Centre for Medical Humanities Blog

The S Factor (A Poem by Sandy Jeffs)

Centre for Medical Humanities — Thu, 23 May 2013 10:22:15 +0000

The S Factor

For Heidi

Sometimes
Craziness creates a
Heightened
Illumination of the
Zeitgeist
Originality its
Privilege
Humour its
Revenge
Every outsider
Nonconformist work of art is an
Ingenious
Act of lunacy.

Sandy Jeffs is an Australian poet and community educator. Her memoir Flying with Paper Wings: Reflections on Living with Madness, published by Vulgar Press, was SANE book of the Year in 2010. You can read more of her poems and essays on this site here.

Wellcome Trust Funding Announcement

Centre for Medical Humanities — Thu, 23 May 2013 10:14:20 +0000

Over the past five years the Wellcome Trust has sought to add to our traditional focus on the history of medicine and biomedical ethics by enabling scholars from across the humanities and social sciences to apply to the Trust for funding.

From 23 May 2013, all three of our funding streams in the humanities and social sciences will be expanding, with new opportunities for a wide variety of research proposals.

Applications to the Medical Humanities funding stream will no longer be limited to those that are ‘historically grounded’. We seek to encourage bold and intellectually rigorous research that uses a range of methods and sources to explore the social, historical and cultural dimensions of health, medicine and disease. We believe that these broad approaches will not only help to illuminate our perceptions of health and illness in the past and present, but also serve to shape the practice of medicine and experiences of health in the future.

The Society and Ethics programme supports research that examines the social and ethical aspects of biomedical research and health, with the aim of addressing tractable, real-world problems. Our commitment to research informing the ethical dilemmas arising from biomedical or health research, healthcare practices, and health interventions continues. Our expansion of the programme reflects the recognition that broader research on the social, economic and cultural factors that influence biomedical research and health is essential to help meet the Wellcome Trust’s strategic challenges.
The Research Resources programme underpins research across the medical humanities and social sciences by supporting cataloguing and preservation projects in libraries and archives in the UK and Ireland. By improving access to significant collections of printed books, documents, film and photographic material, we aim to ensure important research resources are both well known and well used.

Homeric Epic and the Treatment of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder – Jonathan Shay (Public Lecture, Durham, 18 June 2013)

Centre for Medical Humanities — Thu, 23 May 2013 10:03:45 +0000

Homeric Epic and the Treatment of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
Jonathan Shay
Monday 18 June 2013, 5.30 pm (venue tbc, Durham University)

Slide from the 2002 Documentary Achilles in Vietnam http://www.achillesinvietnam.com/

Dr Jonathan Shay will talk about the relevance of Homeric epic to his ground-breaking clinical work on the treatment of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. A clinical psychiatrist and leading authority on the condition, Dr. Shay is the author of Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character (1994) and Odysseus in America: Combat Trauma and the Trials of Homecoming (2002), where he identifies moral injury, and breaches of trust between soldiers and their leaders, as key factors obstructing the acquisition and maintenance of successful treatment for PTSD.

A conscientious objector during the Vietnam War, Dr Shay has served as Chair of Ethics, Leadership, and Personnel Policy in the Office of the U.S. Army Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel; and in 2007 was awarded a Macarthur ‘Genius Grant’ Fellowship in recognition of his life-long work on PTSD.

His talk is sponsored by the Department of Classics and Ancient History, the Institute of Advanced Study, and the Centre for the Medical Humanities.

Using Dance as an Intervention: Can dance help prevent and decrease psychological and health-related problems among young women?

Centre for Medical Humanities — Wed, 22 May 2013 10:50:23 +0000

Elizabeth Sharp, Associate Professor, Human Development and Family Studies at Texas Tech University and Honorary Fellow, Institute of Advanced Study, Durham University, writes: Despite the alarmingly high rates of disordered eating on US college campuses, very few prevention efforts have been successful. The evidence is clear that women’s bodies are intimately linked to well-being and health, but their bodies are rarely involved in prevention, intervention, or treatment efforts. Although not addressing women’s health directly, other work has indicated the promise of dance as a way to promote social justice and help individuals become more aware of societal expectations and their participation in cultural prescriptions (Fitzgerald, 2008). Our aim is to take the best practices from the existing literature and involve women’s bodies.

In this innovative project, we propose using dance as a way to expose, kinesthetically explore, and dialogically address unrealistic and problematic ideas about romance, societal expectations placed on women and related issues such as body image and disordered eating. We intend to systematically evaluate and refine the use of social science research and dance as an intervention tool among young women. In so doing, it is expected that we will help prevent and decrease psychological and health-related problems among young women, which, in turn, will help women’s partners, families, friends, and wider communities. It is also anticipated that results from the proposed project will yield wider benefits, including: refining collaborative work among dance choreographers, dancers, and social scientists, promoting more effective interventions and prevention models, and making public often privatized conversations about women’s ideas of romance and social expectations.

The proposed project draws on the CO-PI’s (a social scientist and a dance choreographer) successful and collaborative evening-length concert, Ordinary Wars, funded by a previous grant from our university. (See my previous post on the CMH blog for more details).

In the present project, extending our previous work, we propose offering a three-pronged intervention based on: (A) viewing the performance, (B) engaging in a focus group, and (C) participating in a dance movement workshop. We are building on the effectiveness of our previous project by including the third component, a participatory movement workshop designed to kinesthetically explore the ideas presented in the concert. We also propose to evaluate our intervention efforts. We will create two distinct spaces in which women can confront and question problematic societal expectations concerning romance and body image using cognitive, emotional, and kinesthetic approaches. The discussions groups will offer a safe place to explore contemporary issues facing college women and the dance movement workshops will help women explore meaningful kinesthetic reactions and choices.

Reference
Fitzgerald, M. (2008). Community dance: Dance Arizona Repertory Theatre as vehicle for cultural emancipation. In N. Jackson & T. Sharpiro-Phim (Eds.), Dance, Human Rights, and Social Justice: Dignity in Motion. Plymouth, UK: Scarecrow Press. (pp 256-269.)

For more information, please contact Elizabeth Sharp who is currently working in Durham as a Honorary Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study, or the lead dance choreographer in the project Genevieve Durham-DeCesaro.

Ordinary Wars: Transition, Weddings, Wives, Choreography and Research

Centre for Medical Humanities — Wed, 22 May 2013 09:52:05 +0000

Elizabeth Sharp, Associate Professor, Human Development and Family Studies at Texas Tech University and Honorary Fellow, Institute of Advanced Study, Durham University, writes: In November 2012, I had the pleasure of participating in the Times of Transition Workshop, sponsored by the Centre for Medical Humanities and the Institute of Advanced Study. I spoke about timing in single women’s lives, drawing on two of my social science studies examining ever-single women. Taking a life course perspective, I question whether women in my samples were “missing” (passive) and/or avoiding/averting (active) the transition of marriage. The women in the studies were between 25 and 40 years old – often considered “prime family building years.” I brought into focus how the women negotiated their personal desires with societal expectations more generally, and expectations related to timing of marriage and children more specifically.

This work on single women along with another one of my studies (examining weddings and new wives) was the impetus for an evening-length dance performance. Three choreographers examined my qualitative data sets and created dances. We also used portions of the verbatim transcripts as part of the performance. The concert titled “Ordinary Wars” was performed by a professional dance company, Flatlands Dance Theatre, in Lubbock, Texas on March 23, 2013 and in Blacksburg, Virginia on March 27, 2013. Over 200 people attended the performances.

Purpose of the Dance/Social Science Project: “Ordinary Wars”*
The objective of the project was to make public traditionally privatized negotiations of women’s ideologies and experiences of singlehood and marriage. Towards that end, the project asked choreographers to re-analyze and re-present social science data through live dance performance The performance drew on two separate qualitative data sets – one study focused on newly married women transitioning to be wives and the other focused on women choosing to be single and/or childfree. The choreographer used an embodied analysis (see Sharp & Durham-DeCesaro, in press, for more details). The project emphasized bodily knowledge and lived experience as lenses through which to view, interpret, and re-present social science qualitative data.

Audience Response to Ordinary Wars
Preliminary findings from the audience members indicated that the performance itself stimulated thought and greater awareness about cultural expectations related to femininity, as well as emotional reactions. One student at Virginia Tech University reflected after viewing the Ordinary Wars concert:

“The performance did make me really think about the stereotypes of being a woman and what society expects of us. I liked that a lot. I even went home and discussed some of the points that were made last night with my boyfriend, just to see what his views were. Also, with many of my friends getting married soon, it made me really think about what else they have coming besides pretty dresses and a big party.”

Other Audience members commented:

“Very moving, especially to see the women’s bodies flowing, jumping, dancing, speaking, gesturing on stage. I loved the dancing, and it was made all the more powerful by the overlay of rich qualitative data. I’ve never seen anything like this before, and found it delightful and shocking–it really shook me up–in a positive and inspiring way.”

“Watching a performance about weddings made me realize that in a way, weddings themselves are performances”

“I thought the concert was very moving. I experienced several emotions throughout. I thought the concert resonated with me.”

View the Performance

Backstage Viewing: The Bumpy Road to The Dance Concert
Although, in the end, the performance was well-received and we were both pleased with the outcome, the social scientist and the lead dance choreographer experienced an arduous process to get there. Since the inception of the project, we have committed to exposing the “messiness” accompanying transdisciplinary projects. In a recent paper, we share one of the greatest dilemmas we encountered – our separate relationships to data. We consider data as a “troubling anchor” in our project. Below is an excerpt from our paper:

Relationships with Data

For the social scientist, her relationship to the data can be characterized as close, privileged, and contextualized. In her analysis for her social science publications, she closely read the data, engaging in line-by-line coding. It is typical for her to read transcripts more than five times each. She highly values data and it has a privileged position for her. The extent to which she depends on and privileges data was made evident in her work with this project and has helped her become aware of how such dependence can be a hindrance in an interdisciplinary project.

Many times, but not always, choreographers use data and other stimuli (text, visual images, political situations) as jumping off points. For her role in this project, the choreographer presumed she could read the transcripts once, pull what she wanted to use from the transcripts, and begin to make dance. The choreographer did not anticipate that the social scientist would be so familiar with the data that she would question when the choreographer made artistic decisions that did not accurately represent the environment or the context of the original interview.

We discuss our solutions, compromises, and continuing questions in our paper: “Almost Drowning: Data as a Troubling Anchor in a Dance/Social Science Collaboration.” We are continuing to work together as we enjoy the “risk, danger, and exceptional reward possible in transdisciplinary research” (Durham-DeCesaro & Sharp, in press).

References

Durham-DeCesaro, G., & Sharp, E. A. (Under Contract- to be completed in March 2014).Toward Innovative and Transdisciplinary Methodologies. Common Ground Publishing, Inc.
Durham-DeCesaro, G., & Sharp, E.A. (In Press). Immersion in the muddy waters of a collaboration between a social scientist and a choreographer. The International Journal of Social, Political and Community Agendas in the Arts.
DeCesaro-Durham, G., & Sharp, E. A. (Under Review) Almost Drowning: Data as a Troubling Anchor in a Dance/Social Science Collaboration. Dance Research Journal
Sharp, E. A., & Durham-DeCesaro, G. (In Press). What Does Rejection Have to Do With It?: Toward An Innovative, Kinesthetic Analysis of Qualitative Data. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung/Forum: Qualitative Social Research.
Sharp, E. A., & Ganong, L. (2011). “I’m a Loser, I’m Not Married, Let’s Just All Look at Me”: Ever Single Women’s Perceptions of their Social Environment. Journal of Family Issues, 32, 956-980.

Grants

“Claiming One’s Body: Using Dance as an Intervention for Young Women.” Fahs-Beck Community Fund ($19,994; Under Review, April 2013). PI’s Elizabeth Sharp and Genevieve Durham DeCesaro
“Making Space: Publicizing ‘Ordinary’ Women’s Lives through a Transdisciplinary Dance & Social Science Collaborative Project ($10,000) Texas Tech University Creative Activities, Humanities, and Social Sciences Award Competition (2013). PI’s: Elizabeth Sharp and Genevieve Durham DeCesaro
“Toward Innovative and Transdiciplanary Methodologies: Re-Analyzing and Re-Presenting Social Science Data through Dance” ($19,997) Texas Tech University Creative Activities, Humanities, and Social Sciences Award Competition (2012). PI’s:Genevieve Durham DeCesaro and Elizabeth Sharp

Funding for this project was provided by the Texas Tech University Office of the Vice President for Research. The wedding study was funded by a seed grant from the College of Human Sciences, Texas Tech University. The single women research was funded by the Anthony Marchionne Small Grants Program.

“Science & Society”: History of Science, Medicine, & Technology Postgrad Conference (Oxford, 7 June 2013)

Centre for Medical Humanities — Tue, 21 May 2013 16:06:43 +0000

The Wellcome Unit for the History Medicine, University of Oxford is pleased to announce the History of Science, Medicine, and Technology Postgraduate Conference 2013

Science and Society will take place on

7 June 2013 at 10:00-17:00

At the History Faculty Lecture Theatre, George Street, Oxford

Science and society have been codependently constructed. The Wellcome Unit’s annual postgraduate conference seeks to explore these conceptual intersection points through panels ranging in subject matter from “Projecting Health and Policy”, “Biology and Society”, to “Science and Medicine in Transition”, and “Madness, Psyche, and War”.

Bringing together a variety of explorations of the histories of science, medicine, and their broader influences, the conference seeks engaging and enthusiastic participants in a rousing and challenging discussion.

The event is free but please register your interest by 30 May 2013 by emailing Belinda Michaelides.

Forget-me-not: Memory and Forgetting in the Digital Age (London, 7th June 2013)

Centre for Medical Humanities — Tue, 21 May 2013 09:18:26 +0000

Podcast: Ian Hacking ‘Making up Autism’

Centre for Medical Humanities — Mon, 20 May 2013 12:24:11 +0000

A podcast of Professor Ian Hacking’s ‘Making Up Autism’ – Inaugural C. L. Oakley Lecture in Medicine and the Arts, University of Leeds, 13 May 2013 – is now available here.

Illness, Narrative and Phenomenology (CfP & Workshop Announcement, University of Bristol, 9 July 2013)

Centre for Medical Humanities — Mon, 20 May 2013 12:11:24 +0000

Illness, Narrative and Phenomenology
Tuesday 9 July 2013
Verdon-Smith Room, Institute for Advanced Studies
Royal Fort House, University of Bristol BS8 1UJ
Keynote speaker: Prof Brian Hurwitz (King’s College London)

This one-day workshop will inaugurate the Medical Humanities research cluster at the University of Bristol. We welcome papers on any area of illness narrative, phenomenology of illness, narrative medicine, and phenomenology of health from a variety of disciplinary approaches, including (but not restricted to) literature, philosophy, medicine, psychology, arts & health, death studies, medical anthropology, health research, and medical education. We welcome submissions from practitioners and researchers in any domain of health research and practice.

Please send a 400-word abstract by June 17, 2013 to both organizers: Dr Havi Carel (Philosophy) and Dr Ulrika Maude (English). Decisions will be announced by 20June, 2013.

The workshop is free and all are welcome. To register please email the organizers.

We thank the University of Bristol’s Faculty of Arts and Institute for Advanced Studies for supporting the workshop.

Shared practice in non-medicalised mental health care (Conference, Birmingham, 16 October 2013)

Centre for Medical Humanities — Mon, 20 May 2013 08:52:46 +0000

Shared practice in non-medicalised mental health care
A conference in celebration of 20 years of PCCS Books
16th October 2013, 10.00 am–4.30pm
Clarendon Suites, Birmingham

Speakers
Richard Bentall
Mick Cooper
Jacqui Dillon
Stephen Joseph
Joanna Moncrieff
Lisbeth Sommerbeck

For service users, carers, professionals, students and everyone interested in critical debate on mental health care. All profits to Soteria Network UK.

For more details of the conference and the speakers as well as information on how to book, please click here for the conference website.