Medical Humanities


Blog redesign

Posted: 15 Jan 2012 10:05 AM PST

When this blog was started some eight years ago, it was envisaged as a place where students from the Imperial College Medical Humanities course could share their writing and any medical humanities activities. This worked well for many years, but since then, the websphere has changed, as has the nature of medical education. An explosion in social media means that students no longer need a formal space in which to showcase their writing. Many have blogs of their own or rely on Facebook to raise their profile. Also students have such full timetables that it is unrealistic to expect long-term commitments to writing for a group blog. So, whilst I still envisage inviting posts from students and others associated with the course at Imperial, I'm going to take ownership of the blog and try to write more myself. I'm pretty sure this was the first blog devoted to medical humanities, and it's been nice to see other groups set up their own blogs to tell us about their activities. I'll be posting links to UK medical humanities conferences and events, so please let me know if you would like anything included. I won't be adding or accepting sponsored links. I'm in the process of updating the blog roll, so will be accepting suggestions for relevant sites.

Comics & Medicine: Navigating the Margins

Posted: 15 Jan 2012 05:09 AM PST

22-24 July 2012
Toronto, Canada

Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto Biomedical Communications Program, University of Toronto, Office of the Vice-Principal, Research, University of Toronto, Mississauga

The third international interdisciplinary conference* on comics and medicine will continue to explore the intersection of sequential visual arts and medicine.
This year we will highlight perspectives that are often under-represented in graphic narratives, such as depictions of the Outsider or Other in the context of issues such as barriers to healthcare, the stigma of mental illness and disability, and the silent burden of caretaking.

The conference will feature keynote presentations by comics creators Joyce Brabner and Joyce Farmer. Brabner, a comics artist and social activist, collaborated with her late husband Harvey Pekar on the graphic novel Our Cancer Year (1994), which won a Harvey Award for best graphic novel. Farmer is a veteran of the underground comics scene who nursed her elderly parents through dementia and decline as shown in her graphic memoir Special Exits (2010), which won the National Cartoonists Society award for graphic novels.

We invite proposals for scholarly papers (20 minutes) or panel discussions (60 minutes) focusing on medicine and comics in any form (e.g., graphic novels, comic strips, graphic pathographies, manga, and/or web comics). In particular, we seek presentations on the following— and related—topics:

• Graphic pathographies of illness and disability
• The use of comics in medical education
• The use of comics in patient care
• Depictions of the illness experience from the perspective of loved ones and family caregivers
• The interface of graphic medicine and other visual arts in popular culture
• Ethical implications of using comics to educate the public
• 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 virtual support groups for patients and caregivers
• The use of comics in bioethics discussions and education

We also welcome workshops (120 minutes) by creators of comics on the process, rationale, methods, and general theories behind the use of comics to explore medical themes. These are intended to be "hands-on" interactive workshops for participants who wish to obtain particular
skills with regard to the creation or teaching about comics in the medical context.

We envision this gathering as a collaboration among humanities scholars, comics scholars, comics creators, healthcare professionals, and comics enthusiasts.

300-word proposals should be submitted by Friday, 28 February 2012 to
submissions@graphicmedicine.org.

Proposals may be in Word, PDF, or RTF formats with the following
information in this order:
• author(s)
• affiliation
• email address
• title of abstract
• body of abstract

Please identify your presentation preference:
• oral presentation
• panel discussion
• workshop

While we cannot guarantee that presenters will receive their first choice of presentation format, we will attempt to honor people's preferences, and we will acknowledge the receipt of all proposals submitted. Abstracts will be peer-reviewed by an interdisciplinary selection committee. Notification of acceptance or rejection will be completed by 14 March 2012.

Please note: Presenters are responsible for session expenses (e.g. handouts) and personal expenses (travel, hotel, and meeting registration fees). All presenters must register for at least the day on which they are scheduled to present.

More info & updates at graphicmedicine.wordpress.com

*Information about the 2010 conference, "Comics and Medicine: Medical Narrative in Graphic Novels," in London, England, and the 2011 conference, "Comics and Medicine: The Sequential Art of Illness," in Chicago, Illinois, USA, can be found at http://www.blogger.com/www.graphicmedicine.org.
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