This working group focuses on ethical and theoretical concerns with conducting research in the history of medicine and the human sciences, broadly conceived, as well as on questions of writing and naming practices; citation practices; aspects of access to source material; and the roles of historians in public-facing and activist scholarship. Our intention is to also bring historians into conversation with archivists, librarians, and curators, to discuss and develop nuanced strategies for accessing, analyzing, and archiving sensitive material, human remains, and patient data. We also intend to address the violence and colonialism of our historical actors, as it is often contained and continued within archives, and to develop strategies for working with such materials and addressing such histories without perpetuating this violence.
Group Conveners:
Kylie Smith
Courtney Thompson
Consortium Respectful Behavior Policy
Participants at Consortium activities will treat each other with respect and consideration to create a collegial, inclusive, and professional environment that is free from any form of discrimination, harassment, or retaliation.
Participants will avoid any inappropriate actions or statements based on individual characteristics such as age, race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, marital status, nationality, political affiliation, ability status, educational background, or any other characteristic protected by law. Disruptive or harassing behavior of any kind will not be tolerated. Harassment includes but is not limited to inappropriate or intimidating behavior and language, unwelcome jokes or comments, unwanted touching or attention, offensive images, photography without permission, and stalking.
Participants may send reports or concerns about violations of this policy to conduct@chstm.org.
During this meeting, we will discuss the "Research" section of the planned volume, featuring the following essays:
The essay drafts will be uploaded on June 1.
During this meeting, we will discuss the "Museums & Archives" section of the planned volume, featuring the following essays:
The essay drafts will be uploaded on April 27.
During this meeting, we will discuss the "Historian" section of the planned volume, featuring the following essays:
The essay drafts will be uploaded on April 6.
During this meeting, we will discuss the "Teaching" section of the planned volume, featuring the following essays:
The essay drafts will be uploaded on March 2.
During this meeting, we will discuss the "Writing" section of the planned volume, featuring the following essays:
Ahmed Ragab will be joining us to discuss the reviewers' initial impressions of the Do Less Harm proposal and next steps for the volume project.
TBA
The Working Group will NOT meet on Nov. 10.
In this meeting, we will be revisiting the problem of the "great doctor" for historians of medicine, as well as the question of accountability for historians of medicine (and others). The readings are:
Susan M. Reverby and David Rosner, "'Beyond 'the Great Doctors,'" in Health Care in America: Essays in Social History, Reverby and Rosney, eds. (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1979), 3-16.
Susan M. Reverby and David Rosner, "'Beyond 'the Great Doctors' Revisited: A Generation of the "New" Social History of Medicine," in Locating Medical History, Huisman and Warner, eds. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004), 167-193.
During this meeting, we will be checking in on how everyone's writing process has been going for Do Less Harm. We will also be discussing presentism and positionality, following the recent AHA debates, with the following readings:
James Sweet, "Is History History?" Perspectives on History, August 17, 2022. https://www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-...
William Horne, "White Americans Fail to Address Their Family Histories," The Activist History Review, February 9, 2018, https://activisthistory.com/2018/02/09/white-americans-fail-to-address-t...
Tyler Stovall, "Irena's Lamp," Perspectives on History, December 1, 2017, https://www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-...
Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., "Folly's Antidote," New York Times, Jan. 1, 2007, http://studythepast.com/163_spring11_campus/materials/schlesinger_follys...
In this meeting, we will be discussing our plans for the next year of the working group, including our preliminary plans for the edited volume. There will be no readings for this meeting.
In this meeting, we will be discussing historical therapeutics, with the following readings:
Kerwin Lee Klein, “On the Emergence of Memory in Historical Discourse,” Representations 69 (2000): 127-150.
Susan M. Reverby, "Ethical Failures and History Lessons: The U.S. Public Health Service Research Studies in Tuskegee and Guatemala," Public Health Reviews 34, no. 1 (2012): 1-18.
We will be discussing citational ethics and continuing our discussion of a potential book project. The readings for the meeting are:
The Mott & Cockayne reading is attached; the Seymour essay can be found at the link.
We also recommend the following additional readings:
We will be discussing Indigenous and decolonial methodologies in this week's meeting, with selections from Linda Tuhiwai Smith's (ed.) Decolonizing Methodologies. Additionally, we will spend some time discussing the proposed structure for the volume we intend to come out of this working group.
Planning meeting for the spring semester and the proposed fall conference. No readings!
We'll be discussing ethics and pedagogy, with the following readings:
Susan A. Crane, "Choosing Not to Look: Representation, Repatriation, and Holocaust Atrocity Photography," History and Theory 47 (2008): 309-330.
Maia G. Sheppard, "Creating a Caring Classroom in which to Teach Difficult Histories," The History Teacher 43, no. 3 (2010): 411-426.
Michalinos Zembylas, " 'Pedagogy of Discomfort' and Its Ethical Implications: The Tensions of Ethical Violence in Social Justice Education," Ethics and Education 10, no. 2 (2015): 163-174.
We'll be discussing reparatory history, with the following readings:
Catherine Hall, "Doing Reparatory History: Bringing 'Race' and Slavery Home," Race & Class 60, no. 1 (2018): 3-21.
David Scott, "Preface: Evil Beyond Repair," Small Axe 55 (2018): vii-x.
We'll be discussing the ethics of display of visual and material culture, with the following readings:
Wandile Kasibe, "The Skulls of Our Ancestors," News24 (March 18, 2018), https://www.news24.com/news24/Columnists/GuestColumn/the-skulls-of-our-a...
Jane Nicholas, "A Debt to the Dead? Ethics, Photography, History, and the Study of Freakery," Social History 47 (2014): 139-155.
Paul Weindling, "'Cleansing' Anatomical Collections: The Politics of Removing Specimens from German Anatomical and Medical Collections, 1988-92," Annals of Anatomy 194 (2012): 237-242.
The Weindling and Nicholas readings are in the PDF, and the Kasibe article can be accessed via the link above.
We'll be discussing writing the patient's perspective, with the following readings:
Roy Porter, "The Patient's View: Doing Medical History from Below," Theory and Society 14, no. 2 (1985): 175-198.
Alexandra Bacopoulos-Viau and Aude Fayvel, "The Patient's Turn: Roy Porter and Psychiatry's Tales, Thirty Years on," Medical History 60, no. 1 (2016): 1-18.
Anna Reisman, "Should Doctors Write About Patients?" The Atlantic (February 18, 2015), https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/02/should-doctors-write-...
Discussion of selections from Susan Lawrence's Privacy and the Past: Research, Law, Archives, Ethics (2016) and Julia Laite's "The Emmet's Inch: Small History in a Digital Age."
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