Join the Deakin SSN and 11 leading researchers to explore issues of medicine, ethics and history in health humanities.About this Event
Putting the History into Health Humanities
A Deakin Science and Society Network (SSN) symposium
History has much to offer the health humanities, illuminating how medicine, care, and public health have been shaped by the societies that produced them. Colleagues across fields and the public are invited to join the SSN and leading researchers for a symposium that traces these histories across a full day of interdisciplinary papers. Keynotes from Professor Gayathri Prabhu and Professor Nikhil Govind, from the Manipal Academy of Higher Education, India, span gender, race and medicine in colonial India, and bioethics and end-of-life care debates in Indian law, alongside papers on dementia and aged care in literature, hepatitis C treatment barriers, the cultural history of the vagus nerve, autism diagnosis, American psychotherapy, obstetric violence in British medicine, and the history of tobacco and gambling advertising regulation.
Please see the line-up below. This is a hybrid online and in-person event, with morning tea, afternoon tea and lunch catered for those joining us at Deakin Downtown.
Abstract
Health humanities scholarship increasingly draws on history to understand how ideas of illness, care, and wellbeing are produced as outcomes of particular social, political and cultural conditions. This symposium brings together historians, literary scholars, and clinical researchers to explore how historical methods can deepen our understanding of contemporary health challenges, from mental illness and disability to reproductive care and public health regulation.
Spanning colonial India, twentieth-century Australia, and contemporary bioethics debates, the day's papers ask what is gained when health humanities puts history back into the frame, and what historical perspectives can offer researchers, clinicians, policymakers and communities working on today's most pressing health questions.
Associate Professor Carolyn Holbrook will facilitate the day and lead a closing discussion.
Full program and individual abstracts.
Agenda
🕑: 09:30 AM - 09:45 AM
Acknowledgement of Country & Opening
🕑: 09:45 AM - 10:45 AM
The Female Physician, the Male Scientist and Public Health in the Colony
Host: Professor Gayathri Prabhu
🕑: 11:00 AM - 11:30 AM
Humour, Aged Care, and Dementia in Elizabeth Jolley’s Mr Scobie’s Riddle
Host: Professor Ann Vickery
🕑: 11:30 AM - 12:00 PM
Beyond the "Standard Patient"
Host: Dr Carl Moller and Dr Brad Underhill
🕑: 12:00 PM - 12:30 PM
Historicising the Vagus Nerve: Wellness and the Gut-Brain Axis
Host: Dr Jacinthe Flore
🕑: 01:30 PM - 02:30 PM
Bioethics Jurisprudence and End-of-Life Care Debates in India
Host: Professor Nikhil Govind
🕑: 02:30 PM - 03:00 PM
From Kanner and Asperger to Autism Spectrum Disorder
Host: Dr Melissa Kirkovski and Professor Peter Enticott
🕑: 03:15 PM - 03:45 PM
Are You in Therapy? American Psychotherapy and the Myth of the Analysed Person
Host: Dr Christian Gelder
🕑: 03:45 PM - 04:15 PM
Tracing the History of 'Obstetric Violence' in British Medicine, 1700-1885
Host: Dr Paige Donaghy
🕑: 04:15 PM - 04:45 PM
Revisiting the fight to ban tobacco advertising and sponsorship in the 1970s
Host: Associate Professor Carolyn Holbrook
🕑: 04:45 PM - 05:00 PM
Closing
Event venue
Deakin Downtown, Level 12, Tower 2, Melbourne, Australia
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