Monthly Archives: May 2012

Maison Francaise talk on starvation in French asylums on Thursday 31 May

The Maison Française d’Oxford is running the following lecture:

“Starvation in French asylums during the German occupation: Misinterpretations and instrumentalisation since 1945” Thursday 31 May, at 5.00pm, Mordan Hall, St Hugh’s College

Lecture by Isabelle Von Bueltzingsloewen,
Université de Lyon II – A member of LARHRA (Laboratoire de Recherche Historique Rhône-Alpes)

Isabelle von Bueltzingsloewen, Professor of History and Sociology of Health at the University of Lyon 2, is specialised in the history of public health and of contemporary psychiatry. She published L’hécatombe des fous : la famine dans les hôpitaux psychiatriques français sous l’occupation (Aubier, 2007 and Champs Flammarion, 2009). She is currently studying the failure of the renewal movement called « assistance psychiatrique » during the interwar years and the projects of psychiatric reform of the 1945-1960 period.

Chair: Ruth Harris, New College Conveners: Laurent Douzou, IEP Lyon-MFO and Anna-Magdalena Elsner, St Hugh’s College.

ALL WELCOME

Related Links: Maison Francaise d’Oxford

New book in the library on trench diseases

Today we received a new book for the library on trench diseases entitled The Medical Response to the Trench Diseases in World War One by Robert Atenstaedt (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2011).

Dr Atenstaedt, a honorary lecturer at the School of Medical Sciences at Bangor University, studies for a PhD at the University of Oxford and wrote his thesis on trench diseases.

The Medical Response to the Trench Diseases in World War One examines how doctors dealt with trench fever, trench foot and trench nephritis.  According to Professor Mark Harrison, Director of the Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine:

“This book fills a large historiographical gap. Dr Atenstaedt shows why the trench diseases were considered important at the time and provides a lively account of the work done to elucidate them . . . it will become an important source for all those interested in the war on the Western Front.” (further info on CSP’s website)

Another recent piece on trench warfare  has been written by Dr Santanu Das for the World War One Centenary project. This free online post discusses the horrors of mud in the trenches and related references in literature.

Related links: Wellcome Unit Library’s LibraryThing page | Robert Atenstaedt’s profile on Research Gate | SOLO | Slimescapes by Santanu Das

WISER Sessions in Week 6

There are some really handy sessions for historians coming up next week, including one on Online Resources for Historians.

All members of the University and Bodleian Library Readers may attend WISER workshops. Some individual workshops are designed for particular groups (for example researchers or postgraduates). Check the individual class descriptions for more details.

Bodleian Libraries will be running the following workshops in Week 6.

WISER: Finding Stuff – Books etc on SOLO [Wednesday 30 May 14.00 – 14.45] – An introduction to SOLO for finding books, journal titles and other materials in Oxford libraries. The session will cover effective search techniques, placing hold requests for items in the stacks, reservations and using the SOLO eshelf and saved searches. >Book your place online

WISER: Finding Stuff – Journal Articles [Wednesday 30 May 14.45 – 16.00] – This session will focus on finding journal articles for your research using a wide range of databases as well as developing effective search strategies. There will be plenty of time for participants to try out their own searches using databases for their subject. >Book your place online

WISER: Finding stuff – Conferences [Wednesday 30 May 16.00 – 17.00] – Conference papers can be difficult to find but they are valuable because they describe cutting-edge research. This session will enable you to find out about forthcoming conferences and also to locate the published papers of proceedings which have taken place. >Book your place online

WISER: Online Sources for Historians [Friday 1 June 14.00 – 15.15] – A general introduction to the vast range of electronic resources which are available for all historical periods for British and West European history including bibliographical databases, biographical and reference research aids, e-books and ejournals, web portals and collections of online primary source materials. >Book your place online

WISER: Sources for US History [Friday 1 June 15.30 – 17.00] – An introduction to key information sources for the study of colonial America & US history. Starting with finding tools to locate material, examples of source materials will then be shown including archival, microform, printed/online collections & useful web portals & audiovisual collections. >Book your place online. >Book your place online

More Bodleian Libraries workshops – Check http://libguides.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/workshops for the full WISER programme and for details of other training opportunities offered by Bodleian Libraries. Why not follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/oxwiser , visit the BodWiser blog at http://bodwiser.wordpress.com or join our mailling list by sending an empty email to wiser-subscribe@maillist.ox.ac.uk

Not a member of Oxford University? – If you are not a current member of Oxford University but would like to attend a workshop please contact usered@bodleian.ox.ac.uk. Please quote your Bodleian readers card barcode number.

If you have any questions please contact usered@bodleian.ox.ac.uk

New book in the Wellcome Unit Library

Today we received a new book for the library:

A nurse at the front: the Great War diaries of Sister Edith Appleton
edited by Ruth Cohen (Imperial War Museum, 2012).
Shelfmark: D630.A66 APP 2012

Edith Appleton, or Edie, was a nurse on on the front line during the First World War.  She worked in military hospitals and casualty clearing stations in France and Belgium from 1914-1919 and kept detailed diaries.  Her diaries are presented in this volume along with a foreword from Michael Morpurgo, introduction from editor Ruth Cohen and an appendix by Sue Light on British Military Nurses in the Great War.

Edie recounts details of her personal life and reaction to her experiences along with  details of the casualties, their injuries and the medical staff.   An extract of the book is available to read for free online.  Sue Light’s appedix is available online for free from the Western Front Association.

Accompanying information is available online from http://www.edithappleton.org.uk/.  This includes photographs of the original diaries, an index list of the people mentioned in the diaries and other biographical information about Edith Appleton.

Related Links: Edit Appleton’s homepage | Western Front Association | Sue Light’s Scarlet Finders website (about military nurses) | Wellcome Unit Library homepage | new books at the Wellcome Unit Library

WUHMO Seminar Monday 21 May

Trinity Term 2012 Seminar Series

At: The Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine
Seminar Room, 47 Banbury Road, Oxford

Medicine, Leisure and the Arts
Convener: Dr Elise Smith

Week 5- 21 May
Nick Tromans, Kingston University
‘Richard Dadd: Sketches to Illustrate the History of Psychiatry’

About the speaker
Nick Tromans is a senior lecturer at Kingston University’s Faculty of Arts, Design and Architecture.  He has published widely on many aspects of nineteenth-century art. His most recent projects have been an exhibition exploring British Orientalist painting and a book on the Victorian asylum artist Richard Dadd.

Dr Troman’s publications include:

  • Richard Dadd: the Artist and the Asylum (2011) – Available to consult in Sackler Library
  • David Wilkie: the people’s painter (2007) –Available to consult in Sackler Library
  • The Psychiatric Sublime (2010, Tate Papers Issue 13) – Available online

Coffee is available from 2.00pm – Seminars begin at 2.15pm prompt.  All are welcome to join the speaker for lunch beforehand.  Please contact Elise Smith (elise.smith@wuhmo.ox.ac.uk) for more details.

The complete list of seminars for Trinity Term 2012 can be found at
http://www.wuhmo.ox.ac.uk/events/index.htm

Related Links: Nick Troman’s academic profile | WUHMO Events page | About Richard Dadd (Tate website)

Oxford HSMT Postgraduate Conference 2012

History of Science, Medicine and Technology Postgraduate Conference 2012

Date: Friday 8 June 2012
Location: History Faculty Lecture Theatre, George Street, Oxford
(Please see http://www.ox.ac.uk/visitors_friends/maps_and_directions/index.html for a selection of maps with pdf versions to download and print)

Topics include:

  • Health on Distant Shores: The Impact of American Imperial Politics on Puerto Rican Public Health and Medicine, 1890-1920
  • Living with London’s Mad: Metropolitan Communities and the Insane 1740-1800
  • “O, Brave New World”: The Huxley Brothers and Social Concerns of the Early Twentieth-century Britain
  • History of Algal Derived Biofuels

The full programme and abstracts are available online at http://www.wuhmo.ox.ac.uk/events/index.htm

A buffet lunch is included in the programme so please RSVP to belinda.michaelides@wuhmo.ox.ac.uk if you plan to attend.

International Mission Photography Archive

(c) Uni of Southern California

We have just bookmarked the International Mission Photography Archive on the HSMT Oxford Delicious page.

This free online digital image archive offers over 50000 historical images from Protestant and Catholic missionary collections in Britain, Norway, Germany, France, Switzerland, and the United States. The photographs, which range in time from the middle of the nineteenth to the middle of the twentieth century, offer a visual record of missionary activities and experiences in Africa, China, Madagascar, India, Papua-New Guinea, and the Caribbean. 

The search tools are very effective, allowing you to search by country and/or keyword (e.g. nurse, medicine) and browse by date.  The results are presented as thumbnails in the ‘Lightbox view’, but switching to the ‘List view’ provides more details about the results.

Search result for keyword ‘leprosy’

The detailed results pages are really clearly laid out and provide lots of information.  As well as location, date and descriptions, additional subject terms have been added that allow further related searches.

The site is very easy to navigate and the information and images are of a high quality.

Related links: International Mission Photography Archive | HSMT Oxford Delicious page.

Free online History of Medicine podcasts from pulse-project.org

We have just added the website Pulse-Project.org to our HSMT Oxford Delicious page.  The Pulse Project offers dozens of podcasts and video lectures on the sciences and medical humanities. 

The lectures have been drawn from international conferences on The Disease Within: Confinement in Europe, 1400-1800 (Oxford Brookes), Health and Society: Private and Public Medical Traditions in Greece and the Balkans (1453-1920) (Athens), The History of Medicine Museum in Past and Present (Budapest), Eugenics, Race and Psychiatry in the Baltic States (Riga) and Greater Romania’s National Projects (Oxford Brookes).   

There are also guest lectures from courses at Oxford Brookes University, such as Charles Webster’s recent lecture to undergraduates on The British NHS: Brave New Worlds? and Alan Hawley on Minds at War: War Psychiatry since World War One

Related links: Pulse-Project.org | HSMT Oxford Delicious page

WUHMO Seminar Monday 14 May

Two large women, one of them the “Hottentot Venus”, standing. Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images

At: The Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine
Seminar Room, 47 Banbury Road, Oxford
Medicine, Leisure and the Arts
Convener: Dr Elise Smith


Week 4 – 14 May
Sadiah Qureshi, University of Birmingham
‘”A Peep at the Natives”: Exhibitions, Empire and the Natural History of Race in Nineteenth-century Britain’

Coffee is available from 2.00pm – Seminars begin at 2.15pm prompt
All are welcome to join the speaker for lunch beforehand.  Please contact Elise Smith (elise.smith@wuhmo.ox.ac.uk) for more details. 

About the speaker
Dr Sadiah Qureshi is a lecturer in modern history at the University of Birmingham, having previously studied and carried out post-doctoral research at the University of Cambridge.  Dr Qureshi is a cultural and social historian of race, science and empire in the modern world.  Her research explores the ways in which racialized knowledge is produced, circulated and mobilised in the modern world. She is particularly interested in how racialized knowledge is used to inform and transform political policies and how histories of race and remain relevant to contemporary debates on issues as diverse as the handling of human remains and the restitution of land rights to formerly colonised peoples.

Dr Qureshi’s publications include:

  • Peoples on Parade: exhibitions, empire, and anthropology in ninteenth-century Britain (University of Chicago Press, 2011) 2 copies available in the Bodleian Library’s Gladstone Link
  • ‘Displaying Sara Baartman, the “Hottentot Venus”‘, History of Science, 42 (2004), pp. 233-257. Available online from: http://www.negri-froci-giudei.com/public/pdfs/qureshi-baartman.pdf

The complete list of seminars for Trinity Term 2012 can be found at: http://www.wuhmo.ox.ac.uk/events/index.htm