Life
Prof. Dr. Mita Banerjee (American Studies/Obama Institute for Transnational American Studies, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz)
Prof. Dr. Mita Banerjee
Forschungsschwerpunkte:
Medical Humanities, Autobiographieforschung, Wechselbeziehungen zwischen Geistes- und Naturwissenschaften/Medizin, Humandifferenzierung, Age Studies, Indigenous Studies
Website: http://www.obama-institute.com/banerjee/
Öffentlicher Online-Vortrag
Narrative Medicine and the Black Maternal Mortality Crisis
As of 2018, African American women in the US were three to four times as likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than white women. But it was only when award-winning tennis player Serena Williams faced severe problems giving birth to her first child, Olympia, that many were willing to admit that perhaps there was a racial bias in the American health care system after all. This paper looks at the current black maternal mortality crisis through the lens of narrative medicine. As both a methodology and a field of research, narrative medicine uses the tools of literary analysis to enhance medical practice. Looking at racial disparities in the American health care system from a narrative medicine perspective, we may thus wonder whether medical practitioners listen to the narratives of black patience differently than is the case for white patients. In this context, both African American women and their relatives need to engage in a practice of what might be called medical storytelling in order to read the practice of medicine against the grain. Finally, while this paper looks at what narrative medicine can bring to medical practice and the didactics of medicine, it also asks what narrative medicine might do to the humanities as a critical practice. If literary analysis brings to medicine an attention to close reading and “close listening,” narrative medicine, in turn, may add a material dimension to the humanities. In the dichotomy of black and white but also far beyond it, bodies may indeed matter not only to medical practice, but to the humanities as well.
Kolloquium
Prof. Dr. Mita Banerjee (Obama Institute for Transnational American Studies, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz)
Prof. Dr. Gabriele Rippl (Chair of Literatures in English/North American Studies, Universität Bern)
Datum: 06.11.2020
Zeit: 13:30 – 18:00 Uhr
Ort: Online via Zoom:
https://unibe-ch.zoom.us/j/96509341262?pwd=c2ptTjNyczl6eWZwalZoY0Rka3h5Zz09
Meeting-ID: 965 0934 1262
Kenncode: 026692
ECTS: 1.5 (to be credited in the mandatory section ICS and in the mandatory elective section GS, SLS und SINTA
Sprache: Englisch, Inputs (Kurzvorträge, Diskussion) können auch auf Deutsch erfolgen
Erforderliche Lektüre:
- Charon, Rita et al. 2016: Introduction. In: Charon, Rita et al.: The Principles and Practice of Narrative Medicine. Oxford: Oxford University Press (Online Edition: DOI 10.1093/med/9780199360192.003.0001)
- Banerjee, Mita 2018: Medical Humanities in American Studies: Life Writing, Narrative Medicine, and the Power of Autobiography. Heidelberg: Winter. Chapter 9: Trauma, Reptriation, and Representation: Life Writing as an Alternative Form of Knowledge Production. Pp. 307-336.
- Spiegel, Maura and Danielle Spencer 2016: Accounts of Self: Exploring Relationality Through Literature. In: Charon, Rita et al.: The Principles and Practice of Narrative Medicine. Oxford: Oxford University Press (Online Edition: DOI 10.1093/med/9780199360192.003.0002)
Organisation und Kontakt
Anmeldung: Bis 30.10.2020 an toggweiler@wbkolleg.unibe.ch und im KSL: https://www.ksl.unibe.ch/ (Login mit UniBe account, nach Titel suchen)
