Reading Bodies
Artist Katharine Howell has illustrated the Reading Bodies collaborative process with Riptide Journal, in preparation for our forthcoming anthology on Burnout, Overload and Resilience. We’re delighted to share her illustration below:
You can find more information about the artist here.
We are looking forward to the third in our series of project workshops for Reading Bodies, hosted by the University of Exeter on 14 June 2024. This creative writing workshop on the theme of Burnout, Overload and Resilience, will be introduced by researchers in Languages, Public Health and Psychology, and led by Dr Sally Flint, a specialist in Creative Writing. A reminder of practical information and what to bring can be found in our flyer below. We invite submissions of writing and illustrations for publication in Riptide Journal.
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’re looking forward to our second international workshop, hosted by the University of Exeter on 23 May 2024. All are welcome to attend – please reserve your place here.
Highlights include speakers across 4 languages, a keynote by Prof. Nicolás Fernández-Medina (Chair of Romance Studies at Boston University), an interdisciplinary Reading Bodies Roundtable, and a Stage Rehearsal of Multilingual Medical Humanities (with Ants!). There will also be a short talk about Bibliotherapy by Exeter City of Literature. For more information about the programme, please visit our events page.
Thanks to all our fantastic speakers, chairs, and Dr Patricia Novillo-Corvalán (University of Kent) for a wonderful keynote lecture. Thanks also to members of the research network and all attendees who came along on 26 April 2024 to support our first academic workshop, contributing to stimulating conversations about Reading Bodies: Narrating Illness in Spanish and European Literatures and Cultures (1870s to 1960s). The workshop was organised by Prof. Katharine Murphy (Principal Investigator for Reading Bodies) and Dr Olivia Glaze (AHRC Postdoctoral Researcher). A recording of selected papers from the workshop is available on the ILCS website.
By Dr Jordan McCullough, Associate Editor at The Polyphony and Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of St Gallen, Switzerland
Established in 2023, The Polyphony’s ‘Multilingual MedHums’ series seeks to challenge ‘the Anglocentric nature of much medical humanities scholarship by showcasing the work of scholars based in and working on non-anglophone countries.’[1] The series encourages readers and contributors to engage with the rich entanglement of language and culture, as the media through which health and illness are lived and communicated, and to reflect on the significance of this intersection for their own research agendas and those of the wider field. Following the recent trajectory of other multilingual scholarship in the field, calling us in the direction of a global Medical Humanities,[2] the series seeks to push beyond the boundaries of the Anglosphere; introduce new research trajectories developing across the world; and demonstrate the value of multilingual and translational approaches for the future of the Medical Humanities. The ‘Multilingual MedHums’ series thus resonates with the ‘Reading Bodies’ project on multiple levels.
The second academic workshop for this project will be held at the University of Exeter on 23 May 2024. All are welcome to attend – please reserve your place here. For more information about the programme, visit our events page.
The Reading Bodies Research Network has met regularly since November 2023 to discuss our project research questions, updates on our chosen topics, and development of shared interests which are grouped into 3 themes: gender and the body; society, illness and representation; transnational and decolonial perspectives. For more information, please visit our Network and People pages.
By Dr Kit Yee Wong, Postdoctoral Researcher in French Studies
How do European languages and literature intersect with the modern human body and identity? Can literature help us re-think the classification of bodies into social and racial categories? Surveying the history of medicine in Europe from the nineteenth century will assist with these questions.
The mid-1800s was the start of the ‘golden age’ of clinical medicine across Western Europe, when medical sciences became professionalised. Disciplines were created in new medical institutions, such as physiology, pathology, gynaecology, and anthropology, to name a few. People were measured and categorised on a grand scale.
By Dr Olivia Glaze, AHRC Post-Doctoral Research Associate, University of Exeter
References to madness, insanity, melancholia, and hysteria have long plagued the diagnoses of female mental illness. The crazed, raving, and unstable woman is a prevalent trope that has long persisted within Western literature, from Ophelia in Shakespeare’s Hamlet (1599-1601) and Bertha Mason in Brontë’s Jane Eyre (1847) to Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper (1892) and Flaubert’s Madame Bovary (1856). Historically, madness, hysteria, and melancholia have been considered female afflictions due to an assumed inherent feminine proximity to wrecked nerves and sexual disorders – indeed, the word hysteria is derived from the Greek word “hysteron” or womb. In the late nineteenth century, understanding the ‘female’ illness of hysteria was a central focus of studies, led by the French neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot at his infamous Parisian asylum, Salpêtrière. Charcot transformed the hospital into an internationally renowned site of neurological teaching, with Sigmund Freud and Pierre Janet amongst his students.