On October 27, 2012, Birbeck University in London, sponsored by the Wellcome Trust, will hold a one-day conference exploring the nature of pain in old age between the 18th and the 20th centuries through the lens of the humanities. The conference strives to be wide-ranging in terms of disciplines, methodologies, and approaches. In doing so, it seeks to engage both panellists and audience in discussion, dialogue, and debate, with the aim to facilitate new ways of thinking about both the nature of pain and what it means to be old.
Possible paper topics might include, but are not limited to:
- Pain, old age and social relationships (partner, children, friends, neighbours)
- Pain and sexual relations
- The philosophy of pain
- Pain and the ageing self
- Pain as a marker of old age
- Pain, piety, and religion
- Representations of pain and old age in literature, art, and autobiography
- Pain as a mechanism of self-fashioning
- Pain clustering and the loci of pain, including physical, emotional, and spiritual pain
- The elderly’s engagement with medicine and medical practitioners
- The medical community’s response to pain in the old.
The conference will be held at Birkbeck, University of London. Further information will be made available online (http://www.bbk.ac.uk/bih/) in June, 2012. There is no fee to attend or register for the conference.
If interested please send a 300-500 word abstract and a short C.V. by email to Lynn Botelho (BotelhoATiup.edu) by 1 June 2012.
More information regard the The Birkbeck Pain Project is available here.
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