Urban Humanities Lecture: Dr Todd Herzog "Berlin on film"

Urban Humanities Lecture Series

Todd Herzog, professor of German Studies at the University of Cincinnati

Gives the Talk: "Berlin on Film"

Date of the lecture: Nov 18, 2010

visit the TAFT research center website at: http://www.artsci.uc.edu/taft/

See the rest of the talk in our YouTube channel at: http://www.youtube.com/user/TaftResearchCenter?feature=mhum

Medical Humanities Lecture: Dr. Cheli Reutter "The Medical Humanities and UC"

Medical Humanities Lecture


Dr. Cheli Reutter, University of Cincinnati

Gives the talk "Medical humanities at UC"

Date of the talk: November 17, 2010


ABSTRACT: In this talk I will briefly trace the history of the medical humanities (a relatively young but classically derived discipline) as context for the examination of various medical humanities-related endeavors in which UC faculty and students have participated in the last few years. I will also relate the visions of various members of the faculty for future medical humanities developments. I will illustrate with a few examples how literature and film can work for different constituencies seeking to benefit from a medical humanities perspective. Examples discussed in the talk will include Stephen Crane's The Monster, Audre Lorde's Cancer Journals and Jodi Picoult's My Sister's Keeper.

Visit the Taft research center website at: http://www.artsci.uc.edu/taft/

See the rest of the talk in our YouTube channel at: http://www.youtube.com/user/TaftResearchCenter?feature=mhum

Medical Humanities: Barbara N. Ramusack, University of Cincinnati "Medical Women and Maternal and Infant Health Programs in Colonial South India"

Medical Humanities Lecture

Dr. Barbara N. Ramusack, University of Cincinnati

Gives the talk: "Medical Women and Maternal and Infant Health Programs in Colonial South India"

In 1917 the Madras municipality in colonial south India, comprised mostly of Indian men, inaugurated maternal and child welfare centers to provide ante- and post-natal care in the poorest areas of the city. This lecture focuses on the Indian medical women who operated these centers and the challenges they faced, especially the expectations of the members of the Municipal Council of Madras. Improved maternal health and infant mortality rates were the stated goal, though gender biases and professional rivalries are shown to be as potent as racial biases in devaluing the performance of Indian medical women in the child welfare centers.


Date of lecture: Nov/9/10

Visit the Taft research center website at: http://www.artsci.uc.edu/taft/

See the rest of the talk in our YouTube Channel at: http://www.youtube.com/user/TaftResearchCenter?feature=mhum

Taft Lecture: Medical Humanities. Dr Elizabeth Watkins "Stress and the American Vernacular: Popular Perceptions of Disease Causality"

Dr. Elizabeth Watkins, Vice chair and Director of graduate studies at the University of California-San Francisco School of Medicine, Department of Anthropology, History, and Social Medicine. University of Cincinnati

Gives the talk: "Stress and the American Vernacular: Popular Perceptions of Disease Causality"

This paper explores popular understandings of and references to stress as a cause of disease, looking at how and when stress made its way into common parlance in America. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, people blamed a variety of symptoms or ills on their nerves. Nerves were replaced by stress in the mid-20th century, after Hans Selye's first use of the term in the 1930s. The source material for this paper is popular periodicals, which both shape and reflect public understanding of scientific and medical topics. I am interested in how illness is differently explained within different historical frames (using the metaphor developed by Charles Rosenberg). These frames reflect the social and cultural constraints under which medicine operates; both physicians and patients live within the context of their times and are subject to contemporary values and attitudes, as well as the latest theories about physiology and pathology. Rosenberg also acknowledges the critical role of laypeople in shaping the illness experience. I have long been interested in the transmission and translation of scientific and medical ideas from experts to the lay public. In this study, stress serves as a case study of how a medical idea makes its way from professional discourse into everyday vernacular.

Date of the talk: 10/27/10

Visit the Taft research center website at: http://www.artsci.uc.edu/taft/

See the rest of the talk in our YouTube Channel at:http://www.youtube.com/user/TaftResearchCenter?feature=mhum