ACLA 2006 Annual Meeting: The Human and Its Others

Medicine and healthcare are central and universal human experiences. Throughout the arts, medicine is represented in ways that are both realistic and metaphorical: from works on epidemics in classical antiquity to Renaissance images of anatomy and healing to modern narratives about illness and health to recent films that question the ethical boundaries of the profession. The complex relationship between medicine and human experience, between patients and practitioners, between medical ideals and practical realities, is explored throughout the arts in ways that provide a reader/viewer both identification and engagement but also some distance for judgment.This panel explores representations of medicine. Papers deal with single texts/authors or general topics, such as how art represents doctor patient relations, public health concerns, healthcare sites and circumstances, crisis intervention, aging, alternative treatments, and mental health issues. Representations across cultures and historical periods, and with a focus on both aesthetic and social contexts, are included.

Friday, March 24

Angela Hurworth, University of Picardie
“Doctor/Patient Relations: The Textual vs. the Real? Timothie Bright and the Treatise of Melancholie (1586)”
Kathleen Kelly Baum, California State University, Long Beach
“Tough Love in the Time of the Plague: Titus Andronicus as Pharmakon”
Baige Smith, University of Western Australia
“Anatomists and their Subjects in the Early Modern Anatomy Theatre”
Teresa Heffernan, Saint Mary’s University
“‘Foreign Buds’: Biotechnology and the Smallpox Controversies”

Saturday, March 25

Marcelline Block, Princeton University
“‘Bad Medicine’: Doctor-patient discourse in Maurice Blanchot’s L’Arrêt de mort”
Andrea Kindler, University of California Los Angeles
“‘My medical training helps me understand the problem of human conduct’: The Work of Arthur Schnitzler”
Chris Leary, University of Sheffield
“‘When the doctor opened her up…’: The Representation of the ‘Big C’ in Contemporary Literature”
Carl Fisher, California State University, Long Beach
“The Pen is Mightier than the Scalpel: Satire and Medical Representation”

Sunday, March 26

Angela Laflen, Purdue University
“The Womb with a View: Fetal Ultrasound Imaging in ‘Birthmates’ and ‘The Ultrasound’”
Adrienne Bliss, Ball State University
“Trauma and the Psychological Grotesque: A Framework for Analysis of Trauma Literature and Failed Healing”
Vivian Halloran, Indiana University
“‘Illin’: Exoticism and the Medical Narratives of Oliver Sacks”
Linda Hunter, College of Saint Elizabeth, and William Hunter, County College of Morris
“The Influence of Power in Preventing Healing: A Message in Film”