"Damaging the Body" Seminar Series
(funded by the Wellcome Trust)

Foreign Bodies? - Self-Injury, Surgery and Performance

St Bartholomew's Hospital Pathology Museum & Gallery, Monday 21 May,
6.30 - 8.30pm

A panel discussion considering the variety of ways in which acts and
objects are attributed medical, social, political and aesthetic
meaning. Drawing on their own research relating to the topic of
so-called self-inflicted injury within history, literature and the
arts, specialists will open up broader philosophical and historical
ideas for debate with the audience. Questions will include, but will
not be limited to:

 - How is a foreign body defined and understood?
 - What is the relationship of the foreign body, and "œdamage" to the
healthy human body?
 - What can the exhibition of foreign bodies indicate about consumption,
collection and display?
 - What is the relationship between the body, surgery and art?
 - What is the relationship between the physical body and the body
politic?

Speakers:

Emma Spary (University of Cambridge)
"Enlightened surgeons and the fabrication of the extraordinary eater in
eighteenth-century France"

Louise Hide (Birkbeck Pain Project, Birkbeck, University of London)
"Bodily pain and persecutory delusions in London’s asylum patients,
c.1900"

Mary Cappello (University of Rhode Island)
"Swallowed and Saved: The Chevalier Jackson Foreign Body Collection and
the Art it has Inspired"

Dominic Johnson (Queen Mary, University of London)
"Operation Spanner: Performance and the Cultural Politics of Body
Modification"

The event will take place at St Bartholomew's Hospital Pathology
Museum and Gallery, 3rd floor, Robin Brook Centre, West Smithfield,
London EC1A 7BE

Nearest tube: St Paul's

Doors open at 6pm for a chance to explore the museum collection,
including a display of foreign body specimens. The event will start
at 6.30. Refreshments provided.

Email: [log in to unmask]

Web: http://DamagingtheBody.org <http://damagingthebody.org>


--
Sarah Chaney
PhD Candidate
Centre for the History of Psychological Disciplines
University College London
Gower Street
London
WC1E 6BT

Damaging the Body Seminar Series: Next Seminar Monday 21 May, 6.30pm
Foreign Bodies? Self-Injury, Surgery and Performance
A panel discussion funded by the Wellcome Trust at St Bartholomew's
Hospital Pathology Museum and Gallery, with Emma Spary, Louise Hide, Mary
Cappello and Dominic Johnson.
http://damagingthebody.org