Benjamin Gagnon Chainey ‘Is the experience of pain preferable to the anihilation of experience?[1]’ Hervé Guibert, Le mausolée des amants The question posed by Hervé Guibert, a French writer who died in 1991, while he was HIV-positive at the apex of the Western AIDS epidemic, resounds from the darkest areas of his terminal phase….
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New Events: October 22-28
To post an event, write to aah2155[at]columbia.edu. Events this week Call for Papers: Midwest Victorian Studies Association, “Victorian Health and Wellness” (April 20-22, 2018) CFP for participation in seminars due October 31, 2017. See http://www.midwestvictorian.org/ for details. Humanities in Medicine Symposium: Rochester, MN October 27-29, 2017 The 4th Annual Mayo Clinic Humanities in Medicine Symposium…
Robin Williams and the Ability to Console with Humor
James Belarde “Comedy can be a cathartic way to deal with personal trauma.” -Robin Williams I vividly remember August 11, 2014 for two reasons. For one, it was the day my medical class at Columbia University observed its White Coat Ceremony, officially marking our matriculation. But it was also the day comedian Robin Williams committed…
Lecture recap: “Inventions of the Soul”
With Rishi Goyal, Arden Hegele, Jesús R. Velasco Medicine, philosophy, and law entangle in Professor Jesús Velasco’s study of the science of the soul, as he takes for his central question the law’s interest in the soul. How did the law become interested in the science of the soul? What kind of things does the…
Menopause: The Female Mummy’s Curse
Fig. The Opening of the Tomb of Nitocris by Darius (?) – René-Antoine Houasse circa 1686 Daisy Butcher The nineteenth century’s fascination with Egypt reached its apogee in the Mummy novel—from Jane Webb Loudon’s 1827 The Mummy! A Tale of the Twenty-Second Century, the first book to feature a reanimated Egyptian mummy, to Bram…
Natural Symbols: Some thoughts on interdisciplinary communication
As the weather changes in the fall, I often suffer from a bit of sleep-onset insomnia. Recently at night I’ve found myself reaching for Mary Douglas’s 1970 slip of a book, Natural Symbols, whose high-structuralist insights into cosmology can have a wonderfully somnolent effect. Jokes aside, I’m fascinated by Douglas’s central assertion that symbolism arises…
Emperor Frederick’s Larynx and the Professionalization of Medicine in Late Nineteenth-Century Europe
Jessica M. E. Kirwan In June of 1888, German Emperor and King of Prussia, Frederick III, died of a laryngeal tumor at the age of 56, only 99 days into his reign. His death is considered one of the greatest malpractice cases in history, and, while most discussions center around the illness itself, here I…
The Unfamiliar in Familiar Places: A Personal Account of Ethnographic Research in a Hospital
Jordan Babando “Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others.” – Jonathan Swift There is something unsettling about maintaining a presence in a hospital setting when you are neither a patient or a health care worker. Everyone in the hospital has a specific role and ways of seeing the daily unfolding…
New Events: Week of October 15-21
Each week, I’ll send out an announcement of newly-posted or upcoming events! Please write to me at aah2155[at]columbia.edu to post your event. This week’s events: The Examined Life Conference October 12-14, 2017 We seek to explore the intersections between the arts and medicine. How can they be of use to each other? How can they…
The Reproductive Sublime in Anthropocenic Literature, Part I: The Frankenstein Bicentennial
Livia Arndal Woods Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) has a big birthday on the horizon, a whole host of celebrations are afoot to mark the occasion, and this is the second Medical Health and Humanities blog post in as many weeks to take the novel as its subject. This hubbub reflects not only the perennial popularity…