300 words in length and a short biography should also be included. Please send to m.mathias@abdn.ac.uk by 31 January 2017.
This two-day workshop is funded by the University of Aberdeen School of Language, Literature, Music and Visual Culture; the Society for French Studies; the British Society for the History of Science; and the British Society for Literature and Science.
Gut health has become a buzzword in contemporary culture. Ground-breaking research is pointing to potential links between the gut and such diverse areas as our mood, weight, and thought processes. The current debates on the digestive system and our physical and mental health, however, are not without precedent. The stomach occupied a central place in the development of medicine in the nineteenth century and the number of medical, literary and popular publications on digestion proliferated from this period onwards. With the exception of anorexia and obesity, however, few scholars have examined the cultural significance of the gut in the modern period, confirming the lowly status the abdomen has endured in the Western intellectual tradition.
This workshop aims to develop a new understanding of gut health in modern history by establishing a dialogue between different scholars on this aspect of the body. The preoccupation with guts and the bowels in the Early Modern period developed a new urgency in the nineteenth century through the rapid progress of medicine and the increased concern with the stomach as a site of self-fashioning. The obsession with the gut during this period was a highly cosmopolitan phenomenon crossing many fields of experience, and the workshop aims to bring together scholars from a range of specialisms, including English studies, Modern Languages, History, History of Medicine, Anthropology, Philosophy, Visual Studies, Religious Studies and History of Science.
Applications from postgraduate and early career scholars are particularly welcome.
Topics include, but are not limited to:
- The history of psycho-gastric conditions
- The history of nutritional physiology and metabolism
- (In)digestion as a metaphorical framework
- Literary portrayals of digestion, constipation and defecation
- Digestive and excretory labours and authorial identity
- Visual portrayals of the digestive system
- The gut as a site of self-fashioning
- Digestion and nationhood
- Digestion and public health
- Gut-brain connections
- Digestion and modernity
- Digestion and constipation in philosophical thought
- The role of digestion in social relations
- Digestive health as spiritual practice
Interdisciplinary approaches and international comparisons are strongly encouraged.
Contributors will be invited to submit developed papers for consideration for publication after the event.
Proposals should be no more than 300 words in length and a short biography should also be included. Please send to m.mathias@abdn.ac.uk by 31 January 2017.
This two-day workshop is funded by the University of Aberdeen School of Language, Literature, Music and Visual Culture; the Society for French Studies; the British Society for the History of Science; and the British Society for Literature and Science.
Monday, November 21, 2016
Early Science and Medicine Seminar
On Tuesday, 22 November, Daniel Margócsy (HPS Cambridge), will speak about 'Reading Vesalius 700 times: the problem of generation and the reception history of De humani corporis fabrica' at 5pm. Everyone is welcome for tea and biscuits from 4:45.
Seminar Room 1, Department of History and Philosophy of Science, Free School Lane.
Organised by Lauren Kassell and Dániel Margócsy.
Seminar Room 1, Department of History and Philosophy of Science, Free School Lane.
Organised by Lauren Kassell and Dániel Margócsy.
Monday, October 31, 2016
Talk - Medical Etymology: The Language of Medicine
The Cambridge Medical Humanities Society is excited to announce its
first talk of the term. Join us at 6pm on Friday 4th November in the
Main Lecture Theatre in St John's College for wine, soft drinks and
snacks. The talk will start at 6.30pm. Further details can be found on our Facebook event and in the blurb below.
Alexandra Caulfield has degrees in Classics and Medicine, and is known for being overenthusiastic about medical etymology.
Ever wondered what a crab has to do with oncology? What bile has to do with depression? Where the word testis comes from? Or what the movie 'The Hangover' should really be called? Unlikely. Find out the answers to these useless questions and many more at our latest talk entitled 'The Language of Medicine'. If you've ever wanted to impress your consultant with a casual knowledge of Latin and Greek, this is the talk for you. We will cover a brief history of medical language, a cheat's guide to working out the origins of medical terms, and a selection of weird and wonderful medical etymologies, for lifelong use in pub quizzes, or awkward ward rounds.
As William Osler said 'The young doctor should look about early for an avocation, a pastime, that will take him away from patients, pills, and potions…' Let this be your avocation.
Alexandra Caulfield has degrees in Classics and Medicine, and is known for being overenthusiastic about medical etymology.
Friday, October 28, 2016
Performance - Professor Bernhardi
Prolonging life – we’re good at that!
Performance of ARTHUR SCHNITZLER’S Professor Bernhardi
28 & 29 October 2016, 7pm (Doors 6pm)
Pre-show talk at 6.30pm
Anatomy Building, Downing Site, Downing Street, CB2 3DY Cambridge
Arthur Schnitzler's unlikely comedy Professor Bernhardi (1912) tells the story of a Jewish doctor who prevents a Catholic priest from giving the last rites to a patient who is unaware that she is dying. It is a play about doctors talking to doctors, raising questions about the Viennese politics and ethics of medical care. The production will stage Schnitzler’s own archival work. It will shed light on his extensive drafts and notes on Professor Bernhardi, held by Cambridge University Library, and the pathology that shaped the creative process of Schnitzler's medical drama. The venue is the Anatomy Lecture Theatre at Downing Site, Cambridge. It has particular meaning for the drama. Anatomical theatres, like dramatic theatres, are places to see and to acquire knowledge. The topography of the anatomy theatre elevates the observer to a position that looks at the open body from above, almost with a birds-eye perspective.
The production is a collaboration between the theatre company [FOREIGN AFFAIRS], the Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience and academics from the Schnitzler Digital Edition Project.
Book tickets here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/professor-bernhardi-tickets-27672763982 More information: http://www.festivalofideas.cam.ac.uk/events/arthur-schnitzlers-professor-bernhardi
Performance of ARTHUR SCHNITZLER’S Professor Bernhardi
28 & 29 October 2016, 7pm (Doors 6pm)
Pre-show talk at 6.30pm
Anatomy Building, Downing Site, Downing Street, CB2 3DY Cambridge
Arthur Schnitzler's unlikely comedy Professor Bernhardi (1912) tells the story of a Jewish doctor who prevents a Catholic priest from giving the last rites to a patient who is unaware that she is dying. It is a play about doctors talking to doctors, raising questions about the Viennese politics and ethics of medical care. The production will stage Schnitzler’s own archival work. It will shed light on his extensive drafts and notes on Professor Bernhardi, held by Cambridge University Library, and the pathology that shaped the creative process of Schnitzler's medical drama. The venue is the Anatomy Lecture Theatre at Downing Site, Cambridge. It has particular meaning for the drama. Anatomical theatres, like dramatic theatres, are places to see and to acquire knowledge. The topography of the anatomy theatre elevates the observer to a position that looks at the open body from above, almost with a birds-eye perspective.
The production is a collaboration between the theatre company [FOREIGN AFFAIRS], the Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience and academics from the Schnitzler Digital Edition Project.
Book tickets here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/professor-bernhardi-tickets-27672763982 More information: http://www.festivalofideas.cam.ac.uk/events/arthur-schnitzlers-professor-bernhardi
Wednesday, April 27, 2016
Links - Shakespeare and science
The always-interesting Whewell's Gazette round-up of history of science, technology, and medicine articles on the internet has collected several pieces on Shakespeare and science published in celebration of this week's 400th anniversary:
- Royal College of Physicians: ‘Rapt in secret studies’: was Shakespeare’s Prospero inspired by John Dee?
- Hyperallergic: The Poisons, Potions, and Charms of Shakespeare’s Plays
- The Irish Astronomical Journal: The Astronomy of Shakespeare
- Nature: Tudor technology: Shakespeare and science
- Wellcome Collection Blog: The humours in Shakespeare
- Faith and Wisdom in Science: Shakespeare and the Scientific Imagination
- The Renaissance Mathematicus: Was Will a Copernican?
- astro.ic.ac.uk: Shakespeare’s astronomy
- Smithsonian.com: Was Shakespeare Aware of the Scientific Discoveries of His Time?
- Youtube: Next – Aardman Animations (Lip Synch)
Event - Public Health and Private Pain: A Night of Medical History and Drama
Thursday 5 May at 7pm, Museum of the History of Science, Broad Street, Oxford
Enter the Museum for a unique evening of performance and drama. Drawing from a rich variety of medical plays and historical material, the event will illuminate, provoke, and dramatize developments which have shaped ideas of the body from the 18th century to the present day. Join academics from across the University of Oxford, professional actors from the Pegasus Theatre and staff of the Museum of the History of Science as they show how these developments have been mapped not just by medical writing but by theatre, which has a long history of engaging with science and medicine.
Scenes and readings will include:
To book your free ticket, please register on Eventbrite here.
Enter the Museum for a unique evening of performance and drama. Drawing from a rich variety of medical plays and historical material, the event will illuminate, provoke, and dramatize developments which have shaped ideas of the body from the 18th century to the present day. Join academics from across the University of Oxford, professional actors from the Pegasus Theatre and staff of the Museum of the History of Science as they show how these developments have been mapped not just by medical writing but by theatre, which has a long history of engaging with science and medicine.
Scenes and readings will include:
- Shelagh Stephenson, An Experiment with an Air-pump (1998)
- George Bernard Shaw, The Doctor’s Dilemma (1906)
- Henrik Ibsen, Ghosts (1881)
- A selection from the WWI poetry collection at Oxford by Sassoon and Owen
- An historical anti-vaccination song
- Joe Penhall, Blue/Orange (2000)
To book your free ticket, please register on Eventbrite here.
Wednesday, July 08, 2015
CFP - Science Fiction and the Medical Humanities
As
part of the Wellcome Trust funded project 'Science Fiction and the
Medical Humanities', the BMJ Group journal Medical Humanities will be
publishing a special issue guest edited by Dr Gavin Miller, University
of Glasgow. We invite papers of broad interest to an international
readership of medical humanities scholars and practising clinicians on
the topic ‘Science Fiction and the Medical Humanities’.
Science fiction is a fertile ground for the imagining of biomedical advances. Technologies such as cloning, prosthetics, and rejuvenation are frequently encountered in science-fiction stories. Science fiction also offers alternative ideals of health and wellbeing, and imagines new forms of disease and suffering. The special issue seeks papers that explore issues of health, illness, and medicine in science-fiction narratives within a variety of media (written word, graphic novel, theatre, dance, film and television, etc.).
We are also particularly interested in articles that explore the biomedical ‘technoscientific imaginary’: the culturally-embedded imagining of futures enabled by technoscientific innovation. We especially welcome papers that explore science-fiction tropes, motifs, and narratives within medical and health-related discourses, practices, and institutions. The question – how does the biomedical technoscientific imaginary permeate the everyday and expert worlds of modern medicine and healthcare? – may be a useful prompt for potential authors.
For further details on call and project: http://scifimedhums.glasgow.ac.uk/journal-issue/
Twitter: @scifimedhums
Email: arts-scifimedhums@glasgow.ac.uk
Science fiction is a fertile ground for the imagining of biomedical advances. Technologies such as cloning, prosthetics, and rejuvenation are frequently encountered in science-fiction stories. Science fiction also offers alternative ideals of health and wellbeing, and imagines new forms of disease and suffering. The special issue seeks papers that explore issues of health, illness, and medicine in science-fiction narratives within a variety of media (written word, graphic novel, theatre, dance, film and television, etc.).
We are also particularly interested in articles that explore the biomedical ‘technoscientific imaginary’: the culturally-embedded imagining of futures enabled by technoscientific innovation. We especially welcome papers that explore science-fiction tropes, motifs, and narratives within medical and health-related discourses, practices, and institutions. The question – how does the biomedical technoscientific imaginary permeate the everyday and expert worlds of modern medicine and healthcare? – may be a useful prompt for potential authors.
For further details on call and project: http://scifimedhums.glasgow.ac.uk/journal-issue/
Twitter: @scifimedhums
Email: arts-scifimedhums@glasgow.ac.uk
Friday, February 27, 2015
'The Role of the Humanities in Improving the Lives of those who Suffer from Mental Health Problems’: A Panel Discussion
Winstanley Lecture Theatre, Trinity College Thursday, 5th March 2015 6.30-8.30pm
Organised by the Cambridge University Medical Humanities Society
Details of the speakers are as follows:
Dr. Ahmed Hankir is Research Fellow of the Bedfordshire Centre for Mental Health Research in Association with Cambridge University. Dr Hankir's research interests are wide-ranging and include the portrayal of mental health challenges in film, literature and the media, the association between 'craziness' and creativity, cultural psychiatry and the mental health of healthcare professionals.Together with Dr Rashid Zaman, Ahmed designed and developed the Wounded Healer which is an innovative method of pedagogy that blends science with the humanities.
The Wounded Healer is a contact based anti-stigma intervention that has been delivered to more than 5000 medical students and doctors in the UK, Canada, USA, Portugal, Italy and Lebanon. Dr. Hankir is the recipient of numerous awards most notably the 2013 Royal College of Psychiatrists Foundation Doctor of the Year Award. Ahmed, in his own autobiographical narrative, will discuss and describe the roles that drama therapy and the health humanities played in his convalescence from profound oscillations in mood.
Dr. Victoria Tischler is a Senior Lecturer in Psychology at London College of Fashion interested in the use of creative interventions to improve the health and well-being of people with mental health problems. She will talk about her research using visual art to stimulate cognition in people with dementia.
Prof. Brian Brown is Professor of Health Communication in the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences at De Montfort University. He will provide a background concerning the health humanities and the approach taken at Nottingham University. He will also describe some aspects of ongoing research exploring how the role of mutual involvement in creative activity - sculpture, photography, music, storytelling - can enhance the well-being of all parties involved.
Dr. Rashid Zaman is a consultant Psychiatrist and associate lecturer at Cambridge University. Drawing upon his experiences, he will provide a clinical perspective on the subject matter.
https://www.facebook.com/events/939796199372044/
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Conference - Comics and Medicine: Medical Narratives in Graphic Novels
17th June 2010, School of Advanced Study, Institute of English Studies, University of London
For further details of the speakers and to register see here.
For further details of the speakers and to register see here.
Monday, April 12, 2010
New online resources
A selection of things recently brought to my attention:
1. The Science Museum's Brought to Life website:
2. The New Light on Old Bones project:
3. The Victorianist blog:
4. Wellcome Medicine and Literature Guide
1. The Science Museum's Brought to Life website:
The Science Museum’s new history of medicine website has now been completed. In all it now present 4000 new images of artefacts from the collections linked to 16 specialised themes on medicine across time, written by staff and other professional historians of medicine. Each theme is associated with bibliographies and interactives suitable for teaching at several levels.The themes are:Belief and medicine; Birth and death; Controversies and medicine; Diagnosis; Diseases and epidemics; Hospitals;Mental health and illness; Practising medicine; Public health;Science and medicine; Surgery;Technology and medicine; Medical traditions;Treatments and cures; Understanding the body; War and medicineUnder a creative commons policy the images are available for download.
2. The New Light on Old Bones project:
New Light on Old Bones (NLOB) is an innovative, multi-disciplinary research project looking at the cultural, social, and historical context of natural science collections in two venues in North West England; Blackburn Museum, and Rossendale Museum.
The lead researcher is Mark Steadman, and the project board consists of Dr Samuel Alberti of The Manchester Museum, and David Craven and Dr Myna Trustram from Renaissance North West.
The project aims to provide museums with a toolkit of methods they can use to better interpret their collections.
3. The Victorianist blog:
The postgraduate website for BAVS.
4. Wellcome Medicine and Literature Guide
Includes details of how to research medicine and literature in the Wellcome Trust collections, and of online medicine and literature resources.
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