Cosponsors
  • The University Seminar on Narrative Health and Social Justice
  • Institute for Comparative Literature and Society
  • The Institute for Research on Women and Gender
  • The Center for Gender and Sexuality Law
  • Department of History, Barnard College
Notes
  • Free and open to the public
  • First come, first seated

Over the next four years, the Heyman Center for the Humanities at Columbia will offer a series of events on the topic of “Evaluation, Value, and Evidence.” This series aims to examine the methods by which various disciplines and field studies describe, measure, assess, articulate, judge, and produce knowledge by different means and for different ends.

Taking “medical humanities” as its subject, the first conference in this series considers some of the investigations and interventions made by those who study illness and health from the perspectives of the arts, humanities, and human sciences. Presentations by medical practitioners, historians, social justice advocates, medical journalists, disability studies and narrative studies scholars will be interspersed with readings by poets and novelists, reports from the field, and a theatrical performance.

Among the questions to be addressed are: What roles do methods like description, measurement, prediction, and interpretation play in the evaluative practices of the interdisciplinarily diverse context known as “medical humanities”? How are diverse values—ethical, clinical, psychological, experimental, political, aesthetic, financial, and so forth---measured and assessed? How do disciplinary investments and methodological differences affect how evidence is produced, evaluated, and valued? How, for example, do healthcare practitioners evaluate health and value human life? How do narrative practices affect medical evaluation? How is the price of a human organ determined—or the worth of efforts to save an individual life? How does “data” gain and lose its evidentiary status as it moves between the various “medical humanities” disciplines? To what material, formal, and social constraints is evidence subject? How do categories of evidence gain authority or fall under suspicion? How do representational forms affect the persuasiveness of evidence—and for which audiences or constituencies? Whose testimony matters? How do new kinds of evidence (DNA, for example) change existing regimes of knowledge?

This Conference is made possible through the generous support of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Program

April 12, 2013  Friday

8:30am - 9:15am EDT

Breakfast

9:15am - 11:00am EDT

Panel I: Medicine, Humanities, and the Human Sciences: A Historical Perspective

This session will take place in Jerome Greene Annex.

Welcoming Remarks

Eileen Gillooly

Executive Director

Heyman Center for the Humanities

“Performing Authentic Cripples in 1300”

Christopher Baswell

Ann Whitney Olin Professor of English

Barnard College

"Medical Investigation and the Archive: The Case of Duke Vincenzo Gonzaga (1562-1612)”

Valeria Finucci

Professor of Italian Studies and Theater Studies Romance Studies

Duke University

"The Medical Case across Cultures: Comparing the European Observatio and the Chinese Yi'An"

Gianna Pomata

Professor, Institute of the History of Medicine

The Johns Hopkins University

Moderator

Rita Charon

Director and Founder, Program in Narrative Medicine

College of Physicians & Surgeons of Columbia University

11:10am - 11:30am EDT

Narrative Treatment

This session will take place in Jerome Greene Annex.

A reading

Marie Myung-Ok Lee

Author

11:30am - 1:00pm EDT

Panel II: Health and Truth in Social Justice Stories

This session will take place in Jerome Greene Annex.

“Stories Are Actions: The Use of Personal Storytelling as an Advocacy Tool”

Paul Browde

Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry

New York University

Murray Nossel

Founder & Director

Narativ

"Bringing Human Rights Home: the Breakthrough Way”

Ishita Srivastava

Multimedia Producer

Breakthrough

“The Criminal Justice System and the Role of Narratives:Resisting the Destruction of Self"

Kathy Boudin

Assistant Professor

Columbia University School of Social Work

Moderator

Sayantani DasGupta

Assistant Professor of Clinical Pediatrics and Faculty, Master's Program in Narrative Medicine

Columbia University

Moderator

Marsha Hurst

Lecturer, Master Program in Narrative Medicine

Columbia University

1:00pm - 2:30pm EDT

Lunch Break

2:30pm - 4:00pm EDT

Keynote

This session will take place in Lehman Auditorium, 202 Altschul Hall, Barnard College.

Chair

Judith Shulevitz

Author

4:10pm - 5:40pm EDT

Panel III: Keywords: Toward a Critical Vocabulary of Disability Studies

This session will take place in Lehman Auditorium, 202 Altschul Hall, Barnard College.

"The Keywords Concept"

Benjamin Reiss

Professor

Emory University

"Representing Disability Studies"

David Serlin

Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Communication

University of California, San Diego

"Bridging Disciplinary Divides"

Rachel Adams

Professor of English and Comparative Literature

Columbia University

Moderator

Elizabeth Emens

Professor of Law

Columbia University

6:00pm - 7:30pm EDT

Performance

New Location!:  This performance will take place in Davis Auditorium, the Schapiro Center.

I Got Sick and Then I Got Better (Directed by James Lapine and Darren Katz)

Jenny Allen

Writer and Monologist

April 13, 2013  Saturday

8:30am - 9:00am EDT

Light Breakfast

9:00am - 10:30am EDT

Keynote

This session will take place in Lehman Auditorium, 202 Altschul Hall, Barnard College.

Chair

Uzodinma Iweala

Author/Physician

10:40am - 12:10pm EDT

Panel IV: Narrative in Health Care

This session will take place in Lehman Auditorium, 202 Altschul Hall, Barnard College.

“The Importance of Personhood in Medical Practice andIts Relation to Narrative in Medicine”

Eric J. Cassell

Emeritus Professor of Public Health

Cornell University

“What (Some) Illness Narratives Tell Us about the Mind-Body Split”

Neil Vickers

Reader in English Literature & Medical Humanities

Kings College, London

“Using the Evidence of Autobiography in Narrative Medicine”

James Whitehead

Lecturer in Medical Humanities and English

Kings College, London

Moderator

Brian Hurwitz

D’Oyly Carte Professor of Medicine & the Arts

Kings College London

12:10pm - 1:30pm EDT

Lunch Break

1:30pm - 3:00pm EDT

Panel V: Humanistic and Clinical Evidence

This session will take place in Lehman Auditorium, 202 Altschul Hall, Barnard College.

"Neuroscience, Reification, and Reduction: Evidence in the Case of the Freestyling Rappers"

Jordynn Jack

Associate Professor, Department of English

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

“Attending to Evidential Practices in Biomedical Science Education”

Barry Saunders

Associate Professor, Social Medicine

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

“Evidence at the Limits: What ‘Old’ Means”

Terrence Holt

Assistant Professor of Social Medicine and Assistant Professor of Medicine, Division of Geriatric Medicine

University of North Carolina, School of Medicine

Moderator

Rishi Goyal

Doctor and Scholar

3:00pm - 3:20pm EDT

Poetic Treatment I

This session will take place in Lehman Auditorium, 202 Altschul Hall, Barnard College.

A reading

Rachel Hadas

Professor of English

Rutgers University

3:30pm - 4:45pm EDT

Reports from the Field

This session will take place in Lehman Auditorium, 202 Altschul Hall, Barnard College.

“Arts & Minds in Action”

Carolyn Halpin-Healy

Executive Director

Arts & Minds

"Narrative Medicine in Practice: The VA Hospital and the Staff of a Program for Survivors of Torture"

Maura Spiegel

Associate Professor of English

Columbia University

“The Hubbard Project”

Susan Coppola

Clinical Professor, Division of Occupational Science

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Cherie Rosemond

Co-Director: The Hubbard Program

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Jane Thrailkill

Associate Professor, Department of English and Comparative Literature

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Moderator

Alvan A. Ikoku

Assistant Professor

Albert Einstein College of Medicine

5:00pm - 5:30pm EDT

Poetic Treatment II

This session will take place in Lehman Auditorium, 202 Altschul Hall, Barnard College.

A reading/performance

Joshua Bennett

Poet

Participants
  • Rachel Adams Professor of English and Comparative Literature Columbia University
  • Jenny Allen Writer and Monologist
  • Christopher Baswell Ann Whitney Olin Professor of English Barnard College
  • Joshua Bennett Poet
  • Kathy Boudin Assistant Professor Columbia University School of Social Work
  • Paul Browde Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry New York University
  • Eric J. Cassell Emeritus Professor of Public Health Cornell University
  • Rita Charon Director and Founder, Program in Narrative Medicine College of Physicians & Surgeons of Columbia University
  • Susan Coppola Clinical Professor, Division of Occupational Science University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
  • Sayantani DasGupta Assistant Professor of Clinical Pediatrics and Faculty, Master's Program in Narrative Medicine Columbia University
  • Elizabeth Emens Professor of Law Columbia University
  • Valeria Finucci Professor of Italian Studies and Theater Studies Romance Studies Duke University
  • Eileen Gillooly Executive Director Heyman Center for the Humanities
  • Rishi Goyal Doctor and Scholar
  • Rachel Hadas Professor of English Rutgers University
  • Carolyn Halpin-Healy Executive Director Arts & Minds
  • Terrence Holt Assistant Professor of Social Medicine and Assistant Professor of Medicine, Division of Geriatric Medicine University of North Carolina, School of Medicine
  • Marsha Hurst Lecturer,Master Program in Narrative Medicine Columbia University
  • Brian Hurwitz D'Oyly Carte Professor of Medicine & the Arts King's College London
  • Alvan A. Ikoku Assistant Professor Albert Einstein College of Medicine
  • Uzodinma Iweala Author/Physician
  • Jordynn Jack Associate Professor, Department of English University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
  • Marie Myung-Ok Lee Author
  • Murray Nossel Founder & Director Narativ
  • Gianna Pomata Professor, Institute of the History of Medicine The Johns Hopkins University
  • Benjamin Reiss Professor Emory University
  • Cherie Rosemond Co-Director: The Hubbard Program University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
  • Barry Saunders Associate Professor, Social Medicine University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
  • David Serlin Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Communication University of California, San Diego
  • Judith Shulevitz Author
  • Maura Spiegel Associate Professor of English Columbia University
  • Ishita Srivastava Multimedia Producer Breakthrough
  • Jane Thrailkill Associate Professor, Department of English and Comparative Literature University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
  • Neil Vickers Reader in English Literature & Medical Humanities King's College, London
  • Jonathan Weiner Maxwell M. Geffen Professor of Medical and Scientific Journalism Columbia University
  • James Whitehead Lecturer in Medical Humanities and English King's College, London