Event: Pain and its Meanings, London, 7-8 Dec
Pain and its
Meanings
Friday 7
December 19.00-21.00, Saturday 8 December 10.30-17.00
Wellcome
Collection
Two days of
cultural exploration and discussion
Including
Gillian
Bendelow, Joanna Bourke, Daniel Eisner Harle, Javier Moscoso,
Deborah
Padfield, Tom Shakespeare, Jo Shapcott, Marina Warner and
Joanna
Zakrzewska
Everyone has experienced bodily pain, yet describing it
is notoriously difficult.
Is pain really so difficult to articulate? Or can it
actually generate creative expression? If so, what do these narratives tell us
about the meaning of pain? Some believe it has the power to purge sin; others
interpret it as an unjust punishment. Pain can even be regarded as intrinsic to
achievement – 'no pain, no gain'.
This unique two-day symposium will bring together some of
the liveliest and most widely respected creative and scholarly minds to probe
and discuss profound questions about the relationship between body, mind and
culture.
How and why do we give meaning to bodily pain?
*PROGRAMME*
*FRIDAY EVENING*: *Deborah Padfield* film screening;
*Daniel Eisner Harle *presents a new musical composition; *Jo Shapcott *reads a
new poem. Round-table discussion and wine.
*SATURDAY*: *Tom Shakespeare*– Disability and its
Discontents;*Gillian Bendelow – *Chronic Pain and the Mind-Body Problem in
Health and Illness;*Javier Moscoso – *History for the Losers: Pain and Social
Awareness*;* *Joanna Zakrzewska – *Pain: Friend or
Foe/?/*;**Joanna Bourke – Being in Pain: Historical Reflections; Marina
Warner – 'Blood in the Shoe': Cruelty, Pleasure and the Happy Ending.
Round-table
discussion.***
*£30 full price/£25 concessions for both days,
including drinks on Friday evening and lunch, tea and coffee on Saturday. To book,
please call +44 (0)20 7611 2222*
*More information can be found here:
**http://www.wellcomecollection.org/whats-on/events/pain-and-its-meanings.aspx***
'Pain and its Meanings' is a collaboration between the
Birkbeck Pain Project <http://www.bbk.ac.uk/history/our-research/birkbeckpainproject%20>and
Wellcome Collection.