Biomedicine on Display

My earlier mentioned participation in the ‘Good life better‘ workshop in October will hopefully help me develop a good paper for the conference “Neurosociety… What is it with brains these days?” to be held at the Saïd Business School, University of Oxford, in December. They have just accepted my abstract (see earlier post), and I’m looking very much forward to participating.

As the conference website states:

The last twenty years have seen unprecedented advances in the neurosciences, in fields such as psychopharmacology, neurology and behavioural genetics. A growing number of ethicists, social scientists, legal scholars and philosophers have begun to analyze the social, legal and ethical implications of these advances, from the use of fMRI imaging in legal cases, to the medical benefits and risks of the increasing prescription of psychotropic drugs such as Prozac and Ritalin. Some attention has been paid to the economic questions raised by the commercial development and application of new technologies, and the extent to which subfields such as neuroeconomics and neuromarketing are generating commercially and clinically valuable findings. The conference aims to bring together academics and practitioners from this wide range of disciplines to attempt a critical evaluation of the current state and future prospects for neuro thinking.

The neurosciences are really at the centre of attention these days!

In October, I’m participating in ‘an interdisciplinary workshop for young scholars‘ at the University of Lübeck, organized by the Institute for the History of Medicine and Science Studies at the University of Lübeck, in cooperation with the Institut für Mensch, Ethik und Wissenschaft in Berlin.

The workshop title is “Good life better – anthropological, sociological and philosophical dimensions of enhancement” – which fits nicely with my project on the history of ’successful aging’ and its relation to ideas about human enhancement.

Here’s my abstract for the workshop:

Good old brains — How concerns about the ageing society and ideas about cognitive enhancement interact in neuroscience

Discussions about human cognitive enhancement are in different ways based on assumptions about neuroscientific knowledge production and applicability of neuroscientific results. But what is it in neuroscience that relates to discussions about human enhancement? How has the production of knowledge within the neurosciences anticipated or dismantled the hopes and wishes for cognitive enhancement? Have neuroscientific practices related to such notions as ’successful ageing’ offered new perspectives to the human enhancement debate? Drawing on a historical analysis of the concept of successful ageing in neuroscience publications from the 1980s till today, this paper will discuss how the aims and the production of knowledge within age-related neuroscience are connected to ideas about cognitive enhancement.

Neuroscientific research on ageing is a particularly relevant field for investigating this connection, since the brain is in the focus of both enhancement debates and research (and politics) concerning ageing. In the context of ageing research, the notion of ’successful ageing’ has been influential in emphasising individual lifestyle choices and preventive measures as means to ageing ’successfully’ (Rowe & Kahn, 1987). Instead of viewing ageing as something defined by inevitable physiological and cognitive decline – a growing concern for the ‘ageing’ Western societies from the 1980s onwards – this notion stresses that individuals themselves have the possibility to avoid such decline by maintaining and improving themselves through healthy lifestyles, etc. Concerns about ‘the ageing society’ and the individualised solutions offered by ’successful ageing’ might even be considered an underlying driving force in discussions about cognitive enhancement: Both individuals and societies, it seems, have reason to improve cognitive functions and prevent neuro-degenerative diseases.

At first glance, neuroscientific research seems to corroborate with these concerns and wishes. As an article in Neurobiology of Aging states: “these findings suggest ways in which biological aging can be manipulated to promote good function in aged individuals.” (Collier & Coleman, 1991: 685). Publications such as this one discuss how use of substance intake and certain behaviour (e.g. diet and exercise) might in different ways ‘promote good function’; scientific perspectives that enhancement-proponents have picked up on and turned into notions like ’smart drugs’ and ‘brain training’.

However, neuroscientific ageing-research also offers other perspectives on enhancement. Neuroscience may suggest ”that the aging individual has the potential to enhance or maintain intellectual functioning” (Staudinger, Cornelius & Baltes, 1989: 44). But what most of such suggestions implicate is not that it is possible to improve function beyond the ‘normal’, instead it refers to treating functional decline that has already taken place. On the other hand, preventive measures may work by improving the cognitive function of otherwise ‘normal’ individuals through lifestyle interventions or substance intake. But is this really ‘enhancement’? The notion of enhancement seems to refer to measures that moves us beyond the limits of human bodies (whatever they are), but the plasticity of the human brain complicates such notions as normal or enhanced. In addition, the difficulty of distinguishing ‘normal’ ageing from pathological ageing (what is normal at age 20 or 80?) makes the whole issue even more complicated.

As this is a work in progress, any comments and perspectives will be much appreciated!

Christoph Gradmann and Flurin Condrau of the ESF network Drug Standards, Standard Drugs are planning a workshop on the theme ‘Beyond the Magic Bullet: Reframing the History of Antibiotics’, to take place in Oslo, 17-19 March 2011.

Antibiotics have been celebrated as a medical success story around the globe from their first distribution at the end of WWII to the present day [...] As agents of a medical revolution which shifted borders between health and disease and created new spaces for therapy, antibiotics have become one of the most popular scientific success stories of the twentieth century. [This] workshop will focus on recent and current research into the histories of antibiotics, which has started to move beyond the initial stories of the discovery of penicillin and the randomised clinical control trials.

They invite proposals for papers contributing to the four key themes:

• Research and development of antibiotics
• Antibiotics in clinical practice
• Antibiotic resistance
• Antibiotics as global medicines

Send <400 words proposals to Christoph (christoph.gradmann@medisin.uio.no) and Flurin (f.condrau@manchester.ac.uk) by 1 October 2010; they can also provide more detailed info about the themes. And yes — accommodation and travel will be supported.

As you may know, Medical Museion takes part in a multidisciplinary Center for Healthy Aging here at the University of Copenhagen. Currently, two of our junior researchers, postdoc Lucy Lyons and phd student Morten Bülow, are doing their research projects within the scope of the Center, and we are about to recruit yet another phd student.

It probably doesn’t come as a surprise to readers of this blog that our contribution to the overall Center activities involves a strong aesthetic component.

For example, we experimented with an aesthetic approach to aging in the Oldetopia exhibition two years ago. Lucy’s joining our group last December was a deliberate attempt to strengthen the aesthetic side. And the current exhibition ’Healthy Aging: A Life Span Approach’ (see also here), shown in our external exhibition area in the main building of the Faculty of Health Sciences is dominated by Danish photographer Liv Carlé Mortensen’s 15 collages of centennarians (like this one).

I just want to mention this as a background for why the upcoming conference on ‘Aging, Old Age, Memory, Aesthetics’ in Toronto, 25-27 March next year may be quite interesting for us. The conference focuses on how aging is portrayed and experienced in literature and the arts in light of social, political, scientific and cultural contexts:

In using the term aesthetics, we are drawing attention to the arts, aesthetic practices, theories of art, and modes of representation as they pertain to aging and memory. We look forward to presentations that analyze a variety of theoretical, thematic, and disciplinary approaches that remain linked by the consistent placement of old age and aging at the centre of concentrated investigation.

They are also recruiting creative submissions by artists whose work is concerned with the images generated by old age. 300-word proposals should be sent to andrea.charise@utoronto.ca by Friday 1 October 1, 2010.

Founded in 2002, the Association for Medical Humanities (AMH) aims to promote, within the UK and the Republic of Ireland, the medical humanities in education, healthcare and research. It has links with the BMJ journal Medical Humanities and has organized annual academic conferences since 2003. Courses on Medical Humanities are increasing in the UK and can be found at University College London, Durham University, King’s College London, University of Aberdeen, University of Leicester, University of Glasgow, University of Bristol, Birkbeck College University of London, and University of Swansea.

On Monday 5th July the AMH 2010 conference titled ‘Humanities at the Cutting Edge: Conversations between surgery, pathology, the humanities & the arts’ opened in Truro, Cornwall, with an evening reception and talk. There were already two options, either attend a keynote talk by heart surgeon Francis Wells on his research into Leonardo da Vinci at the ‘Knowledge Spa’ Truro, or attend artist David Cotterrell’s keynote talk about medicine in conflicted spaces at Tate St Ives. I wanted to go to both.

After a plenary and coffee on Tuesday morning, presentations were split into workshops and papers. The choice was between two workshops and a dizzying array of 21 presentations grouped into three themes. Theme 1 was Surgery, pathology and identity; Theme 2 was The ‘pathological’ and the ‘normal’; and Theme 3 was Humanities and arts as health interventions. Each theme had two or three groups of three speakers in each group. So already before lunch on the Tuesday, 21 people had presented papers and two groups of people had run workshops.

Some of the interesting presentations I missed included art in hospitals, patient communication through theatre, the wonder of pathology and workshops on drawing the body and documentary filming of surgery. I listened to three very good papers in a group from Theme 3. After lunch I attended a useful practical workshop run by the editor of Medical Humanities and missed hearing any of the 18 papers presented that afternoon. On Wednesday the same problem occurred with two workshops running at the same time as 18 speakers’ presentations. The workshop I wished to attend the most ran at the same time as my presentation. It was about pop up surgical theatres and allowing surgeons not just to practise but to rehearse.

There were just too many parallel sessions, too many themes and groups within themes and simultaneous workshops. Some delegates gave presentations to empty rooms with no one else but the other two speakers present. At least people came to my talk. There were many interesting themes, viewpoints and areas of research but too many to hear.

At the plenary on Tuesday morning a psychiatrist presented research on coding and categorizing that was welcomed by medics and greeted with dismay by artists. Her method of labeling patients in distress using a process of narrative writing had the appearance of berating creativity and imagination by placing patients within a negative category of behaviour. Perhaps this is where the notion of subjectivity and adaptability to take into account the uniqueness of people in different situations may have helped.

However two papers given by medics saw creativity and subjectivity as positive. One, a mature graduating medical student discussed the tricky subject of finding cancer beautiful. Emotive and well researched it was fascinating to hear concerns from a medic that would usually be heard amongst artists. In another talk a GP discussed art being so important in his life he took a PG Cert in Fine Art and then an MA in medical humanities. He confessed to having spent years using a pseudonym and creating an underground comic depicting the dark humour and cruelty of his experiences in his surgery. Believing art to be a great way to express and communicate medical issues, he has left his job to become a full time artist. He recently organized the ‘Comics and Medicine: Medical Narrative in Graphic Novels’ conference at UCL and runs a website dedicated to Graphic Medicine.

The best part for me was the Wednesday plenary presentation. This was a performance by Peggy Shaw, a cross dressing, lesbian grandmother in her sixties working in collaboration with the Clod Ensemble, three musicians playing violin, cello and keyboard. Her show, ‘Must: the inside story’, saw Peggy dressed in a man’s suit and intoning poetic dialogue, some in beat with the accompanying music about her body’s history and experiences. Her deep New York accent described her mother’s mental illness and treatments, her own experience of giving birth, and sensations of touch and significance of bones. She lyrically chanted and sometimes sang in front of screens depicting cells and X-rays and other medical imagery. Engaging and vulnerable I had not expected to find her performative method of description and exploration of the body so powerful and enjoyable.

The AMH 2010 conference gave an opportunity for disciplines across the breadth of medical humanities to meet and talk and importantly listen to research and work undertaken from within fields of surgery, visual arts, pathology, clinical practice, creative writing, poetry, history, sociology, philosophy and general practice. Sometimes this worked and sometimes there were slight clashes or moments of misunderstanding. Medical doctors and artists and writers expressed concerns. Some felt incapable of reading arts & humanities articles without adequate knowledge of the art cannon or knowledge of Heidegger for example. However, researchers and practitioners in arts & humanities have often had to immerse themselves in the language of medical articles and find out the meanings for themselves.

There were diverse practical workshops, a breadth of visual and literary arts on display and a wide range of academic papers. I really wanted to see more as the papers I saw were good and the people I spoke to where diverse and fascinating. I wish I hadn’t missed other presentations and workshops which also sounded really interesting.

I and my family made summer vacation plans quite some time ago, so I’m going to miss Wellcome Centre for the History of Medicine’s swan-song conference titled ‘The Future of Medical History’, to be held at Goodenough College, London, 15-17 July.

The preliminary programme lists a long array of interesting papers. Those interested in displaying recent biomedical science display might for example be interested in hearing Sander Gilman speak on ”Representing Health and Illness: Thoughts for the 21st Century”,  Monica Green on ”Letting the Genome Out of the Bottle: On Creating Alliances Between Medical History and the Historicist Sciences”, Sammy Lee on “Where are the clones?: A brief history of human cloning” — and listen to Roger Cooter’s (autobiographical?) confession “Why Bother? So What?”

It’s hard to escape the impression that the humanities (including medical history, medical humanities, etc.) are living a wobbly existence, balancing on a fine line over the two abysses of social reductionism and biological reductionism. Are patients and their diseases social constructions or bags of biochemical reactions? Do these reductionist trends have any room left for the kind of books reviewed in the TLS ?

A forthcoming conference at the University of Copenhagen 16-17 September on ‘The Humanities Between Constructivism and Biologism’ will “explore the options for a coherent conception of Man as neither a mere biological species, nor a mere social construction. It is a conception of Man as both a producer and a product of history and culture, and thus as a shaper of himself”.

Not an entirely new or radical conception, I guess, but it deserves being repeated as an antidote to the two usual reductionisms (and I should remind the organisers that some women also feel they should be included in this coherent conception :-):

Humanistic studies as traditionally conducted are currently under pressure from two sides within academia itself: On one side, by a constructivist stance, which declares man to be a social construction. This robs the humanities of the natural focal point of their activities, the study of Man, and leaves them as an odd motley of disciplines with no unity and no shared vision. From the opposite side, the humanities are under pressure from evolutionary biology, which has no reservations about accepting the existence of such a thing as Man, who after all is a natural, biological species among others. In combination with affiliated approaches within neurophysiology and cognitive science, evolutionary psychology purports to explain every aspect of man’s behavior as a result of his genetic inheritance, as manifested in his brain and other cognitive apparatus. This leads to a heavily reductionist picture of man.

Speakers include: Ronald Schleifer (University of Oklahoma), Steve Fuller (University of Warwick), Robert Markley (University of Illinois), Nikolaj Zeuthen (University of Aarhus), Torben Kragh Grodal (University of Copenhagen), Finn Collin (University of Copenhagen), and Jan Faye (University of Copenhagen). Shall be interesting to see what position the unpredictable Steve Fuller will take on this!

No registration is needed. For complete programme and location, contact David Budtz Pedersen: davidp@hum.ku.dk

Here is the preliminary programme for the workshop “Contemporary biomedical science and medical technology as a challenge to museums” (15th biannual meeting of the European Association of Museums for the History of Medical Sciences), to be held in Copenhagen, 16-18 September, 2010.

The presentations below have been selected by the programme committee (Ken Arnold, Wellcome Collection, London; Robert Bud, Science Museum, London; Judy Chelnick, National Museum of American History, Washington DC; Mieneke te Hennepe, Boerhaave Museum, Leiden; and Thomas Söderqvist, Medical Museion, Copenhagen) in dialogue with the secretary of the EAMHMS (James Edmonson, Dittrick Museum, Cleveland).

Preliminary programme:

Sniff Andersen Nexø (Dept of History, University of Copenhagen):
TBA

Suzanne Anker (School of Visual Arts , New York):
“Inside/Out: Historical Specimens through a 21st Century Lens”

Kerstin Hulter Åsberg (Dept of Neuroscience, Uppsala University):
“Uppsala Biomedical Center: A Mirror and a Museum of Modern Medical History”

Yin Chung Au (Planning and Coordination Centre for Developing Science Communication Industry, National Science Council, Taiwan):
“Seeing is communicating: Possible roles of med-art in communicating contemporary scientific process with the general public in digital age

Adam Bencard (Medical Museion, University of Copenhagen):
“The molecular body on display”

Caitlin Berrigan (independent artist):
“Improvising Glycoproteins: A case study in artistic virology”

Danny Birchall (Wellcome Collection, London):
“Medical London and the photography of everyday medicine”

Silvia Casini (Observa – Science in Society, Venice):
“Curating the Biomedical Archive-fever”

Judy M. Chelnick (Division of Medicine and Science, National Museum of American History):
“The Challenges of Collecting Contemporary Medical Science and Technology at the Smithsonian Institution”

Roger Cooter (Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine, UCL) and Claudia Stein (Dept of History, University of Warwick):’
“Visual Things and Universal Meanings: Aids Posters, the Politics of Globalization, and History”

Nina Czegledy (Senior Fellow, KMDI, University of Toronto):’
“At the Intersection of Art and Medicine”

John Durant (MIT Museum):
“Prospects for International Collaboration in Collecting Contemporary Science and Technology”

Joanna Ebenstein (The Observatory, New York):
“The Private, Curious, and Niche Collection: What They can Teach Us”

Jim Edmonson (Dittrick Museum, Case Western Reserve University):
“Collection plan for endoscopy, documenting the period 1996-2010”

Jim Garretts (Thackray Museum, Leeds):
“Bringing William Astbury into the 21st Century: the Thackray Museum and the Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology in partnership”

Victoria Höög (Dept of Philosophy and History of Science, University of Lund):
“The Optic Invasion of the Body. Naturalism as an Interface between Epistemic Standards in Biomedical Images and the Medical Museums”

Karen Ingham (School of Research and Postgraduate Studies, Swansea Metropolitan University):
“Medicine, Materiality and Museology: collaborations between art, medicine and the museum space”

Ramunas Kondratas (independent scholar; formerly Division of Medicine and Science, National Museum of American History):
“The Use of New Media in Medical History Museums”

Lucy Lyons (Medical Museion, University of Copenhagen):
“What am I looking at?”

Robert Martensen (Office of History & Museum, NIH):
“Integrating the Physical and the Virtual in Exhibitions, Archives, and Historical Research at the National Institutes of Health”

Stella Mason (independent scholar):
“Contemporary Medicine in Museums: What do our visitors think of our efforts?”

René Mornex and Wendy Atkinson (Hospices Civils de Lyon, Université Claude Bernard Lyon1):
“A large health museum in Lyon”

Jan Eric Olsén (Dept of History of Ideas, University of Lund):
“The displaced clinic: healthcare gadgets for home use”

Kim Sawchuk (Dept of Communication Studies, Concordia University):
“Bio-tourism into museums, galleries, and science centres”

Thomas Schnalke (Berliner Medizinhistorisches Museum):
“Dissolving matters: the end of all medical museums’ games?”

Morten Skydsgaard (Steno Museum of the History of Science, Aarhus University):
“Boundaries of the Body and the Guest: Art as a facilitator in the exhibition The Incomplete Child”

Sébastien Soubiran (Jardin des Science, Université de Strasbourg):
“Which scientific world would we like to depict in a 21st century university museum?”

Yves Thomas (Polytech Nantes) and Catherine Cuenca (Université de Nantes and Musée des Arts et Métiers in Paris):
”Multimedia contributions to contemporary medical museology”

Maie Toomsalu (Medical Collections, University of Tartu):
“Visitor studies at the Medical Collections of University of Tartu”

Henrik Treimo (Norsk Teknisk Museum, Oslo):
”Invisible World: Visualising the invisible parts of the body”

Alex Tyrell (Science Museum, London):
“New voices: involving your audience in content creation”

Nurin Veis (Museum Victoria, Melbourne):
“How do we tell the story of the cochlear implant?”

Final titles will be announced after the revised/extended abstracts have been submitted by Monday, 2 August.

The workshop starts Thursday, 16 September at noon and ends Saturday, 18 September at 5 pm.

Sessions will be held at Medical Museion and in the Danish Museum of Art and Design. The two meeting venues are situated close to each other in central Copenhagen.

The format of the workshop is informal. In order to focus on discussion and intellectual exchange, each accepted abstract will get a maximum of 8 (eight) minutes for oral presentation, followed by a longer discussion. Extended abstracts (2-5 pages) will be distributed to all registered participants in late August.

The workshop is open to registered participants only. Due to space limitations, we have to impose a first register/first serve policy for attendance.

For details about registration, bank transfer, hotel bookings, special needs, etc., see http://www.mm.ku.dk/sker/eamhms.aspx.

For inquiries about the academic programme, please contact the chair of the programme committee, professor Thomas Söderqvist, Medical Museion, ths@sund.ku.dk or +45 2875 3801.

For inquiries about the venue, accommodation, registration, bank transfer etc., please contact the secretary of the local organizing committee, Ms Anni Harris, anniha@sund.ku.dk or +45 3532 3800.

The workshop is organized by Medical Museion, University of Copenhagen (www.mm.ku.dk; www.corporeality.net/museion).

The 11th Universeum network meeting, titled ‘University Heritage: Present and Future’, will be held in the university museum of Uppsala University (Museum Gustavianum), on 17-20 June.

The organisers say that none of the previous ten network meetings has received so much interest. Why this surge in the interest in the history of universities?

Is it the gradual implementation of New Public Management in universities that is eventually giving rise to a reaction? Are university people becoming so frustrated with managerial governance, new evaluation schemes and assessment procedures, and the nauseating hype of their central communication offices that we are looking back to those times when universites were still universities? Is the renewed interest in university heritage an expression of our longing for the good old days of university self-governance?

I would have loved to discuss these and other questions with colleagues from all over Europe (and my abstract for the meeting has been accepted). However, I must admit that the programme doesn’t look particularly enticing; the titles of many individual papers look quite interesting, but the organisers haven’t been restrictive enough when putting it together.

The result of accepting too many of the submitted papers is a terribly crowded programme — one damned presentation after the other for three long days, a mere 15 minutes allotted to each speaker and only a few minutes for questions afterward, short and inevitably rushed coffee breaks, etc. This doesn’t promise well for reflection or for networking.

More generally, academic conference culture is in dire need of meeting formats that invite to dialogue and creativity. Tech conferences are sometimes more inspiring (boot camps etc.), but academic conferences are often still held as in the 1980s when I first attended this kind of academic rituals.

The Wellcome Centre for the History of Medicne at UCL has circulated an announcement for a conference which “represents our swansong and statement of what we would have liked to have been allowed to achieve in the history of medicine”. Appropriately titled ‘The Future of Medical History’, the conference will take place on 15-17 July 2010 at Goodenough College in London. Send an abstract and contact details to Lauren Cracknell (l.cracknell@ucl.ac.uk) by 1 June 2010. “Due to current circumstances”, the
Centre will not be able to cover the cost of travel or accommodation. Look for further details on the Centre’s website soonish.

Just a reminder about the meeting in Copenhagen 16-18 September — on the challenge to museums posed by contemporary developments in biomedical science and medical technology.

How do museums today handle the material and visual heritage of contemporary medical and health science and technology? How do curators wield the increasing amount and kinds of more or less intangible and invisible scientific, medical and digital objects? Which intellectual, conceptual, and practical questions does this challenge give rise to?

We’re aiming for two intensive days with visually enhanced presentations, good discussions and excellent food in beautiful surroundings.
 
Read the full call here. Further information here. Send proposals for presentations, panels etc. to ths@sund.ku.dk, not later than Monday 29 March.

Program committee: Ken Arnold, Wellcome Collection, London; Robert Bud, Science Museum, London; Judy Chelnick, National Museum of American History, Washington, D.C.; Mieneke te Hennepe, Boerhaave Museum, Leiden; Thomas Soderqvist, Medical Museion, University of Copenhagen (chair).

Association for Medical Humanities
8th Annual Conference
Mon 5th – Wed 7th July 2010: Truro and Tate St Ives, UK

Humanities at the Cutting Edge:
Conversations between surgery, pathology, the humanities and the arts

This looks like it could be an interesting conference where invited speakers range from surgeons to artists and parallel sessions will be running workshops, conference papers and art exhibitions/performances. There is a provisional programme and the deadline for abstracts has been extended to 31 March 2010
Please include

Title and name:
Institutional affiliation:
Address for correspondence:
Email:
Telephone contact:
Title of proposed presentation:
Abstract (maximum 250 words):

Please return to: petrina.bradbrook@pms.ac.uk
Copy to: alan.bleakley@pms.ac.uk  and robert.marshall@rcht.cornwall.nhs.uk

AMH 2010
HUMANITIES AT THE CUTTING EDGE
CONVERSATIONS BETWEEN SURGERY, PATHOLOGY, THE HUMANITIES & THE ARTS

‘with a knife, with a little knife which scarcely fits into the hand but penetrates thinly through the astounded flesh’
- Federico Garcia Lorca

PROGRAMME
DAY 1: Monday July 5th
Early evening: Parallel events (tickets on first-come-first-served basis):
Registration at Tate or at Knowledge Spa: 6.00-6.30
Tate St Ives event
18.30-19.15: Talk by David Cotterrell, introduced by Alan Bleakley
19.15-19.45: Questions and discussion chaired by Christine Borland
19.45-21.30: Drinks and food reception Tate Café
Knowledge Spa, Truro event
18.30-19.30: Talk by Francis Wells, introduced by Tony Pinching
19.30-19.45: Questions and discussion chaired by Tony Pinching
19.45-21.30: Drinks and food reception in the atrium

DAY 2: Tuesday July 6th
8.30-9.00: Registration and coffee, Knowledge Spa, Truro
9.00-9.15: Opening – Alan Bleakley and Rob Marshall
9.15-9.30: Welcome – Professor Liz Kay, Dean of Peninsula College of Medicine & Dentistry
9.30-10.30: Plenary – Allison Crawford (Toronto)
10.30-11.00: Break
11.00-12.30: Workshops 1, parallel paper sessions 1, exhibition
Workshops 1
Juliet Percival: drawing on the body for Gunther von Hagens
Marie-Christine Pouchelle and Francis McKee: Robotics
Parallel sessions 1
Participants’ papers
12.30-14.00: Lunch and exhibitions/ AMH AGM 2010
14.00-15.30: Workshops 2, parallel paper sessions 2, exhibition
Workshops 2
Mark Kidel: representations of surgery in film
Deborah Kirklin: writing for Medical Humanities
Parallel sessions 2
Participants’ papers
15.30-16.00: Tea
16.00-17.00: Plenary – Kevin Patterson (Vancouver), introduced by Alan Bleakley
18.30-19.30: Speakers and guests – drinks at the Bleakleys
20.00-late: Conference dinner at the Beach Café, Sennen

DAY 3: Wednesday July 7th
8.30-8.45: Registration and coffee, Knowledge Spa, Truro
8.45-9.00: AMH 2011 Leicester – Paul Lazarus
9.00-10.00: Plenary – Must – performance by Peggy Shaw (New York) and Clod Ensemble (London)
10.00-10.30: Break
10.30-12.00: Workshops 3, parallel paper sessions 3, exhibition
Workshops 3
Peggy Shaw & Clod Ensemble
Roger Kneebone and group (simulation)
Parallel sessions 3
Participants’ papers
12.00-13.30: Lunch and exhibitions
13.30-14.30: Plenary – Roger Kneebone – simulation (London)
14.30-15.00: Summing up and reflections

Exhibition open
Waterstone’s bookshop and stalls throughout the conference

I’m thrilled by the fact that an historian of medicine (Richard Barnett of the Department of History and Philosophy of Science in Cambridge) will chair a panel debate on health care in the digital age (taking place in Cambridge, UK, on Thursday) — it sustains the tendency that historians of medicine are becoming more engaged in contemporary debates about the health care system; and almost always for the better.

Titled ‘Saved by SMS’, the panel debate is about a worldwide healthcare system in crisis and the future prospects of bringing health care practitioners and patients into the digital information age:

From tracking malaria drugs in the developing world by SMS, sharing information about disease outbreaks via social networking sites, to empowering patients and doctors to share diagnosis and treatment ideas, significant changes to the digital and social infrastructure of the global healthcare system could revolutionise the way we look after own health, and other peoples.

Bertalan Meskó (Science Roll) and others have been instrumental in putting medicine 2.0 on the agenda. Historians of medicine and medical museum could play a much more active role in these crucial discussions. The fact that Richard Barnett will chair the meeting on Thursday is a good sign — hopefully he will also infuse some historical perspective into the discussion.

The Thackray Museum in Leeds is hosting an interesting meeting organised by artist Paul Digby on Saturday 20 March. Titled ‘Hybrid’ it gathers a group of interesting thinkers and practicioners on the interface between art and science:

Siân Ede (Arts Director at the UK Branch of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and author of Strange and Charmed: Science and the Contemporary Visual Arts) will talk about ‘Light echoes in art and science’:

A light echo is a phenomenon observed in astronomy and is produced when a sudden burst of light is reflected off a source, arriving at the viewer some time after the initial flash. Investigative approaches in art and science have little in common but co-exist in the same human context and may unwittingly reflect each other’s thought processes and imagery. In this talk I will venture to explore how far images in contemporary art and science reflect each other’s aesthetic and epistemological currencies.

The philosopher Mary Midgley will speak about ‘Science and poetry’:

Science and Poetry are not rival concerns competing for our attention. They are complementary aspects of our lives. The same imaginative faculties forge both of them, providing the basic structures round which they grow. In every age, scientists need to have a suitable guiding vision, a vision which is adapted both to new data and to changes in the background culture. Some of the visions which are still thought of as central to modern science – e.g atomism and mechanism – were actually forged in the seventeenth century and have become in some ways, unsuitable for the thinking which has since developed. We need to attend to these visions and keep them up to date.

Then James Peto (Senior Curator at the Wellcome Collection) will talk about ‘The culture of medicine: exhibitions at the Wellcome Collection’:

Since the Wellcome Collection opened two years ago, its exhibitions have covered such diverse subjects as the relationship between medicine and warfare; what we understand – or imagine – is happening in our brains and bodies while we sleep; how artists and scientists have grappled with the question of human identity; the history of our understanding of the anatomical and symbolic role of the human heart; the relationship between mental illness and the visual arts in Freud’s Vienna. Showing examples from exhibitions which have been shaped by artists and scientists in equal measure, James Peto will discuss how the Wellcome Collection approaches science as part of culture, rather than as something separate.

And finally Mike Vanden Heuvel (author of Performing Drama/Dramatizing Performance: Alternative Theater and the Dramatic Text) will give talk on ‘To Infinity, and Beyond!’ Can Theatre Play with Science?’

Given the recent appearance of a number of well-received plays with scientific themes, characters, and metaphors, it is no surprise that critical discourse is just beginning to assess the quality and accomplishments of science plays. A leading spokesperson for one critical approach is Carl Djerassi, an award-winning chemist who, after retiring from academia, has published a number of plays on science themes (Oxygen; An Immaculate Misconception). As well, Djerassi has become a respected polemicist for adjudicating which plays belong to the category of what he terms “science-in-theatre.” In my paper I explore some ramifications of Djerassi’s assumptions, focusing on how they position theatre and performance as a mirror held up to the nature that a given science proposes. I argue that such expectations have led a good deal of playwrights to pursue a strategy of “veracity” in their presentation of scientific themes (using Frayn’s Copenhagen as a readily-recognizable example). In contrast to these assumptions, I present the work of less-known playwrights and theatre devisers (such as Luca Ronconi) whose strategy is rather one of what I term “variety” – “theatre-in-science,” to reverse Djerassi’s formulation. In their work, theatre and performance are recognized, and celebrated, for their ability to warp the mirror of scientific veracity and to awaken imaginative responses that still honor complex scientific ideas (such as Ronconi’s Infinities, created in collaboration with the cosmologist John Barrow). In my conclusion, I interrogate the consequences of what I consider a too-heavy investment of science-in-theatre at the expense of theatre-in-science, considering how art/science collaborations are normally funded and for what purpose they usually come into being.

Limited number of seats — contact Paul Digby, pj.digby@ntlworld.com, for more information.

(thanks to Lucy for the tip)

A few months ago, I advertised the meeting ‘KörperGegenwart, neue Technologien, neue Sammlungen’ to be held at the Deutsches Hygiene-Museum in Dresden, 22-24 April.

Now the program has been finalised — and it looks very good! After a plenary discussion on ‘Schauplätze der Schönheit: Klinik, Kunst, Medien und Museen’ on Thursday evening, there follows two days of presentations, most of which seem to be very relevant for the future of medical and science museums:

• ‘Körperspuren im Deutschen Hygiene-Museum. Strategien und Objekte’ (Susanne Roeßiger, Deutsches Hygiene-Museum, Dresden)
• ‘Auf Biegen und Brechen. Zur (In)Formierung des Körpers’ (Stefan Rieger, Ruhr-Universität Bochum)
• ‘Der Körper und seine Teile. Vom Präparat zum transplantierten Organ’ (Katrin Solhdju, Zentrum für Literatur- und Kulturforschung, Berlin)
• ‘Vom Körper zum Maß. Zur Geschichte der Konfektionsgrößen’ (Daniela Döring, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)
• Vermessene Menschen. Vom Fingerabdruck bis zum Ganzkörperscan’ (Erika Feyerabend, BioSkop-Forum zur Beobachtung der Biowissenschaften e.V.)
• ‘Prothesen exponieren. Sichtbarkeiten neuer Technologien’ (Karin Harrasse, Kunsthochschule für Medien Köln)
• ‘Design in der Orthetik. Innovative Prinzipien der Körperanformung’ (Andreas Mühlenberend, resolutdesign; Hochschule Magdeburg-Stendal)
• ‘Wie sieht der bionische Mensch aus?’ (Friedrich Ditsch, Technische Universität Dresden)
• ‘”It’s a Material World”´: Situiertheit, Verkörperung und Materialität in der neueren Robotik’ (Jutta Weber, Universität Bielefeld)
• ‘Von der Nasen- zur Gesichtstransplantation: Zur Geschichte und Zukunft der kosmetischen Chirurgie’ (Sander L. Gilman, Emory University, Atlanta)
• ‘Science Fashion´: TechnoNaturen und deren alltagskulturellen Umdeutungen im System der Mode’ (Elke Gaugel, Akademie der Bildenden Künste, Wien)
• ‘Wie kommt die Seele ins Museum? Medizinische Museen und das Transzendentale’ (Robert Bud, Science Museum, London)
• ‘Den biomedizinischen Apparat ausstellen: Materialität und Digitalität in “Split + Splice” (Kopenhagen)’ (Susanne Bauer, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)
• ‘Die Schärfung des Blicks. Kunstinterventionen in anatomischen Sammlungen’ (Ingeborg Reichle, Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften)
• ‘Körperwissen in der Kunst’ (Ute Meta Bauer, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston)

As you can see, all presentations are in German — so the germanophilically challenged may have problems.

More here and here.