Medical Humanities Blog

On Demedicalizing the Medical Humanities

Otniel Dror (Hebrew University of Jerusalem) has a fascinating new paper out in The European Legacy vol 16, no 3 (2011) entitled De-medicalizing the Medical Humanities.  Here is the Abstract:

In this essay I argue that the integration of the humanities into “medical humanities” has implicitly medicalized the humanities. This medicalization of the humanities suppresses those dimensions of the humanities that can most significantly contribute to medicine. I present my argument by studying the critical and crucial gap between the humanities as they are presented and taught in the context of medical schools, often as a set of skills, sensitivities, and competencies, and the humanities as they are experienced and lived in the humanities—as an ideological-ethical calling, which saturates and infuses daily life with an ethicizing, politicizing, and ideological critique. It is this core essence of the humanities that is abrogated and annulled in medical humanities. After presenting my argument, I exemplify some of the ways in which my colleagues and I attempt to imbue medical students with the critical and ethicizing outlook and calling of the humanities.

I am extremely sympathetic to Dror's concerns here.  In fact, I have refrained from noting the article here on MH Blog because I have been desperately trying to make some time to give it the (blog) attention it deserves.  I have not been able to make that time yet, but hope to do so in the near future, and if so, I will update the post and tack it to the front of the blog.

This issue of The European Legacy is a theme issue on medicine and the humanities, which is entirely worth checking out.  Dror's article in particular is highly recommended.

(h/t Lit&Med listserv)

Call for Applications: Tenure-Track Assistant or Tenured Associate/Full Professor, History of Medicine, Yale University

Yale University invites applications for a tenure track Assistant/Associate or tenured Associate/full Professor in the History of Medicine beginning July 1, 2012.

Applicants with interests in the history of the biomedical sciences, experimental life sciences, or clinical practice since 1800 are particularly encouraged to apply.

Duties will include teaching in the Program in the History of Science and Medicine, the Department of History, and the Section for the History of Medicine in the School of Medicine.  The successful candidate must interact effectively with students in the School of Medicine as well as undergraduate and graduate students in the History of Science and Medicine.  The search committee will begin considering applications on October 15, 2011.

Yale University is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer and actively encourages applications from minority and women scholars.  Ph.D. preferred by the time of appointment. Applicants should send a curriculum vitae, three letters of recommendation, a statement about their work and professional plans, and a sample of their scholarly writing such as a dissertation or book chapter or article to Professor John Harley Warner, Chair, History of Medicine Search Committee, c/o Ewa M Lech, Section of the History of Medicine, Yale University School of Medicine, P.O. Box 208015, New Haven, CT 06520-8015, USA.

On the Therapeutic Misconception

Daniel S. Goldberg (East Carolina University) has an article out in the latest Journal of Medicine & Philosophy entitled Eschewing Definitions of the Therapeutic Misconception: A Family Resemblance Analysis.  Here is the Abstract:

Twenty-five years after the term “therapeutic misconception’ (TM) first entered the literature, most commentators agree that it remains widespread. However, the majority of scholarly attention has focused on the reasons why a patient cum human subject might confuse the goals of research with the goals of therapy. Although this paper addresses the social and cultural factors that seem to animate the TM among subjects, it also fills a niche in the literature by examining why investigators too might operate under a similar confusion. In framing these issues, the paper expressly adopts a Wittgensteinian approach to evaluating the TM, suggesting that interlocutors do not need any analytic definition of the TM to use the term meaningfully in thinking about the moral implications of the TM in practice.

I've covered the TM previously on MH Blog, and although the topic strikes me as both interesting and important, it will probably be the last thing I write on research ethics for some time.  I continue to base a lot of my metaethical and moral epistemological frameworks on later Wittgenstein, and this paper helps with my process of working some of that out.

Comments and suggestions are, as ever, most welcome.

Call for Papers - Mapping Queer Bioethics: Space, Place, and Locality in LGBTQ Bioethics

CALL FOR PAPERS
Journal of Homosexuality Special Issue
Mapping Queer Bioethics: Space, Place, and Locality in LGBTQ Bioethics
Guest Editors: Lance Wahlert and Autumn Fiester

The Journal of Homosexuality invites the submission of abstracts for a special issue expected to publish in Fall 2012.

This special issue will consider the spaces, places, and localities in which bioethical concerns and dilemmas arise. Recent scholarship in bioethics, disability, studies, and queer theory has focused prominently on the institutional and circumstantial factors that impact the appreciations, services, and needs of marginalized populations.

To that end, numerous scholars from a variety of traditions have weighed-in on the spatial and organizational strategies of municipalities, nations, and other governing bodies to consider the complexities and sensitivities of those in need of health care services. Bearing in mind this recent intellectual trend, this special issue will provide discourse on a as-yet-unacknowledged question: How do we appreciate and understand the special needs and special sensitivities of queer parties in the clinical realm given the constraints of location, space, and geography?

Accordingly, we seek contributors from numerous disciplines to provide insights on how queer health needs might be space and place specific. How do the needs of trans persons differ in the clinic, in the classroom, and in the boardroom? Does the pedagogical value of queer-positive sex education policies differ in the high school, in the courtroom, and in the legislative house? Do the ethics of safe(r) sex standards change when we consider disparate spaces such as bathhouse, the tearoom, the bedroom, and the hospital? Does the act of memorializing queer health and queer sexuality change between the archive, the home, the church, and the art gallery? More boldly (and perhaps more discerningly), what continuities can we identify across these various spaces?

This special issue will attempt to 'map' (literally and figuratively) the healthcare sensitivities of LGBTQ persons, considering these over-arching questions:

• What are the prominent, queer sites of contention, contagion, and discourse?
• How does the proximity of these spaces (as safe or otherwise) affect and effect their (il)legitimacy?
• Where do we posit the queerness of healthcare; and the health of queerness?
• With maps literally included in this special issue, what does the topgraphy, geography, and spatiality of queer health look like cartographically? And how is this a useful strategy?

Abstract submissions should be 1,000-1,500 words in length and are due by August 31, 2011. Abstract should be submitted to: submissions@queerbioethics.com

Call for Papers: Paranoia and Pain

Paranoia and Pain: Embodied in Psychology, Literature, and Bioscience University of Liverpool, 2-4 April 2012

Organising Chair: 

Dr Maryam Farahani (School of English)

Conference Chair: Dr Nick Davis (School of English)

Keynote Speakers:

• Professor Christopher Eccleston (Centre for Pain Research, University of Bath, England)
• Dr Emma Mason (English and Comparative Literary Studies, University of Warwick, England)
• Dr David Miller (English Literature, University of Stirling, Scotland)
• Professor Andrej Stancak (School of Psychology, University of Liverpool, England)
• Dr Anna Szczepan-Wojnarska (Cardinal Wyszynski University of Warsaw, Poland)

Paranoia and Pain: Embodied in Psychology, Literature, and Bioscience (University of Liverpool, 2-4 April 2012) is an international cross-disciplinary conference, seeking to raise an awareness of various intersections of literature and science. The conference aims to explore overlapping paradigms of paranoia and pain in psychology, biological sciences, and literary texts/contexts. How is paranoia related to pain? How is pain expressed with/without paranoia? How are these two terms exposed in various contexts? How does our understanding of the psychophysiology of pain interrelate with literary accounts of paranoia and pain? What does research in the field of paranoia offer to literary studies surrounding this concept and vice versa? To what extent does pain echo paranoia; and is this echo physiological, stylistic, psychological, symbolic, or literal? How do these terms regulate our behaviour and expression of emotions in relation to broader concepts such as faith, ethics, and the value of human life? What does the study of these concepts offer today’s generation of intellectuals with regard to human relationships and the way we communicate with each other? This international conference brings together experts from different fields to address these questions by incorporating individual presentations and panels that focus on cross-disciplinary studies. 

Considering the diversity of themes and questions for this conference, individual papers as well as pre-formed panels are invited to examine the following three key areas, proposed by the conference organizers. Other inter- and multi-disciplinary topics, relevant to the conference, will also be considered:

1- Impressions:

Expression of paranoia and pain in literary/scientific contexts; Metaphorical and literal exposition of pain and paranoia; Paranoid texts, painful contexts; The image of paranoia and pain in poetry, prose, and visual arts; Textual culture and the symbolics of pain; Stylistics of pain and paranoia in communication; How does the narrative of pain/paranoia identify with studies of affect? 

2- Intersections:

The biology of pain and the emotional interpretation; The biology/literature of anaesthesia; Physical symptoms, emotional translations; Aesthetics and affective perspectives on pain/paranoia; How have cultural attitudes to the experience of pain and/or paranoia changed over the course of history?

3- Dissections:

Faith and the formation of our ideas on pain/paranoia; Side effects of pain-relief medication; Ethics and the questions of double effect; Is it ever appropriate to withhold pain relief in order to extend the life of a sufferer where analgesics have the side effect of shortening life?

Submissions:

Deadline for 250-300 word abstracts for 20-minute papers and a 50-100 word biography for individual presenters (including each presentation within potential panels): Tuesday, 15 November 2011 (12:00 noon GMT)
Deadline for full draft of accepted papers and registrations: Saturday, 25 February 2012 (12:00 noon GMT)

After the conference a selection of presentations, developed and edited, will be considered for publication.

Please send submissions and enquiries to the organising board at paranoia.pain@gmail.com & painpara@liverpool.ac.uk

Please Note!

In order for the abstracts and presentations to be considered by the conference, the above deadlines must be strictly met. Late submissions will not be considered.Once the organising board receive abstracts, notification of acceptance will be emailed to delegates by Friday 9 December 2011.

 

 

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(h/t Birkbeck Pain Project listserv)

There has been a veritable explosion of recent and fascinating work in the U.K. on pain studies in context of the health and medical humanities (including but not limited to the history of medicine, narrative studies, cultural studies, disability studies, and women's studies).  This CFP reflects the inaugural theme of the University of Liverpool's foray into the medical humanities, entitled "Embodiments and New Frontiers in Literature, Science, and Medical Humanities."  (I am fortunate to be participating in one of these endeavors, about which I shall provide more detail in future posts). 

For background on the Wellcome Trust's new funding opportunities in the medical humanities, see here.

Call for Papers - Graphic Medicine: Visualizing the Stigma of Illness

Graphic Medicine: Visualizing the Stigma of Illness
17th November
Leeds Art Gallery

This one-day interdisciplinary conference aims to explore medical narrative in graphic novels and comics with an emphasis on the stigma of illness, disease or disability, both physical and mental. A subgenre of graphic narrative known as graphic medicine is emerging as a field of interest to both scholars and creators of comics, and members of the healthcare professions are beginning to turn to comics as a source of illness narratives and documents of the patient and carer experience.

We invite proposals for scholarly papers (20 minutes) or 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:

• notions of stigma in graphic pathographies of illness and disability
• the use of comics to explain, highlight and eradicate stigma
• the use of comics in patient care
• the interface of graphic medicine and other visual arts in popular culture
• 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

Contributions are sought from humanities scholars, comics scholars, healthcare professionals, comics enthusiasts, writers and cartoonists.

300 word proposals for a 20 minute paper should be submitted by 18/07/2011 to submissions@graphicmedicine.org and notice of acceptance or rejection may be expected by 1/8/2011.

Abstracts may be in Word, WordPerfect, or RTF formats, following this order: author(s), affiliation, email address, title of abstract, body of abstract. All proposals submitted will receive and acknowledgement.  Abstracts will be blind peer reviewed.

Drs. Columba Quigley, Maria Vaccarella and Ian Williams