Thursday, November 22, 2012
British Society for Literature and Science Conference 2013 – Call for Papers
This conference would welcome perspectives from Medical Humanities.
The British Society for Literature and Science invites proposals for papers and panels to be delivered at its eighth annual conference to be held in Cardiff, 11-13 April 2013.
The BSLS Conference does not have a theme (as it its usual practise) but especially welcomes proposals on the state of the field of literature and science as well as its relation to other fields. This year we would be particularly interested to receive proposals that reflect upon the interdisciplinary study of literature and science in the context of the debate about the present position of the humanities in academia. However, the Society remains committed to supporting proposals on all aspects of literature and science across all periods.
Proposals for papers of 15-20 minutes should be sent in the body of the email text (no attachments, please), to bsls2013@yahoo.co.uk with the subject line ‘BSLS 2013 abstract’. Submissions should include the title of the paper, an abstract of no more than 300 words, a maximum of 3 keywords (placed at the end of the abstract), and the name and contact details of the speaker.
Closing date for submissions: 7 December 2012.
(Decisions will be made in January 2013)
Contributors interested in organising a panel or other special session, or who have suggestions for alternative forms of conference presentation, are warmly encouraged to contact the conference organisers. The organisers would welcome, for example, workshops on teaching literature and science, or on specific themes in literature and science that cross period boundaries, or on specific published works with considerable influence in the field. Please email the organisers on bsls2013@yahoo.co.uk, using ‘BSLS 2013 Panel’ as the subject line in email correspondence.
Funding: a bursary of £150 will be awarded to a graduate student on the basis on the paper proposals. The student must be registered for a masters or doctoral degree on 9 January 2013. The conference fee will be waived for two further graduate students in exchange for written reports on the conference, to be published in the subsequent issue of the BSLS Newsletter. If you are interested in being selected for one of these places, please mention this when sending in your proposal.
Accommodation: please note that those attending will need to make their own arrangements for accommodation. Information on selected hotels will be available shortly on the conference website. As in previous years, we anticipate that the conference will begin at about 1pm on the first day and conclude at about 2pm on the last.
Membership: in order to attend the conference, you must be a paid-up member of the BSLS for 2013. We anticipate that it will be possible to pay the £10 annual membership fee when paying the conference fee online.
FURTHER INFORMATION
Visit the conference website
Thursday, May 17, 2012
Retelling tales of Pregnancy and Birth conference update
There is now a full programme for this conference here. Helen King, conference organiser, has also let me know that thanks to generous funding from the Wellcome (love them!), the registration fee is very low, especially for post-graduates.
Sunday, March 25, 2012
Poet Sheila Black considers pain, disability, selfhood and ‘the problem of normal’
Interesting blog posting by Robin Amer about how poet Sheila Black has been inspired by the depictions of pain and selfhood evident in the work of Freida Kahlo.
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Medical Humanities and Engagement Grants
Medical Humanities and Engagement (MH&E) Grants provides funding for high-quality research and activities in the fields of medical humanities and public engagement with biomedical science. They aim to build and maintain research capacity in medical history and biomedical ethics while capitalising on opportunities to support the broader medical humanities.
The team manages the funding committees and associated budgets for the division’s grant programmes, monitors active grant portfolios, reports on outcomes and outputs of grants, evaluates the impact of Trust-funded projects and supports grantholders with their awards.
Details of the internship
You will be involved in capturing and presenting the outcomes of our funded research and activities. You will get a sense of what and how we fund, and you will have the opportunity to meet researchers and science communicators and attend some funded events.
In addition, you will help to plan and deliver public engagement grantholder packs and work with advisors to develop a framework for creative workshops in public engagement, helping to develop our grant-making capacity. You will also help to coordinate the planning and implementation of an event to celebrate five years of the Arts Awards.
Specific requirements
In addition to meeting the general eligibility criteria, you will need to be studying for a degree in life sciences or medical humanities and have good writing and communication skills. Some previous experience of devising and collating content for the web would be useful, and an interest in the work of the MH&E Division (in particular, science communication, public engagement, medical humanities, the history of medicine and/or biomedical ethics) will be an advantage.
More details here
The team manages the funding committees and associated budgets for the division’s grant programmes, monitors active grant portfolios, reports on outcomes and outputs of grants, evaluates the impact of Trust-funded projects and supports grantholders with their awards.
Details of the internship
You will be involved in capturing and presenting the outcomes of our funded research and activities. You will get a sense of what and how we fund, and you will have the opportunity to meet researchers and science communicators and attend some funded events.
In addition, you will help to plan and deliver public engagement grantholder packs and work with advisors to develop a framework for creative workshops in public engagement, helping to develop our grant-making capacity. You will also help to coordinate the planning and implementation of an event to celebrate five years of the Arts Awards.
Specific requirements
In addition to meeting the general eligibility criteria, you will need to be studying for a degree in life sciences or medical humanities and have good writing and communication skills. Some previous experience of devising and collating content for the web would be useful, and an interest in the work of the MH&E Division (in particular, science communication, public engagement, medical humanities, the history of medicine and/or biomedical ethics) will be an advantage.
More details here
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Retelling familiar tales of pregnancy and birth in European cultures
CALL FOR PAPERS: Retelling familiar tales of pregnancy and birth in European cultures
Tues 3rd-Weds 4th July 2012, Oxford
Purpose of conference
This conference aims to bring together leading specialists from a range of the medical humanities with healthcare professionals to explore the trope of the retelling of stories about pregnancy and birth. While recent work has considered the way in which stories of exceptional pregnancies and unusual births have been told again and again over western history, from Greek mythology and the Old Testament until the present day, the methodological and intellectual questions raised by these retellings have not been discussed in detail. Taking a very broad geographic and chronological focus (Europe from Antiquity to the present day), our objective is to encourage innovative interdisciplinary exchanges by addressing the following questions. How did the growth of print culture in Europe encourage the retelling of familiar birthing tales, and how were new ones added? Why did some stories of pregnancy and birth circulate more widely than others? When stories are retold, which details of the original are always retained, which are lost in the retelling, and how and why do new accretions creep into the story?
Sessions
The gathering particularly looks to provide the opportunity for discussion and exchange on both substance and methodology between, on the one hand, a wide range of academic disciplines contributing to the medical humanities (e.g. cultural history, art history, history of the book, literary scholars) and, on the other hand, health-care practitioners who have been increasingly focused on the oral transmission of case histories (midwives, obstetricians and gynaecologists, psychiatrists). The four sessions proposed are thus wide-ranging and deliberately aim to juxtapose contributions from academics and practitioners in the various sessions.
1) The trope of repetition, or why some tales of pregnancy and birth are retold
2) Exploring accretion and loss: how tales are retold across time (Antiquity to the present) and across different geographic and cultural European contexts
3) Who sees or experiences, who tells and who reads repeated tales: patients, practitioners, witnesses and readers:
4) The significance of the material circulation of repeated tales in word and image
Keynote plenary session: Professor Monica Green (Arizona State University)
Practical Details
The conference sessions, including lunches and dinners, will be held in Lady Margaret Hall, a college of the University of Oxford, located in attractive grounds in the north of the city. We are looking to provide bed and breakfast accommodation in another Oxford college for the nights of 2-3-4 July 2012 for delegates who wish to take advantage of this. Alternatively, Oxford has a range of good guesthouses and hotels for those wishing to organise their own accommodation. We hope to have some bursary support available for students.
Submitting a proposal for a paper
Please email all proposals for papers to Professor Helen King (h.king@open.ac.uk) by 3 April 2012. Papers should last for 20 minutes to allow 10 minutes discussion after each speaker. A proposal should give the title of the paper, an abstract of up to 400 words, and your contact details. Proposals for shared papers or panels are particularly welcome, as are poster presentations. The working language of the conference will be English.
All proposals will be considered by the organising panel: Professor Helen King (Open University), Dr Janette Allotey (Manchester, Chair of De Partu History of Childbirth Group, University of Manchester, and Professor Valerie Worth (Trinity College Oxford)
Tues 3rd-Weds 4th July 2012, Oxford
Purpose of conference
This conference aims to bring together leading specialists from a range of the medical humanities with healthcare professionals to explore the trope of the retelling of stories about pregnancy and birth. While recent work has considered the way in which stories of exceptional pregnancies and unusual births have been told again and again over western history, from Greek mythology and the Old Testament until the present day, the methodological and intellectual questions raised by these retellings have not been discussed in detail. Taking a very broad geographic and chronological focus (Europe from Antiquity to the present day), our objective is to encourage innovative interdisciplinary exchanges by addressing the following questions. How did the growth of print culture in Europe encourage the retelling of familiar birthing tales, and how were new ones added? Why did some stories of pregnancy and birth circulate more widely than others? When stories are retold, which details of the original are always retained, which are lost in the retelling, and how and why do new accretions creep into the story?
Sessions
The gathering particularly looks to provide the opportunity for discussion and exchange on both substance and methodology between, on the one hand, a wide range of academic disciplines contributing to the medical humanities (e.g. cultural history, art history, history of the book, literary scholars) and, on the other hand, health-care practitioners who have been increasingly focused on the oral transmission of case histories (midwives, obstetricians and gynaecologists, psychiatrists). The four sessions proposed are thus wide-ranging and deliberately aim to juxtapose contributions from academics and practitioners in the various sessions.
1) The trope of repetition, or why some tales of pregnancy and birth are retold
2) Exploring accretion and loss: how tales are retold across time (Antiquity to the present) and across different geographic and cultural European contexts
3) Who sees or experiences, who tells and who reads repeated tales: patients, practitioners, witnesses and readers:
4) The significance of the material circulation of repeated tales in word and image
Keynote plenary session: Professor Monica Green (Arizona State University)
Practical Details
The conference sessions, including lunches and dinners, will be held in Lady Margaret Hall, a college of the University of Oxford, located in attractive grounds in the north of the city. We are looking to provide bed and breakfast accommodation in another Oxford college for the nights of 2-3-4 July 2012 for delegates who wish to take advantage of this. Alternatively, Oxford has a range of good guesthouses and hotels for those wishing to organise their own accommodation. We hope to have some bursary support available for students.
Submitting a proposal for a paper
Please email all proposals for papers to Professor Helen King (h.king@open.ac.uk) by 3 April 2012. Papers should last for 20 minutes to allow 10 minutes discussion after each speaker. A proposal should give the title of the paper, an abstract of up to 400 words, and your contact details. Proposals for shared papers or panels are particularly welcome, as are poster presentations. The working language of the conference will be English.
All proposals will be considered by the organising panel: Professor Helen King (Open University), Dr Janette Allotey (Manchester, Chair of De Partu History of Childbirth Group, University of Manchester, and Professor Valerie Worth (Trinity College Oxford)
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Book surgery
Artist Brian Dettmer turns old reference books into new works of art using surgical tools. Isn't this gorgeous?
Monday, February 13, 2012
Association for Medical Humanities Annual Conference
University College Cork, July 9-11, 2012
The 2012 conference of the Association for Medical Humanities will take place at University College Cork, Ireland, with the kind support of the Wellcome Trust. Organised in conjunction with the Consortium for Medical Humanities, an inter-University initiative to develop research in Medical Humanities in Ireland, the theme is ‘Medical Identities: patients and professionals’, and we hope that it is one that will allow for a broad interpretation of the development of the profession, and of the people who use and serve it. Themes may include:
• Local, regional and national medical identities related to place and space.
• Medical migrants (movement in search of treatment and training)
• The impact of culture, politics and socialisation on medical practice
• The development of identities – professional hierarchies within and between specialisms
• Alternative therapies
• Rise of advocacy groups – the emergence of a collective patient identity
• Professional organisation – the development of the BMA/IMA
• Changes in identity as a result of medical intervention – amputees, etc.
• Medicine in war
• Patient as consumer: private medical care
• Charitable medicine – Medecins Sans Frontieres versus medical missionaries
Keynote Speakers:
Prof Ivor Browne, author of ‘Music and Madness’, Emeritus Prof of Psychiatry, UCD
Prof Jane Macnaughton, CAHHM, Durham University
Prof Steven King, Centre for Medical Humanities, University of Leicester
Conference Organising Committee:
Dr Oonagh Walsh, University College Cork, Dr Ciara Breathnach, University of Limerick, and Dr Olwen Purdue, Queen’s University Belfast.
Please send a 200 word proposal to the organisers at medhumsireland@gmail.com Suggestions for panels are also welcomed.
The 2012 conference of the Association for Medical Humanities will take place at University College Cork, Ireland, with the kind support of the Wellcome Trust. Organised in conjunction with the Consortium for Medical Humanities, an inter-University initiative to develop research in Medical Humanities in Ireland, the theme is ‘Medical Identities: patients and professionals’, and we hope that it is one that will allow for a broad interpretation of the development of the profession, and of the people who use and serve it. Themes may include:
• Local, regional and national medical identities related to place and space.
• Medical migrants (movement in search of treatment and training)
• The impact of culture, politics and socialisation on medical practice
• The development of identities – professional hierarchies within and between specialisms
• Alternative therapies
• Rise of advocacy groups – the emergence of a collective patient identity
• Professional organisation – the development of the BMA/IMA
• Changes in identity as a result of medical intervention – amputees, etc.
• Medicine in war
• Patient as consumer: private medical care
• Charitable medicine – Medecins Sans Frontieres versus medical missionaries
Keynote Speakers:
Prof Ivor Browne, author of ‘Music and Madness’, Emeritus Prof of Psychiatry, UCD
Prof Jane Macnaughton, CAHHM, Durham University
Prof Steven King, Centre for Medical Humanities, University of Leicester
Conference Organising Committee:
Dr Oonagh Walsh, University College Cork, Dr Ciara Breathnach, University of Limerick, and Dr Olwen Purdue, Queen’s University Belfast.
Please send a 200 word proposal to the organisers at medhumsireland@gmail.com Suggestions for panels are also welcomed.
Monday, January 30, 2012
Sublime Body seeks performers
A newly formed Arts Organisation called Parlour Arts is looking for artists and performers for their upcoming exhibition, "The Sublime Body". The exhibition will take place in the Parlour Space in Kentish Town 27th February- 4th March. They have already begun taking submissions of visual artworks, but are now looking for performers to perform on the closing night of the exhibition. The performance can take any form from spoken word to dance to music to film or short plays. This is a great opportunity for new artists and performers to show off their work and one not to be missed. For more information and to register interest, please contact Fiona Bradley, Parlour Arts
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Classics for ethics?
I’ve been invited to deliver a masterclass in using classical literature to teach ethics at the Institute of Medical Ethics Conference next month. I’m really looking forward to it, not least because three former students are up for the Mark Brenner prize for creative approaches to ethical issues in clinical attachments. Good luck Matt, Rory and Rebecca.
Classical literature for narrative source material for ethics, as distinct from contemporary literature, has made me think about the characteristics of classics. For a novel or short story to be considered a classic, it has to have withstood the rigours of time and competition. Its themes, characters and/or plot have a value that transcends period and place, making it worthy of our attention – and still relevant -- many years after it was penned. Classics are paradigmatic. They are touchstones for cultural excellence. But does their status mean we come to them with a less open mind about the moral stances they might advocate?
Reading a classic absolves the reader of the judging whether something is ‘good literature’ or not. That decision has already been made collectively for us by cultural consensus, aided and abetted by those who decide school syllabuses, write textbooks or are editors for publishers’ ‘Classics’ series. I find that I approach the reading of a classic with a different mindset to when I read contemporary literature. When a text is taken for granted as ‘good’, I feel an obligation as reader to ‘be improved’ by my reading. I must seek out what has been deemed good about a text and be appropriately appreciative. Happily, this is rarely onerous. With the possible exception of Ulysses, I have enjoyed reading the canonical texts in medical humanities: Middlemarch, Madame Bovary, Magic Mountain… (is there a correlation between titles starting with ‘M’ and classic status?).
Writing in the introduction to the excellent book Stories and their Limits, Nelson says that ethics took a ‘personal turn’ in the 1980s away from the impartialist approach (with its emphasis on universalism) to focus instead on the value of moral significance of individual relationships (love, friendship, community). Might the ‘classic’ status of a text imply a framework of universalism that sets it at odds with the preoccupations of the personal that are intrinsic to narrative ethics? Do classics already have a presupposed strong moral force that is inescapable for the reader? It is well known that we practise ‘confirmation bias’ in that we tend to favour stances that support positions that we are already committed to. If a narrative has attained classic status, it might well be because it tells us a story that conforms to a collective sense of morality. Can we then be sufficiently critically available enough to really open up a text to moral investigation? After all, as John Arras writes in his sardonically entitled chapter ‘Nice story, so what?’ (Stories and their Limits), ‘Ethics without judgment is not ethics.’
A counter-argument would be that classics are often provocative rather than complacent in their moral stances. The moral ambiguity in the writings of Shakespeare, Kafka, Shelley, Tolstoy, Chekhov and many of the other ‘greats’ is what helps to elevate their texts to ‘classic’ status. It contributes to why they are still amenable to seemingly inexhaustible analysis, in spite of all the intervening years of scholarship and debate.
Does a certifiably good story intrinsically have a moral dimension? The French literary critic Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve certainly thought so. He wrote in 1850: “A true classic, as I should like to hear it defined, is an author who has enriched the human mind, increased its treasure, and caused it to advance a step; who has discovered some moral and not equivocal truth” (my emphasis). I think it is almost always possible to find a moral dimension in classic texts that have a medical motif. If ethical issues do not suggest themselves in the plot or character, there may be discussion points around the relationship of the author to matters medical, or about how medicine is represented as a profession. One of the advantages of studying classics is that it demands a consideration of context. It compels us to put aside current legal frameworks and norms, and really think about how morality is narratively shaped.
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Medfest 2012
News of a wonderful medically themed film festival touring the UK. This is the second year of the festival which aims to provoke debate on the ethics and politics of doctors on film. This year's theme is 'HealthScreen - understanding illness through film'. The first event is at Birmingham University on 7 February with 15 further events at medical schools around the UK. Education films, health information films and mainstream Hollywood movies will all be considered. Each event is free with no ticket required. Entry is on a first-come basis. More details here.
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Blog redesign
When this blog was started some eight years ago, it was envisaged as a place where students from the Imperial College Medical Humanities course could share their writing and any medical humanities activities. This worked well for many years, but since then, the websphere has changed, as has the nature of medical education. An explosion in social media means that students no longer need a formal space in which to showcase their writing. Many have blogs of their own or rely on Facebook to raise their profile. Also students have such full timetables that it is unrealistic to expect long-term commitments to writing for a group blog. So, whilst I still envisage inviting posts from students and others associated with the course at Imperial, I'm going to take ownership of the blog and try to write more myself. I'm pretty sure this was the first blog devoted to medical humanities, and it's been nice to see other groups set up their own blogs to tell us about their activities. I'll be posting links to UK medical humanities conferences and events, so please let me know if you would like anything included. I won't be adding or accepting sponsored links. I'm in the process of updating the blog roll, so will be accepting suggestions for relevant sites.
Comics & Medicine: Navigating the Margins
22-24 July 2012
Toronto, Canada
Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto Biomedical Communications Program, University of Toronto, Office of the Vice-Principal, Research, University of Toronto, Mississauga
The third international interdisciplinary conference* on comics and medicine will continue to explore the intersection of sequential visual arts and medicine. This year we will highlight perspectives that are often under-represented in graphic narratives, such as depictions of the Outsider or Other in the context of issues such as barriers to healthcare, the stigma of mental illness and disability, and the silent burden of caretaking.
The conference will feature keynote presentations by comics creators Joyce Brabner and Joyce Farmer. Brabner, a comics artist and social activist, collaborated with her late husband Harvey Pekar on the graphic novel Our Cancer Year (1994), which won a Harvey Award for best graphic novel. Farmer is a veteran of the underground comics scene who nursed her elderly parents through dementia and decline as shown in her graphic memoir Special Exits (2010), which won the National Cartoonists Society award for graphic novels.
We invite proposals for scholarly papers (20 minutes) or panel discussions (60 minutes) focusing on medicine and comics in any form (e.g., graphic novels, comic strips, graphic pathographies, manga, and/or web comics). In particular, we seek presentations on the following— and related—topics:
• Graphic pathographies of illness and disability
• The use of comics in medical education
• The use of comics in patient care
• Depictions of the illness experience from the perspective of loved ones and family caregivers
• The interface of graphic medicine and other visual arts in popular culture
• Ethical implications of using comics to educate the public
• Ethical implications of patient representation in comics by healthcare providers
• Trends in international use of comics in healthcare settings
• The role of comics in provider/patient communication
• Comics as virtual support groups for patients and caregivers
• The use of comics in bioethics discussions and education
We also welcome workshops (120 minutes) by creators of comics on the process, rationale, methods, and general theories behind the use of comics to explore medical themes. These are intended to be “hands-on” interactive workshops for participants who wish to obtain particular
skills with regard to the creation or teaching about comics in the medical context.
We envision this gathering as a collaboration among humanities scholars, comics scholars, comics creators, healthcare professionals, and comics enthusiasts.
300-word proposals should be submitted by Friday, 28 February 2012 to
submissions@graphicmedicine.org.
Proposals may be in Word, PDF, or RTF formats with the following
information in this order:
• author(s)
• affiliation
• email address
• title of abstract
• body of abstract
Please identify your presentation preference:
• oral presentation
• panel discussion
• workshop
While we cannot guarantee that presenters will receive their first choice of presentation format, we will attempt to honor people’s preferences, and we will acknowledge the receipt of all proposals submitted. Abstracts will be peer-reviewed by an interdisciplinary selection committee. Notification of acceptance or rejection will be completed by 14 March 2012.
Please note: Presenters are responsible for session expenses (e.g. handouts) and personal expenses (travel, hotel, and meeting registration fees). All presenters must register for at least the day on which they are scheduled to present.
More info & updates at graphicmedicine.wordpress.com
*Information about the 2010 conference, “Comics and Medicine: Medical Narrative in Graphic Novels,” in London, England, and the 2011 conference, “Comics and Medicine: The Sequential Art of Illness,” in Chicago, Illinois, USA, can be found at http://www.blogger.com/www.graphicmedicine.org.
Toronto, Canada
Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto Biomedical Communications Program, University of Toronto, Office of the Vice-Principal, Research, University of Toronto, Mississauga
The third international interdisciplinary conference* on comics and medicine will continue to explore the intersection of sequential visual arts and medicine. This year we will highlight perspectives that are often under-represented in graphic narratives, such as depictions of the Outsider or Other in the context of issues such as barriers to healthcare, the stigma of mental illness and disability, and the silent burden of caretaking.
The conference will feature keynote presentations by comics creators Joyce Brabner and Joyce Farmer. Brabner, a comics artist and social activist, collaborated with her late husband Harvey Pekar on the graphic novel Our Cancer Year (1994), which won a Harvey Award for best graphic novel. Farmer is a veteran of the underground comics scene who nursed her elderly parents through dementia and decline as shown in her graphic memoir Special Exits (2010), which won the National Cartoonists Society award for graphic novels.
We invite proposals for scholarly papers (20 minutes) or panel discussions (60 minutes) focusing on medicine and comics in any form (e.g., graphic novels, comic strips, graphic pathographies, manga, and/or web comics). In particular, we seek presentations on the following— and related—topics:
• Graphic pathographies of illness and disability
• The use of comics in medical education
• The use of comics in patient care
• Depictions of the illness experience from the perspective of loved ones and family caregivers
• The interface of graphic medicine and other visual arts in popular culture
• Ethical implications of using comics to educate the public
• Ethical implications of patient representation in comics by healthcare providers
• Trends in international use of comics in healthcare settings
• The role of comics in provider/patient communication
• Comics as virtual support groups for patients and caregivers
• The use of comics in bioethics discussions and education
We also welcome workshops (120 minutes) by creators of comics on the process, rationale, methods, and general theories behind the use of comics to explore medical themes. These are intended to be “hands-on” interactive workshops for participants who wish to obtain particular
skills with regard to the creation or teaching about comics in the medical context.
We envision this gathering as a collaboration among humanities scholars, comics scholars, comics creators, healthcare professionals, and comics enthusiasts.
300-word proposals should be submitted by Friday, 28 February 2012 to
submissions@graphicmedicine.org.
Proposals may be in Word, PDF, or RTF formats with the following
information in this order:
• author(s)
• affiliation
• email address
• title of abstract
• body of abstract
Please identify your presentation preference:
• oral presentation
• panel discussion
• workshop
While we cannot guarantee that presenters will receive their first choice of presentation format, we will attempt to honor people’s preferences, and we will acknowledge the receipt of all proposals submitted. Abstracts will be peer-reviewed by an interdisciplinary selection committee. Notification of acceptance or rejection will be completed by 14 March 2012.
Please note: Presenters are responsible for session expenses (e.g. handouts) and personal expenses (travel, hotel, and meeting registration fees). All presenters must register for at least the day on which they are scheduled to present.
More info & updates at graphicmedicine.wordpress.com
*Information about the 2010 conference, “Comics and Medicine: Medical Narrative in Graphic Novels,” in London, England, and the 2011 conference, “Comics and Medicine: The Sequential Art of Illness,” in Chicago, Illinois, USA, can be found at http://www.blogger.com/www.graphicmedicine.org.
Monday, May 09, 2011
Iris
You are warmly invited to the opening reception on Tuesday 17 May of 'Iris', a celebration of art by this year's Medical Humanities students. The reception starts at 7 pm. The exhibition is in the Blyth Gallery, Sherfield Building, Level 5 of the South Kensington campus of Imperial College London. All welcome.
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Centre for Medical Humanities at Durham
The Centre for Medical Humanities at Durham University has a great blog, giving notice of medical humanities events but also offering reflections on the relationship between medicine and broader concepts of health.
Monday, March 07, 2011
Off Sick project
Posted on behalf of Dr Richard Marsden:
Scholars from the universities of Glamorgan and Cardiff South Wales area.
This is very much an interdisciplinary project, which aims to explore not only how carers construct and define their experiences through stories in the present day, but also how they did so in previous decades and centuries. Moreover, Off Sick also brings in comparative material from the literary sphere, including fictional accounts, life-writing and poetry.
The peg on which this work is hung is the encounter with ‘medical institutions’. Indeed, the very idea of the illness narrative arose partly in response to a tendency for clinicians to neglect the experiences of the patient, seeing them instead in de-personalized terms as biological problems to be solved with science. Illness narratives are often perceived as a means of reversing this trend and re-empowering the patient.
For that reason, the stories that Off Sick is particularly interested in deal with visits to hospitals and other clinical settings. However, it is the ways in which carers and family members turn their experiences of such encounters into narratives that is the real crux of this research. This emphasis on the stories of those around illness, together with its holistic and comparative approach to contemporary, historical and literary materials, is what makes Off Sick so innovative.
The project’s findings will be showcased through academic presentations and publications, and also through an exhibition (scheduled for June 2011) which is aimed not at academics but at individuals and groups whose lives have been affected by illness and who have their own stories to tell about it. In addition, Off Sick runs a lively, varied and ongoing programme of events and public talks drawing on the expertise of literary scholars, historians, social scientists and medical practitioners.
For more information on the project you can visit the Off Sick website, join the Off Sick Facebook group or follow Off Sick on Twitter. Alternatively please contact the project’s Research Assistant, Dr Richard Marsden, on rmarsden@glam.ac.uk.
Not so Black and White
Are psychotic disorders accurately portrayed to the public through popular media? Darren Aronofsky’s “Black Swan” presents a ballerina’s descent into schizophrenia, caused by the pressure and competitive environment of her home and production company.
Nina (played by Natalie 
Portman) is cast as the Swan Queen in a production of Swan Lake in spite of initial trepidation that she would be unable to fulfil the unrestricted and carpe diem nature of the Black Swan. Swan Lake has the Black and White Swans; characters that are polar opposites from one another, and Nina’s state of mind is presented in relation to the character she dons at any particular time. Is this providing a too clear cut definition of the disorder? Schizophrenia is medically described as a progressive disorder, where as well as the white and black, there is a grey area where the disorder is not in full effect.
This grey area is not presented as much in the film, because the focus is on the Black and White Swans only. The clear cut definition is emphasised by scenes in the artist director’s flat in the film, where the entire room and all furniture is either black or white, with no other contrast given. The artist director himself, when describing the premise of Swan Lake, is reflected in a mirror as having two heads, suggesting a split personality of the oncoming mental disorder. A staging of disease progression is not acknowledged either during the film, and this could possibly lead to a misconception that schizophrenia is a disorder that is either fully present or completely absent.
Initially Nina is a very introvert, quiet character, embodying the White Swan’s innocence perfectly. The loss of inhibition and ability to cast of all shackles coincides with her metamorphosis into the Black Swan and the onset of her psychotic episodes. Whilst disinhibition is a schizophrenic episode, it is not the only likely path. Just as likely are negative symptoms, such as blunted emotions, a complete loss of pleasure and other functional disabilities. These are not touched on in the film, but are still severe symptoms of the disorder.
Overall, however, the film is extremely well made; a provocative and thrilling watch and I would recommend it without a moment’s hesitation. The feeling that the disorder could have been dealt with in a better way lingers, but does not diminish the final product.
Saturday, March 05, 2011
John Stezaker and the Medical Profession
British artist John Stezaker takes portraits and various landscapes and questions conventional understanding of lines and flow. He creates collages of seemingly contrasting pictures into curious, coherent and captivating images, in this exhibition of various collections of his artwork. A few of us from the medical humanities course attended his exhibition held at Whitechapel Gallery (on till 18Mar11). This blog posting is an analysis of some of the images and their possible interpretations applicable to the medical profession.
Stezaker is perhaps best known for his Mask series which fuses celebrity portraits with landscapes and makes the stones and trees do the talking instead of eyes and mouths. A side-profile picture of a man and woman close to kissing have the fronts of their faces replaced by a picture of a gorge, one with straight edges, perhaps signifying no intimate connection actually exists. The same picture is then collaged with a gorge with overhanging trees and shrubs, hinting the possibility of growing into each other and a mingling of personalities, physical touch or mental connection. Such concepts could be applied to the changing nature of the doctor-patient relationship. The traditional lab-coat-wearing doctor with the paternalistic attitude is reminiscent of the straight-cut gorge. But this is slowly being replaced by the down-to-earth, rapport-building, patient-centred attitude, more similar to the image with the mingling of tree branches and shrubs between the gorges. In the words of Anatole Broyard, “How can a doctor presume to cure a patient if he knows nothing about his soul, his personality, his character disorders? It’s all part of it.”
The smaller series entitled Fall, fuses naked frontal and back photos, split along the length of the body, of man and woman. The uncanny similarities between both male and female body shape and lines flow almost seamlessly into each other (discounting the obvious cut down the middle of the image), but the intriguing part is the question of the purpose of the title. Perhaps the artist is hinting at sexual ambiguity and promiscuousity being the fall of mankind. However, such practices have been the talk of the town even in ancient biblical days of sex-shrines and sex-based religions, and despite fear of being taken out of context, the androgyny or fertility practices of Deuteronomy 22:5 "A woman must not wear men’s clothing, nor a man wear women’s clothing." Doctors are required to be thorough and probe into the sexual history of patients without being judgemental. Yet such topics are never taught sufficiently in medical school.
In his Marriage series, Stezaker joins cut portraits of different celebrities, either male-female, male-male or female-female, joining certain important lines to create on first glance almost schizophrenic images. Some of these were immediately visually appealing, but my eye took a little longer to adjust and consider the beauty of others. The brilliance of this series is probably in the way he makes some important facial landmarks meet so that it still retains a certain flow within the images, yet throwing out the rule that symmetry is intrinsically more appealing. Some of these portraits resemble burns victims I have seen in hospitals, due to the asymmetry of the faces and heavy wrinkles on one side but young smooth skin on the other.
Others combine "masculine" and "feminine" features, blurring the line between what we perceive as male and female. Again this may signify social stereotyping and draw attention to our own assumptions about others. Skin and especially facial irregularities are the subject of discrimination, ostracisation and bullying, resulting in self-esteem and massive psychological issues, to the extent of the desire or requirement of cosmetic, reconstructive or other surgery or medical intervention. However, it is arguable if surgical or medical intervention really do address such issues sufficiently, since it seldom gets to the root of such problems. Mostly, doctors tend to shy away from attempting to address the emotional/psychological/spiritual root of such problems, either because it takes too much energy and time, because we prefer to maintain an exclusively "professional" relationship, or because we are not taught and are under-developed in dealing with such issues. From this series of images, perhaps we can learn to appreciate unconventional beauty in our everyday practices and contact with patients, without which it is difficult to genuinely care for our patients.
More curious was the series Tabula Rasa. This is the theory that individuals are born without built-in mental content and knowledge comes from experience and perception, in a sense, the age-old nurture versus nature debate. In this series, polygonal shapes are cut out of pictures; in a picture with a man talking to another two, the heads of the two people are cut out in the polygonal shape, likewise with a picture of a man talking to a woman. The obvious suggestion is the concept of a clean slate when meeting another person, which is analogous in a medical context to every new consultation and patient. Without any details of the entire heads of these people in the pictures, the viewer is left to perceive the faces of these people, as if making heavy use of Gestalt's theories of perception, a psychological concept of visual recognition and interpretation. Too often, medical professionals have preconceptions of patients based on what they look like when they first step into the consultation room. These often then colour our perception of the cultural and societal status of the said patient, and alters the way we think of differential diagnoses, or in private healthcare systems, whether they are even offered more expensive drugs and therapies (I'm drawing this on friends' experiences in other countries). To take patient-centred care seriously then, we should perhaps train ourselves to rely less on visual judgement of people, favouring a more "tabula rasa" approach to patient contact and the doctor-patient relationship. Only then can we start to attempt to actually be non-judgemental and compassionate doctors.
Stezaker's collection in the Whitechapel Gallery challenges our perceptions of beauty and judgements of others, and its concepts may extend well into the medical sphere. There were plenty of ideas and interpretations within the group of medical students who went to the exhibition, and these are just a selection of some of them (mostly my own interpretation and experience).
*All pictures copyright of John Stezaker. Used here only as example illustration.*
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Health, Illness and Ethnicity conference
Two-day Conference: ‘Health, Illness and Ethnicity: Migration, Discrimination and Social Dislocation’
Centre for the History of Medicine in Ireland, University College Dublin, 10-11 June 2011
Organisers Catherine Cox (University College Dublin), Hilary Marland (University of Warwick) and Sarah York (University College Dublin and University of Warwick).
This two-day Wellcome Trust funded conference will focus on the relationship between illness and migration, discrimination and social dislocation. By migration, we refer to both migration between countries and internal movements of populations, for example between regions or from rural to urban areas. Our focus is primarily on the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but we are also interested in exploring the relationship between historical concerns surrounding health and ethnicity and current health practice and policy. The workshop is intended to contribute to debates on the susceptibility of specific groups to medical interventions, as well as interpretations of the relationship between health and illness, migration and ethnicity, and the management of the health and illness of ethnic groups within broader health and welfare strategies. The workshop will explore the experiences of particular groups, be these ‘foreigners’, migratory peoples, patients of varied religious denominations and those suffering from particular disorders or diseases. Participants will include keynote speaker Alison Bashford, Roberta Bivins, Kat Foxhall, Alan Ingram and John Welshman. The conference will also provide the organisers with an opportunity to present on their project on ‘Madness, Migration and the Irish in Lancashire, c.1850-1921’ (funded by the Wellcome Trust). We are keen to involve a mix of early career and established scholars, historians and academics from a broad range of disciplines, policy makers and practitioners in the conference.
We request that titles and abstracts for the conference be submitted by 1 March 2011. Abstracts should be c 500 words and include a title and summary of the paper, as well as details of the address, email and telephone numbers of the speaker(s). The workshop will be held at University College Dublin. Local costs for hotel accommodation (2 nights) and meals will be covered by the organisers, but we ask participants, where possible, to cover the costs of their travel to Dublin drawing on their own institutional resources. Modest funds may be available to cover the travel costs of speakers lacking institutional support.
Please contact either Catherine Cox or Sarah York for further information.
Centre for the History of Medicine in Ireland, University College Dublin, 10-11 June 2011
Organisers Catherine Cox (University College Dublin), Hilary Marland (University of Warwick) and Sarah York (University College Dublin and University of Warwick).
This two-day Wellcome Trust funded conference will focus on the relationship between illness and migration, discrimination and social dislocation. By migration, we refer to both migration between countries and internal movements of populations, for example between regions or from rural to urban areas. Our focus is primarily on the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but we are also interested in exploring the relationship between historical concerns surrounding health and ethnicity and current health practice and policy. The workshop is intended to contribute to debates on the susceptibility of specific groups to medical interventions, as well as interpretations of the relationship between health and illness, migration and ethnicity, and the management of the health and illness of ethnic groups within broader health and welfare strategies. The workshop will explore the experiences of particular groups, be these ‘foreigners’, migratory peoples, patients of varied religious denominations and those suffering from particular disorders or diseases. Participants will include keynote speaker Alison Bashford, Roberta Bivins, Kat Foxhall, Alan Ingram and John Welshman. The conference will also provide the organisers with an opportunity to present on their project on ‘Madness, Migration and the Irish in Lancashire, c.1850-1921’ (funded by the Wellcome Trust). We are keen to involve a mix of early career and established scholars, historians and academics from a broad range of disciplines, policy makers and practitioners in the conference.
We request that titles and abstracts for the conference be submitted by 1 March 2011. Abstracts should be c 500 words and include a title and summary of the paper, as well as details of the address, email and telephone numbers of the speaker(s). The workshop will be held at University College Dublin. Local costs for hotel accommodation (2 nights) and meals will be covered by the organisers, but we ask participants, where possible, to cover the costs of their travel to Dublin drawing on their own institutional resources. Modest funds may be available to cover the travel costs of speakers lacking institutional support.
Please contact either Catherine Cox or Sarah York for further information.
Monday, December 13, 2010
Comics & Medicine: The Sequential Art of Illness
Comics & Medicine: The Sequential Art of Illness conference
9-11 June 2011
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine
Chicago, Illinois
This second international interdisciplinary conference* aims to explore the past, present, and possible future of comics in the context of the healthcare experience. Programs in medical humanities have long touted the benefits of reading literature and studying visual art in the medical setting, but the use of comics in healthcare practice and education is relatively new. The melding of text and image has much to offer all members of the healthcare team, including patients and families. As such, a subgenre of graphic narrative known as graphic medicine is emerging as a field of interest to both scholars and creators of comics.
We are pleased to confirm two important keynote speakers: David Small, author of 'Stitches' and Phoebe Gloeckner, author of 'A Child's Life'.
We invite proposals for scholarly papers (15 minutes), poster presentations, and panel discussions (60 minutes), focused on medicine and comics in any form (e.g., graphic novels, comic strips, graphic pathographies, manga, and/or web comics) on the following—and
related—topics:
skills with regard to the creation or teaching about comics in the medical context.
We envision this gathering as a collaboration among humanities scholars, comics scholars, comics creators, healthcare professionals, and comics enthusiasts.
300 word proposals should be submitted by Friday, 28 February 2011 to submissions@graphicmedicine.org. Proposals may be in Word, WordPerfect, or RTF formats with the following information and in this order: author(s), affiliation, email address, title of abstract, body of abstract. Please identify your presentation preference: 1) oral presentation; 2) poster presentation; 3) panel discussion; or 4) workshop. While we cannot guarantee that presenters will receive their first choice, we will attempt to honor people’s preferences,
and we will acknowledge the receipt of all proposals submitted. Abstracts will be peer-reviewed by an interdisciplinary selection committee. Notification of acceptance or rejection will be completed by 14 March 2011.
This event is co-sponsored by the Medical Humanities and Bioethics Program at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, the Department of Humanities at Penn State College of Medicine, and the Science, Technology and Society Program of Penn State University, and
is supported by a grant from the Charles Schulz Foundation.
*Information about the 2010 conference, “Comics and Medicine: Medical Narrative in Graphic Novels,” in London, England can be found at www.graphicmedicine.org.
9-11 June 2011
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine
Chicago, Illinois
This second international interdisciplinary conference* aims to explore the past, present, and possible future of comics in the context of the healthcare experience. Programs in medical humanities have long touted the benefits of reading literature and studying visual art in the medical setting, but the use of comics in healthcare practice and education is relatively new. The melding of text and image has much to offer all members of the healthcare team, including patients and families. As such, a subgenre of graphic narrative known as graphic medicine is emerging as a field of interest to both scholars and creators of comics.
We are pleased to confirm two important keynote speakers: David Small, author of 'Stitches' and Phoebe Gloeckner, author of 'A Child's Life'.
We invite proposals for scholarly papers (15 minutes), poster presentations, and panel discussions (60 minutes), focused on medicine and comics in any form (e.g., graphic novels, comic strips, graphic pathographies, manga, and/or web comics) on the following—and
related—topics:
- graphic pathographies of illness and disability
- the use of comics in medical education
- the use of comics in patient care
- the interface of graphic medicine and other visual arts in popular culture
- ethical implications for using comics to educate the public
- ethical implications of patient representation in comics by
- healthcare providers
- trends in international use of comics in healthcare settings
- the role of comics in provider/patient communication
- comics as a virtual support group for patients and caregivers
- the use of comics in bioethics discussions and education
skills with regard to the creation or teaching about comics in the medical context.
We envision this gathering as a collaboration among humanities scholars, comics scholars, comics creators, healthcare professionals, and comics enthusiasts.
300 word proposals should be submitted by Friday, 28 February 2011 to submissions@graphicmedicine.org. Proposals may be in Word, WordPerfect, or RTF formats with the following information and in this order: author(s), affiliation, email address, title of abstract, body of abstract. Please identify your presentation preference: 1) oral presentation; 2) poster presentation; 3) panel discussion; or 4) workshop. While we cannot guarantee that presenters will receive their first choice, we will attempt to honor people’s preferences,
and we will acknowledge the receipt of all proposals submitted. Abstracts will be peer-reviewed by an interdisciplinary selection committee. Notification of acceptance or rejection will be completed by 14 March 2011.
This event is co-sponsored by the Medical Humanities and Bioethics Program at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, the Department of Humanities at Penn State College of Medicine, and the Science, Technology and Society Program of Penn State University, and
is supported by a grant from the Charles Schulz Foundation.
*Information about the 2010 conference, “Comics and Medicine: Medical Narrative in Graphic Novels,” in London, England can be found at www.graphicmedicine.org.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)