Rethinking Illness Experiences: Visual Representations of Breast Cancer The Reading Group will meet on 21st June 3-4.30 in the Keynes Library (room 114), 43 Gordon Square, London. WC1H 0PD. Led by film-maker, Dr Christine Douglass As part of a 4 year project nine women diagnosed with breast cancer filmed their lives for up to […]
Research and teaching opportunities The Department of Psychosocial Studies is currently looking to recruit two new fixed-term members of staff to contribute to our teaching and research. Lecturer B in Psychosocial Studies/Sociology We are looking for a Lecturer in Psychosocial Studies/Sociology, for a fixed-term contract of three years starting in September 2017. The post has […]
There are a number of Medical Humanities events taking place as part of Birkbeck Arts Week. All events are free and everyone is welcome but you may need to book a place. Throughout the week you can visit the Peltz exhibition: Mr A Moves in Mysterious Ways: Selected Artists from the Adamson Collection, Peltz Gallery […]
This reading group will look at breast cancer, and will be led by Dr Helen Thomas. We will meet on Wednesday 17th March, 3-4.30pm in Room 218, Birkbeck School of Arts, 43 Gordon Square WC1H 0PD. For more information about travelling to Birkbeck School of Arts, click here. Set texts: Audre Lorde, The Cancer Journals […]
What can writers and teachers of Creative Writing learn from psychiatry, neuroscience, and other medical disciplines about the links between creativity and mental illness? Richard Hamblyn, Toby Litt and Lily Dunn, from Birkbeck, University of London, have organized an exciting series of dialogues, culminating in an ambitious one day conference on ‘Creative Writing and Mental […]
Birkbeck Centre for Contemporary Theatre, London Thursday, May 11, 2017 at 2:00 PM – Friday, May 12, 2017 at 6:30 PM (BST) How have theatre and performance represented, examined or been implicated in the transmission and circulation of medical and psychological conditions? How has our understanding of these relationships and phenomena changed over time, across […]
The Adamson Collection is one of the world’s largest collections of artworks made by psychiatric patients. It consists of approximately 6,000 paintings, drawings and sculptural objects, produced between 1946 and 1981 by the residents of Netherne, a long-stay British mental hospital, under the guidance of art therapy pioneer Edward Adamson. This exhibition displays selected works by […]
Selling condoms at a time when contraception was not easily discussed was a real challenge. So in the mid-part of the 20th century, how did the London Rubber Company get to grips with overcoming marketing restrictions and the later emergence of the contraceptive pill? Hear the fascinating story of a unique London-based latex product. Free […]
This reading group explored the relationship between portraiture and illness, and was led by the artist Tim Wainwright. It met on Thursday 23 March, 3-4.30pm in Room BO2, Birkbeck School of Arts, 43 Gordon Square WC1H 0PD. Set texts: Transplant & Life digital guide: http://www.transplantandlife.uk/en/ Tamar Tembeck, ‘Selfies of Ill Health: Online Autopathographic Photography […]
Blood; ejaculate; spit & phlegm; tears; mucus & pus; urine; diarrhoea; milk; vomit; sweat. Sometimes the body seems to be a leaky collection of liquids, a porous and productive entity, a body that repeatedly transgresses its own boundaries through seeping and oozing, or even gushing. During 2016, Fluid Physicalities has been running as a seminar series, convened by Anthony Bale and Esther […]
The cover of Healing Spaces, Modern Architecture and the Body, a collected volume published in 2016 by Routledge, features an architectural cross-section. A rectilinear tower with a reinforced concrete frame is rendered as a grid of pristine logic and perfection. Within the grid’s compartments, miniature outlines of sexless human figures gather in small groups in […]
