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.

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.

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

CFP - Humanities special issue on James Joyce, Animals and the Nonhuman

Humanities, an international, scholarly, open access journal, and its Guest Editor, Dr Katherine Ebury (University of Sheffield), are seeking proposals for a Special Issue focused on ‘James Joyce, Animals and the Nonhuman’. The Special Issue is scheduled to appear in September 2017, with a manuscript delivery deadline of June 2017.

While ecocritical approaches to Joyce, in particular in Eco-Joyce (Brazeau and Gladwin) and The Ecology of Finnegans Wake (Lacivita), have recently generated interest in Joyce’s environmental imagination, connections between Joyce and animal studies, or Joyce and the ‘nonhuman turn’, have yet to be explored. In Portrait, Temple is credited with the idea that ‘The most profound sentence ever written…is the sentence at the end of the zoology. Reproduction is the beginning of death’. But although excellent critical work on Joyce and animals has certainly appeared, with perennial interests being Tatters of ‘Proteus’, the Blooms’ cat, Garryowen of ‘Cyclops’, and, of course, cattle disease, a sustained volume or special issue certainly seems necessary. Equally, the voice of the printing press, which, Bloom reminds us in ‘Aeolus’, ‘speaks in its own way. Sllt.’ (7: 174–7) has been heard, but not so far in the sense of the ‘nonhuman turn’ which only emerged in 2012. This Special Issue seeks to offer a space for sustained consideration of how Joyce represents the animal and the nonhuman throughout his works. Contributions that suggest how we might feed Joyce’s example into contemporary conversations about animals and the nonhuman are also sought.

We welcome submissions that interrogate and interpret Joyce’s relation to the world beyond the human and are open to a range of approaches, including theoretical, textual, genetic and historical. We also welcome submissions from both emerging and established scholars.

We seek 250–500 word proposals for original contributions and a 100-word biography (included selected publications) by 31 October 2016; please email both the Guest Editor and the journal, as listed below.

Dr. Katherine Ebury
Guest Editor

• Deadline for proposal submissions: 31st October 2016
• Contact email: k.ebury@sheffield.ac.uk, humanities@mdpi.com

BJHS Special Section - Palaeonarratives and Palaeopractices: Excavating and Interpreting Deep History

Group members might be interested in the (open access) special section of the September 2016 issue of the British Journal for the History of Science, on palaeonarratives and palaeopractices, especially guest editor Amanda Rees's 'Stories of stones and bones: disciplinarity, narrative and practice in British popular prehistory, 1911–1935'.

Victorian Network - Issue on 'The Victorian Brain'

The Summer 2016 issue of Victorian Network, entitled "Victorian Brain" and guest edited by Professor Sally Shuttleworth (University of Oxford), is now available.

Talk - The Strange Spaces of Chinese Science Fiction

Dr Sarah Dodd (University of Leeds)
5pm, October 26, 2016 (Wednesday) FAMES Rooms 8 & 9 

The history of science fiction in China reaches back to the beginning of the twentieth century, when utopian narratives of an idealised future played their part in calls for a revolution in fiction, and it has remained deeply entangled with the ideas and politics of a changing China. This talk will provide a whistle-stop tour of key movements in the history of Chinese SF, before considering the recent 'new wave' of writers, whose work is gaining awards and recognition not only in China but also in English translation. Looking at the work of Liu Cixin, whose Three Body trilogy is the first Chinese SF novel to be translated into English, and a number of other writers who are finding success in short stories, I will discuss the ways in which these works explore themes of hybridity, haunting and boundary-crossing – all tied in with ideas of contested space, whether of the body, society or the universe itself. Finally, to add another dimension to the discussion, I will look at the space of the SF field, considering the role of magazines, awards and fandom, as well as the key figure of author and translator Ken Liu, who has played an important role in bringing Chinese SF to English-speaking audiences, paving the way for recent ventures such as the collaboration between Clarkesworld magazine and Storycom International Culture – the first time an English-language genre magazine has made translation a regular part of every issue.

Speaker Dr Sarah Dodd is Lecturer in Chinese Studies at the University of Leeds. She teaches courses on Chinese literature, history and cinema, and her research focuses on representations of the monstrous in classical and contemporary Chinese fiction. She is co-organiser of the projects Writing Chinese: Authors, Authorship and Authority (http://writingchinese.leeds.ac.uk/) – which aims to create a network of authors, translators, academics and others working in the field of contemporary Chinese fiction – and Reading the Fantastic (http://reading-the-fantastic.tumblr.com/), which brings together early career researchers looking at various aspects of the intercultural fantastic.

CFP - Literature and Science: The State of the Unions

JLS/CONFIGURATIONS “DOUBLE ISSUE”: THE STATE OF THE UNIONS

What are the relations between literature, science and the arts within our field today? This special double issue marks a unique collaboration between the Journal of Literature and Science and Configurations. Across two years – 2017 in the JLS and 2018 in Configurations – we aim to enable scholars of all career-stages to debate the nature of the interdisciplinary relations of our field in short and sharp “position” papers of approximately 2000 words.

We therefore invite contributions that make an intervention in our thinking about the field of literature, science and arts. Potential topics for discussion include, but are not limited to, the following:

1. The meanings of interdisciplinarity in the field
2. The place of the study of literature and science within the academy
3. International variations or international synergies
4. Collaborative work between literature/arts and the scientific community
5. How do we (now) define "literature" in the dyad of literature and science?
6. The relationship between cultural theory and historicism in the field
7. How is literature and science evolving in relation to its own splintering (into animal studies, neuroscience, environmental studies, etc.)?
8. Speculations: what is the future of the field?
9. Reflections: where has the field most profited and where has it gone astray?

Submission information for the first issue:

• Length of contribution: 2000 words
• Deadline: December 16th, 2016
• Send to: Melissa Littlefield (mml@illinois.edu) and Martin Willis (willism8@cardiff.ac.uk)
• Publication: JLS 10.1 in June 2017
• Decisions on inclusion in the first issue by February 2017

NOTE: A further call for contributions for the second issue (Configurations, 2018) will go out in the Summer of 2017. It is to be hoped that the second issue will include, among other topics, reflections on the first set of published papers.

Cambridge Shorts 2016 - DISH LIFE

What do scientists really think about their stem cells ?

Dish Life is a melting pot of stem cell science, sociology and creative filmmaking.

Cambridge Shorts brings you an unseen world. Where stem cells and scientists talk to each other. The life in the dish, revealed. We may know why scientists do research into regenerative medicine, we may know what stem cells are, but we don't know how the scientists feel about working with them. What is in the process of culturing cells. Stem cells are more like unruly pets. They can be happy or sad. And so are the scientists.....

Pre-book on EventBrite ( £2 on door). Watch the trailer and follow our news !

Co-created by Dr. Loriana Vitillo (Wellcome Trust/MRC Cambridge Stem Cell Institute) and Karen Jent (Reproductive Sociology). Written and Directed by Chloë Thomas (chloejocasta@gmail.com). A project funded by Cambridge Shorts 2016, University of Cambridge.

31st October - Sensitive Fire

Our next meeting of term will take place on Hallowe'en, and, appropriately enough, we will be exploring so-called 'sensitive flames': could these dancing embers provide a hint on how to reach beyond the grave? We will think about the genre of the scientific journal, the limits of scientific understanding, and how literary form could help determine the remit of the mid-Victorian man of science.

We meet, as usual, from 7.30-9pm in the Newnham Grange Seminar Room at Darwin College. Readings here:

• John Tyndall, ‘On sounding and sensitive flames’, Philosophical Magazine 4 (1867), 92-99.
• W.F. Barrett, ‘Note on “sensitive flames”’, Philosophical Magazine 4 (1867), 216-222.
• [James Clerk Maxwell], ‘To the Chief Musician Upon Nabla: A Tyndallic Ode’, in ‘The British Association Meeting at Edinburgh’, Nature 4 (1871), 288-298, 291.

Optional further reading: Richard Noakes, ‘The “bridge which is between physical and psychical research”: William Fletcher Barrett, Sensitive Flames, and Spiritualism’, History of Science xlii (2004), 419-464.

If you have difficulties accessing any of the readings then please email Melanie for pdf copies!

Recap - Cosmic Fire

Our first fiery discussion of the term delved deep into Heraclitean philosophy, as we sought an understanding of his cosmology. Whether considering flux or balance, mensuration or childishness, it was clear that our hour-and-a-half discussion was only ever going to be a beginning to a longer journey of reflection on allusive sayings and elusive meanings (I feel Heraclitus would have approved). Along the way, we were helped by thoughtful and  generous contributions from our numerous, wide-ranging group of attendees - thanks to all who came!

Comparing the more academic translation of Heraclitus's fragments with later poetic versions enabled us to foreground the form of his philosophy: suggestive, rather than didactic, perhaps? Like nature's hidden meanings, did true wisdom also have an occult quality? Should it more fruitfully be compared with contemporary Daoist writings, rather than Greek sophistry? A fine reading of Gerard Manley Hopkins brought out new textures to his poem, and after dwelling on the spiritual elements of Heraclitus's writings, we were able to see how its ideals of change, becoming, and conflagration could be co-opted in imagery of the Christian resurrection. Indeed, how metaphorical, and how literal, Heraclitus's fire might have been formed another hot topic of discussion: in a characteristic move for the Reading Group, this led to both a frantic Googling of the history of scorched earth agriculture, and a meditation on the etymology and linguistic co-locations (and collocations) of fire with anger, life, or love.

All this, and much more (I haven't even mentioned Nietzsche): our interest in this topic has certainly been kindled.