Upcoming History of Medicine Events

Scottish Society of the History of Medicine Conference

This two day symposium is being organised by the Scottish Society of the History of Medicine, in association with the British Society for the History of Medicine and the History Society of the Royal Society of Medicine. The aim is to explore the development of anatomy teaching from the earliest times to the present day.

Presentations will cover the ways in which anatomical knowledge has been acquired, portrayed and taught. We will examine the evolution of techniques used in the teaching of anatomy through the ages and its relevance not only to surgery and medicine, but also to art and society in general.

The programme includes keynote lectures, invited speakers and short papers. We welcome short papers from a range of perspectives including historical, social, cultural and modern innovations.

More information here.

Booking FormDownload

Cultures of Intoxication: Contextualising Alcohol & Drug Use, Past & Present

Humanities Institute, University College Dublin, Ireland

7-8 February 2020

This conference will focus on the cultural meanings and contexts of alcohol and drug use, both past and present. It aims to assess how cultural norms and stereotypes around alcohol and drug use shape policies, practices, treatment and users’ experiences and behaviour. In particular, it seeks to consider how and why those of certain ethnicity, race, religion, gender, sexuality and socio-economic background are deemed prone to excess while others are supposedly abstemious.

Papers on the following themes will be considered, although this list is neither prescriptive nor exhaustive:

  • Defining “drinking culture” and “drug culture”
  • Attempts to change drinking/drug cultures
  • Ethnic, racial, gendered and socio-economic stereotypes/stigma of alcohol and drug use
  • Medical/policy/public perspectives on drug and alcohol use
  • Cultures of abstinence or excess
  • Hidden cultures, subcultures and countercultures
  • Culture-specific marketing and advertising
  • Cultural representations of alcohol, drugs and their use (i.e. literature, drama, film)
  • Alcohol and drugs tourism Keynote Speakers Professor Geoffrey Hunt, Department of Psychology and Behavioural Sciences – Centre for Alcohol and Drug Research, Aarhus University Dr Deborah Toner, School of History, Politics and International Relations, University of Leicester Abstracts of no more than 250 words, along with a short speaker bio, should be submitted to the conference organiser, Dr Alice Mauger (alice.mauger@ucd.ie) by Friday 6 December 2019. Panel submissions are also welcome.

Save the date! An evening at the Royal College of Physicians

You are invited to attend an evening lecture to explore education and research opportunities from the newly digitised Royal College of Physicians archive collection. 

Monday 11 November 2019 
6:00 pm – 8:00 pm 
The Dorchester Library Room 
The Royal College of Physicians 
11 St Andrews Pl, London NW1 4LE 

Refreshments and a drinks reception will be provided, and all attendees will be given free temporary access to the digital archives.  

Please join us at this free event to:  

The evening will include presentations from the Royal College of Physicians and researchers studying materials in the archive collection. A detailed agenda will follow nearer the date.  

Please register here and please feel free to forward to colleagues who might like to attend.  

Wellcome Exploring Research Seminar Series

At these seminars you will get the chance to hear about some of the latest projects that explore materials from our collections. Ask questions and take inspiration for your own research. Follow the link for the full programme of events.

Teaching Anatomy from Classical to Modern Times

‘Er indoors’: Domesticity and nature in home and garden. A one-day interdisciplinary conference

Date: 23 November 2019

Venue: University of Warwick

Keynote Speakers: Professor Ben Highmore (Cultural Studies, University of Sussex); Dr Lisa Taylor (Media Studies, Leeds Beckett University)

The domestic garden represents, for many, their closest and most significant contact with the natural environment. The relationship of humans with this domestic outdoor space, in which nature can be ‘controlled’ by the householder, is often very different to that with ‘wild nature’, to be found in the countryside and national parks. Domesticity and Nature in Home and Garden seeks to provide a fresh, interdisciplinary perspective on the interaction of humans with the environment by focusing on the relationship between the house and the garden across time and place, on the ways in which family life occurs in the domestic space and how it moves between the indoors and the outdoors. This conference will promote a rethink of our place in the nature that is on our doorstep.

Domesticity and Nature in Home and Garden will appeal to scholars from diverse fields who are concerned with all aspects of the relationship between the inside and the outside of the home. Every time and place has a domestic culture of the inside and the outside that can be critically examined and compared. Areas of interest will include, but will not be limited to, the lived experience of the domestic home and garden (pets, house plants, vermin, barbeques, sheds) and the role of health, gender and class in defining the boundaries of the home and garden space. The study of domesticity inside and outside can reshape understandings of health, wellbeing and the human relationship to the environment and provide new approaches to productively discuss our future domesticities in the context of combatting climate change. This work is of clear significance to the world beyond the academy. The conference will provide a platform for discussion of ways in which the public might be fruitfully engaged, and of any barriers that exist to prevent this.

Centre for the Social History of Health and Healthcare. Programme of Events, Semester 1, 2019-20