The two-day conference plans to illuminate – in bright white spotlight, of course – the dazzling research of this year’s cohort. Bringing historical narratives to life in intricate detail, the conference spans four centuries and will discuss topics ranging from Scottish asylum patients’ use of expression in patient-produced magazines, through to counter cartography in late twentieth-century Chocó, Colombia. So, why indulge in a Hollywood Blockbuster when you have the most thought-provoking narratives right on your doorstep? We look forward to you helping us roll out the red carpet and erupting in applause. (Popcorn not provided!).
09:40-10:00 Registration
10:00-10:10 Opening Monologue: Professor Rob Iliffe, “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” (Best Production Design, 2019)
10:10-11:00 Session 1 – Theories of Nature, ‘The Theory of Everything’ (Best Actor, 2014)
Tinius Bentsen Dragland, Science by comparison: justificatory analogy and its decline in European thought, 1780-1820
Ariana Orozco, Militarizing nature: the impacts of violence on Colombia’s Pacific Coast (c. 1966-1996)
Chair: Emmay Deville
11:00-11:20 Tea/Coffee
11:20-12:10 Session 2 – Eugenics, ‘Million Dollar Baby’ (Best Picture, 2005)
Mahealani Daniels, Dissecting America’s model identity: a historical examination of Harry Hamilton Laughlin’s idealized body politic and reconciliations with American freedom
Lauren Devine, The ascent of crypto-eugenics: the American Eugenics Society’s Princeton conferences and the rehabilitation of “the wellborn science” in 1960s-America
Chair: Grace Aquilina
12:10-13:10 Lunch
13:10-14:20 Session 3 – Disease. ‘Parasite’ (Best Picture, 2019)
Anubhab Chatterjee, A case study on Colonial resistance: probing the bhadraloks’ public health drive during the plague outbreak in Bengal viz. Calcutta (c. 1896-1914)
Florian Gregor Eichhorn When did the Spanish Influenza pandemic end? Occupation accusations and virulent “Schwarze Schande” propaganda in the French medical and military administration of the German Rhineland Region between 1920-1923
Benjamin Rymer, “Against the climate, who can contend?” Disease in the Peruvian War of Independence, 1820-1824
Chair: Lorelei Robinson
14:20-14:40 Tea/Coffee
14:40-16:10 Session 4: Institutions, ‘Monsters, Inc’ (Best Original Song, 2001)
Grace Aquilina, “The world Is hard on women”: institutionalised mothers, worthiness, and the professionalization of care
Emmay Deville, Patients’ use of Crichton Royal Institution’s New Moon as a vehicle of expression and change, c.1890-1910
Thea Ralph, “The sewing machine men are happy”: corporate ambivalence and the sewing machine in the American sweat shop (c.1890-1920)
Ella Stalder, “The Moscow Games might as well have been called the Chemists’ Games”: athlete testing, a gendered and western reaction to the sporting success of marginalised bodies, 1968-1999
Chair: Ariana Orozco
16:10-16:20 Closing Monologue: Professor Mark Harrison, ‘The Long Goodbye’ (Best Live Action Short Film, 2021)
More information here: www.hsmt.ox.ac.uk/event/2023-hsmt-postgraduate-conference-the-ox-cars
