Thanks to all our wonderful speakers from the Universities of Belfast, Boston (USA), Cambridge, Exeter, Kent, London and Sheffield, for our second international Reading Bodies workshop, hosted by the University of Exeter on 23 May 2024. The workshop was organised by Prof. Katharine Murphy (Principal Investigator for Reading Bodies) and Dr Olivia Glaze (AHRC Postdoctoral Researcher). Prof. Nicolás Fernández-Medina (Chair of Romance Studies at Boston University) delivered a brilliant keynote on Health, Disease, and Society in the Early Ramón Gómez de la Serna. The programme included specialists in Spanish, Portuguese, English, French and German, and a hybrid Roundtable on interdisciplinary approaches to Reading Bodies in Literatures and Cultures.
We were also delighted to welcome Liv Hooper, Public Programmes Manager at Exeter UNESCO City of Literature, who joined us to talk about their innovative Bibliotherapy programme. We concluded with a Stage Rehearsal on Multilingual Medical Humanities: A Drama in Three Acts (with Ants!), performed by Dr Annja Neumann (Tavistock Institute of Human Relations) and Dr Ina Linge (University of Exeter); the script has been published by The Polyphony. We hope all our speakers and attendees enjoyed the workshop as much as we did!
Photo credits: Katy Humberstone, PhD candidate in Modern Languages, University of Exeter.
Papers on Reading Bodies in Spanish, Portuguese and German
Bibliotherapy with Exeter UNESCO City of Literature
Roundtable on Reading Bodies (In-Person and Online)
Stage Rehearsal on Multilingual Medical Humanities
You can find more details about our workshop programme and speaker bios below: