2021 sophomore tutorial community building week!

Fannie Lou Hamer *Cue heroic theme music* (captioned and interpreted  of course) On Tuesday I attended an event sponsored by the Networks for Training and Development called "Who are the Heroes? A History of the Disability Rights Movement." It was a crowded zoom room filled with professionals from all over hoping to learn more about the heroic people who fought for a more accessible and equitable country. The main presenter for the conference was Barry Whaley, the project director of the Southeast Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Center. The Southeast ADA Center is an organization stemming from the Burton Blatt Institute of Syracuse University and aims to provide information, training, and guidance on the American with Disabilities Act. The conference presented us with a timeline of major events in the Deaf Rights Movement starting in 1917 with the  Smith-Hughes Act  and ending in 1990 with the  Americans with Disabilities Act  (although it is important to ...

This week, I had the fortune to attend a YouTube Live talk called “The Evolutionary Brotherhood: Manliness and Experimental Zoology in 19th-century America.” It was given by Jenna Tonn, who previously taught in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Harvard before moving on to teach at Boston College. This event in particular caught my attention because while we have discussed the role of gender (and the power dynamics associated with it) in science before, we have not discussed the specific norms at play in enforcing it. Additionally, I had never heard of an “evolutionary brotherhood” before, so I thought this would be a good learning opportunity for me! Generally speaking, the talk covered what it meant to be a man of science in 19th century America. Specifically, we explored what “space” there was in science for masculinity, particularly with respect to laboratory-based experimental zoology, during this time. We also learned about the specific standards of masculinity that were exc...

  COVID… The only thing people talk about nowadays. Where is the concern about those side-lined: from postponed treatments and premature deaths to the lack of mental health awareness? How many people suffered in silence while shielding at home alone? “Nursing the Pandemic: Mental Health”, run by the Royal College of Nurses, discussed the impact of COVID on the mental health industry. Mental health is one that resonates with me, and I hoped to learn about how it affected those who were directly battling on the front line. For them it is unthinkable, traumatic and exhausting, and hearing from nursing staff makes reality more impactful. I have battled mental health, and this past year not being able to see friends or enjoy college life as an independent adult has affected my emotional wellbeing. Days move slow, weeks fast, and my battle allows me to appreciate the NHS staff so much more. Through this talk, I hoped to strengthen my understanding of long-term objectives of improving men...

The event I chose to attend was the Mental Health Nursing in COVID-19 , a third event of the series called Nursing a Pandemic . This was an interview with two medical professionals, Roland Dix who is a Consultant Nurse in Psychiatric Intensive Care & Secure Recovery at Gloucestershire Health & Care NHS Foundation Trust, and Douglas Hamandishe is a mental health nurse online activist for raising awareness of the lack of PPE and the concerns regarding BAME nurses. This interview was moderated by Catherine Gamble who is the Head of Nursing Education, Practice and Research at South West London & St George’s Mental Health NHS Trust. The focus of this event was to draw attention to the importance of mental health during the pandemic and how these two professionals have experienced and tried their best to accommodate to a changing society. Additionally, what is highlighted throughout is the significance of the male perspective, that mental health nurses and the general public rare...

  I had the opportunity to attend Jack Hartnell’s seminar on the Wound Man on Tuesday. Jack Hartnell, who is an associate professor of Art History at the University of East Anglia, Norwich, focuses his research on the history of medicine, with a focus on the Middle Ages. The Wound Man first appeared in Europe in the 15th century and was originally used to help inform practitioners how to care for injury. Although it is seen as a grotesque depiction today, it was an attempt to discuss and aestheticize wounds. The Wound Man is a depiction of a man, impaled or infected with various ailments, and still has modern prominence, such as the television show Hannibal’s depiction in 2013, or Mount Orgeuil Castle’s installation of the Wound Man in the early 21st century. His seminar looked at the development of the Wound Man over time, starting with 15th century Europe and ending with 18th century Asia. Over time, the Wound Man developed from a labeled diagram to short descriptions of each ail...

       I attended a roundtable discussion hosted by Soraya de Chadarevian, professor in the Department of History at UCLA, that focused on the current challenges of the history of science, technology, and medicine. The first speaker was Terrance Keel from UCLA on the “The Demographic Future of the History of Science” and he touched on multiple themes we have discussed in class. He began by acknowledging that colonialism is embedded in the collections held in natural history museums and how the preservation of imprecise science has justified the idea of hierarchies between ‘racial’ groups. He also spoke about the role that universities play in maintaining the legacies of colonialism. He focused on the UC system and how they have recently dropped affirmative action, multiplying the fact that universities are not reflective to the Californian population. Even so, Professor Keel believes that the history of science has the potential to be one of the leading anti-racist d...

 Today, I was able to attend the Jack Harnell lecture focused on following the many lives and afterlife of the Wound Man. His likeness was a staple in Medieval and Renaissance medical books and exemplified the bleak and often morose point of view that characterized the European psyche during that time. The Wound Man was a gruesome depiction of a man impaled thoroughly, labeled with different ailments that can impact the body. The primitive form of Operation acted as a guide, organizing both physical and mental ailments by the areas of the body they impacted, and included succinct sections detailing remedies for healers. Like Vesalius, artists struggled to depict the female anatomy due to issues of accessibility. Those that were able to often depicted the pregnant woman anatomy, labeled with ailments such as "difficulty with lactation" or "miscarriage" with the child or children featured in the rendering of the uterus. In addition to promoting new remedies, these dia...