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Explorations in the History of Surgery series
This seminar series aims to bring together a range of historical perspectives on surgery, acting as a space for discussion on an area of medicine that has a relatively limited historiography. As the surgical historian Thomas Schlich has noted, ‘traditional concepts of surgical history, surgical knowledge and practice, as well as surgical concepts of disease, have been considered self-evident rather than a subject for critical enquiry.’ Yet surgery shocks, revolts and fascinates perhaps more than any other branch of medicine and, while increasingly routine, also retains its reputation as a risky and daring occupation. At the crux of the surgical encounter is the complex relationship between surgeons, the technologies that aid their performance and the patients on which they operate. With the ever-present potential for surgical performance to be destructive as well as constructive or reconstructive, surgery has always been one of the most visible and effecting examples of medical change and innovation.
This seminar series is strongly intended to facilitate a wide breadth of methodologies, the aim being to move away from the polarisation between ‘social’ and ‘technical’ discourses of surgery that have tended to dominate its historiography. Instead, the objective is to seek more productive ways through which historians of surgery can engage with one another and explore what has been and what could be in surgery and surgical history.
Registration for this event is not required.
For further details please contact Sally Frampton at sally.frampton@ucl.ac.uk
Admission from 5.15pm - 5.45pm
5 May 2011
| 5.30-6.30pm |
Explorations in the History
of Surgery Mr Brock and the the Peacock Club: conversations and conversion in the late 1940s Tom Treasure, UCL |
12 May 2011
| 5.30-6.30pm |
Explorations in the History
of Surgery From danger to risk: history of preventive surgery for women's cancer Ilana Löwy, CERMES |
26 May 2011
| 5.30-6.30pm |
Explorations in the History
of Surgery Lister's grandsons, Scottish-trained doctors and surgery in the early 20th century Anne Crowther, University of Glasgow |
9 June 2011
| 5.30-6.30pm |
Explorations in the History
of Surgery Revisiting the Medical Marketplace: Consultations and Cooperation amongst Restoration Surgeons Lindsey Fitzharris, Queen Mary University of London |
