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Graphic Medicine’s Possible Futures: Reconsidering Poetics and Reading

Dates: 1, 8, 15, 22 & 29 March 2023
Time: 14:-00-17:00
Location: Utrecht University (Kromme Nieuwegracht 80, room 1.06)
Instructors: Erin La Cour and Anna Poletti
Contact: a.l.poletti@uu.nl and e.l.lacour@vu.nl
Credits: 5 ECTS
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Since its coinage in 2007 by medical practitioner and comics artist Ian Williams, graphic medicine has steadily gained traction as an umbrella term for comics that explore healthcare issues, the theoretical discourse these comics engender, and the study of comics as expressive communicative tools. Moving on from the use of comics in medical institutions, which predominately take the form of simple, top-down didactic infographics on posters and in patient brochures, graphic medicine aims to expand the benefits of using comics in both healthcare training and information dissemination by focusing on how the complex affordances of the comics medium can provide subjective insights into experiences of various forms of illness and disability.

In this course, we will begin by discussing the development of graphic medicine as an area of practice and research within the broader context of the medical humanities. Tracing the overlapping interests of lifewriting, comics, and graphic medicine scholarship, we will focus on two, interconnected, topics for further research in graphic medicine: continued attention to the role of comics poetics in presenting experiences of living with or alongside disability or illness, and the need for continued research into the experience of reading graphic medicine by different reader groups (members of the public, medical professionals in training, patients and their loved ones).

*Students will be asked to read several sections from the instructors’ edited volume Graphic Medicine’s Possible Futures: Reconsidering Poetics and Reading (available on Project Muse)

Erin La Cour is Assistant Professor of English Literature and Visual Culture at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Her research focuses on the mediality, intermediality, and affect of comics in several socio-historical cultural milieux. She is the co-editor of “Graphic Medicine” (Biography 2022) and Key Terms in Comics Studies (Palgrave Macmillan 2022) and co-founder and co-director of the research consortium Amsterdam Comics. She is also a Comenius Fellow of The Netherlands Initiative for Education Research (NRO), for which she conducted the project ‘Opening a Dialogue about Mental Health through Comics and Creative Writing.’

Anna Poletti is Associate Professor of English at Utrecht University, The Netherlands. Their research focus is contemporary life writing, with particular interests in youth cultures, ephemera (both digital and analogue) and the role of mediation and materiality in autobiography. With Erin La Cour, Anna is co-editor of a forthcoming special issue of Biography: an interdisciplinary quarterly on “Graphic Medicine.” They also co-edit the New Directions in Life Narrative monograph series for Bloomsbury Academic. Their most recent book is Stories of the Self: Life Writing After the Book (New York University Press, 2020).

 


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NICA archive 2010 – 2020

Read all articles published by Netherlands Institute for Cultural Analysis 2010 to 2020.

Affiliated Universities

  • Leiden University
  • Tilburg University
  • Radboud University
  • University of Amsterdam
  • Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
  • Erasmus University Rotterdam
  • Rijksuniversiteit Groningen
  • University of Maastricht
  • Utrecht University
  • Open University

National Research Schools

  • ARCHON, Research School of Archaeology
  • Huizinga Instituut
  • LOT, Netherlands Graduate School of Linguistics
  • NISIS, Netherlands Interuniversity School of Islamic Studies
  • NOG, Netherlands Research School of Gender Studies
  • NOSTER, Netherlands School for Advanced Studies in Theology and Religion
  • OIKOS, National Research School in Classical Studies
  • OSK, Dutch Postgraduate School for Art History
  • OSL, Onderzoekschool Literatuurwetenschap
  • OZSW, Dutch Research School of Philosophy
  • Posthumus Institute, Research School for Economic and Social History
  • Research School for Medieval Studies
  • RSPH, Research School Political History
  • RMeS, Research School for Media Studies
  • WTMC, Netherlands Graduate Research School of Science, Technology and Modern Culture

Useful Links

  • Academy of Creative and Performing Arts (ACPA)
  • Amsterdam Institute for Humanities Research (AIHR)
  • Amsterdam Research Center for Gender and Sexuality (ARC-GS)
  • Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis (ASCA)
  • Amsterdam School for Heritage, Memory and Material Culture (AHM)
  • Babylon: Center for the Study of Superdiversity, Tilburg University
  • Benelux Association for the Study of Art, Culture, and the Environment (BASCE)
  • Centre for BOLD Cities
  • Centre for Gender and Diversity, Maastricht University
  • Leiden University Centre for Cultural Analysis (LUCAS)
  • Platform for Postcolonial Readings
  • Radboud Institute for Culture & History (RICH)
  • Research Institute of the Faculty of Philosophy, Theology, and Religious Studies (PTR)
  • Environmental Humanities Center Amsterdam
  • Centre for Environmental Humanities (UU)
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