November 6-8 — Attend the symposium “Cancer Stories” to learn about the impact of narrative on medical conditions
A three-day symposium organized around the premise that narratives about cancer have influenced the way in which cancer is experienced in America. Prose, poetry, performance, and the visual arts constitute the range of narratives the symposium will explore.
When: Thursday November 6 to Saturday November 8
Where: IUPUI
“Cancer Stories” is a free symposium that will take place 6-8 November 2008, as one of a series of events surrounding the dedication of the Indiana University Melvin and Bren Simon Cancer Center (IUSCC) on the campus of the Indiana University School of Medicine and Indiana University-Purdue University-Indianapolis. Complete program to be announced. To receive the latest information on this event, including notification when registration is available, click here.
The symposium is designed to appeal to scholars, health care practitioners, working artists, and the general public. Leading scholars in illness narrative will deliver plenary lectures; others will lead workshops that permit more interactive and collaborative cross-disciplinary conversations. Plenary sessions and workshops should address the following topics:
How have cancer narratives been understood and interpreted by historians, bioethicists, and cultural critics? What is the history (form and publication) of the cancer narrative?
How do different forms of narrative expression represent the cancer experience? What does the relationship among these forms suggest about the role of cancer narratives in American culture?
To whom do cancer stories matter and why? How do women, men, and children represent the illness experience differently?
How have cancer narratives altered the medical experience of patients and practitioners? To what extent have such narratives affected choice of treatment?
What is the relationship between cancer narrative and certain challenges of cancer such as end-of-life care and caregiver distress?
The purpose of the symposium is to illustrate how patients and practitioners have reframed the terms of their respective struggles and how they might do so in the future. We believe that scholars, practitioners, artists and people interested in the human aspects of the disease will gain a deeper appreciation of how the making and dissemination of narrative has changed collective knowledge about the disease.
Why does Provocate think you should attend this event?
It is an important topic handled in a crative wayt, and an impressive line up of speakers and events. What is scheduled so far?
Confirmed Plenary Speakers
David Cantor “Choosing to Live: Cancer Education, Movies, and the Conversion Narrative in Twentieth-Century America.” David Cantor is Deputy Director of the Office of NIH History, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland. His scholarly work focuses on the twentieth-century history of medicine, most recently the history of cancer. He is the editor of Reinventing Hippocrates (Ashgate, 2002) and Cancer in the Twentieth Century (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008), and series editor (edited collections) of Studies for the Society of the Social History of Medicine. Medicine and Culture published by Pickering and Chatto. In 2002 Dr. Cantor established the National Library of Medicine’s Online Syllabus Archive, the world’s largest collection of syllabi in the history of medicine. He has also organized workshops and lecture series including, Cancer in the Twentieth Century (2004), Genomics in Perspective (2006), and Meat, Medicine, and Human Health in the Twentieth Century (2006).
Arthur W. Frank “Tell Me Your Story: Narrative Illness in an Age of Authenticity and Appropriation.” Arthur W. Frank is professor of sociology at the University of Calgary. He is the author of At the Will of the Body: Reflections on Illness (1991, new edition 2002) and The Wounded Storyteller: Body, Illness, and Ethics (1995), and The Renewal of Generosity: Illness, Medicine, and How to Live (2004). His current book project has the working title, How Stories Make Up People: A Storyteller’s Book About Narrative (under contract to University of Chicago Press). Dr. Frank serves on the editorial boards of numerous scholarly journals, including being a contributing editor of Literature and Medicine and book review editor for health: an interdisciplinary journal. He is an elected fellow of The Royal Society of Canada and lectures internationally on narrative, illness experience, healthcare, and ethics.
Martha Stoddard Holmes “Cancer Comix: Narrating Cancer through Sequential Art” Martha Stoddard Holmes is Associate Professor of Literature and Writing Studies, California State University, San Marcos, where she teaches British literature, cultural studies, and children’s literature. She researches the cultural history of the body from Victorian culture to the present, with special interests in the public and private cultures of disability and illness. Author of Fictions of Affliction: Physical Disability in Victorian Culture (U Michigan Press) 2004 and coeditor of The Teacher’s Body: Embodiment, Authority, and Identity in the Classroom (SUNY Press) 2003, she has also coedited special issues of Literature and Medicine (on Narrative, Pain, and Suffering) and Journal of Medical Humanities (on Disability and Medicine: Beyond the Medical Model). Her current scholarly project explores how public culture guides how we imagine (or don’t imagine) cancer.
Sessions and Activities
- The independent documentary film, A Lion In The House: The Transformative Power of Storytelling at Pediatric End-of-Life
- A dance piece by performance artist, Gretchen Case
- An illness narrative writing workshop, Giving Cancer Patients and Their Caregivers a New Voice
- A variety of panels on such topics as: Users and Uses of Cancer Stories, Female Identity and the Language of Breast Cancer, Cancer in Literature, Material Narratives of Cancer, and Voice and Empathy
