Health, Medicine and the Body

Convenors: Helen Keane and Robert Attenborough

Description | News and Events | Projects | Grants

Health, sickness, and healing are not simply biological phenomena but exist in historical, social, cultural, and economic contexts which also demand to be understood. The Health, Medicine and the Body theme brings together interdisciplinary research which addresses issues such as the influence of culture, class, ethnicity and gender on understandings and experiences of the body and disease; the parameters of medical power; changing conceptualizations of health and the healthy citizen; the social and cultural impact of biomedical technologies; biopower, biopolitics and medicalisation; and debates about the provision of health care. It draws on the disciplines of anthropology, population health, history, sociology, cultural studies, gender studies and philosophy and ethics. As well as fostering links within the College, the theme also provides an important connection with the College of Health and Medicine, especially the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health.

As a theme, Health, Medicine and the Body also highlights the role of research-led teaching in the College. Health, Medicine and the Body is a successful and growing undergraduate major drawing on courses from several disciplines and a new honours program in Population Health, which commenced in 2007. In addition College staff supervise and examine first year medical student projects in social and cultural aspects of medicine.

HMB Mail List: A Health, Medicine and the Body mail list has been set up to share information about events, seminars and publication, and to promote general communication and discussion of relevant issues. The mail list is administered by Helen Keane and Robert Attenborough. It currently has about 60 subscribers from a wide range of areas.

News and Events

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Projects

Research-Led Teaching

A focus of the Health, Medicine and the Body theme is research-led teaching. Three key projects in this area are:

• further development of the undergraduate Major in Health, Medicine in the Body (Convenor Robert Attenborough).
• an interdisciplinary honours program in Population Health (Convenor Robert Attenborough).
• A new coursework MA in Culture, Health and Medicine (in development). The MA is being co-sponsored by the School of Archaeology and Anthropology and the ANU Medical School. The working party comprises Monique Skidmore (CASS), Christine Phillips (CHAM), Robert Attenborough (CASS) and Helen Keane (CASS). Support has been secured to develop the MA as a flagship flexible learning project for CASS.

Grants

Reforming the Male Body: Medicalisation, Pharmaceuticals and Masculinity
ARC Discovery Grant
CI Helen Keane

Civilisation and the Male Body
ARC Discovery Grant
CI Christopher Forth

The Weight of Modernity: Mitigating Obesity
ARC Discovery Grant
CIs Dorothy Broom, Jane Dixon, Cathy Banwell, Christopher Forth, Graham Giles