MHRNS Symposium 2

The second symposium of the MHRNS will be held in the School of Critical Studies, University of Glasgow, on Saturday 18 May 2013.

The RSE/Scottish Government-funded MHRNS aims to enable greater and more sustained collaborative research within Scotland in the medical humanities. 

The symposium addresses two of the network’s themes: ‘Mental Health’ and ‘Dependency’.

Abstracts of up to 250 words for 20-minute papers on topics such as those indicated below are invited for submission by 8 April 2013. We welcome submissions from medical students and clinical practitioners, as well as from academics in medicine and the humanities.

‘Mental Health’

  • Diagnosis, treatment, welfare provision and the shaping of social attitudes
  • How do we define “mental health” and is the concept being redefined in the face of economic recession?
  • To what extent should policy towards “mental illness” be based upon ideals of eradication, interventionism or self-management?
  •  How can the critical insights of those working in the humanities – in which “neurosis” and “madness” have often been embraced, perhaps naively, as sources of insight, inspiration, creativity and originality – contribute to these debates?

‘Dependency’

  • This focus invites research to explore further the possible alliance between medicine and the humanities in the exploration of dependency; it may include, but is not limited to, areas such as disability studies, illness narratives, and legal, philosophical and theological perspectives upon dependency.

 

The Keynote Speakers will be:

Dr Lucy Burke, Manchester Metropolitan University, on ‘Care and Dependency: Keywords in Disability Culture or Why Language Matters’

Dr Jonathan Andrews, Newcastle University, on 'Asylum patient cultures: contextualising patient contributors to Edinburgh Asylum's Morningside Mirror'

 

Please send abstract as an email attachment (.docx, .doc, .rtf, .pdf) to arts-mhrns@glasgow.ac.uk.

 

Deadline for abstracts: 8 April 2013