涩里番

The Department of Art History and Communication Studies welcomes Thomas Schlich, Professor and Canadian Research Chair in the History of Medicine, 涩里番 University, to speak at our annual lecture series (follow this link for a complete list of this year's speakers).

Title: "Photography, Body function and Rationalized Fracture Care (WWI and 1920s Vienna)"

Abstract: When the Austrian surgeon Lorenz B枚hler created his machine-like system of rationalized fracture care behind the trenches in WWI, he documented the outcome of his treatment in a striking way. He took photographs of his patients, lined up naked, and performing synchronous movements . In my talk, I am going to explore the rationale of this unusual way of representing bodies. I will put B枚hler鈥檚 images in the context of contemporary orthopedic photography and B枚hler鈥檚 project of rationalized fracture care in particular, and discuss parallels and possible cultural resonances with scientific management and Vienna Modernism.

Thomas Schlich is Professor and Canada Research Chair in History of Medicine (renewed 2007) at the Department of Social Studies of Medicine at 涩里番. After working as a physician at the University Hospital in Marburg, Germany, he pursued his historical interests in different research and teaching positions in Cambridge, England, Stuttgart, Germany, and Freiburg, Germany. Before moving to Montreal in September 2002 he held a Heisenberg Fellowship of the German Research Council (DFG). He has worked on surgery's connections to science and industry in the twentieth century, the history of organ transplantation, bacteriology, disease concepts in modern medicine, physiology and the relation of medicine and Judaism. His main research focus is on the rise of modern surgery (1800-2000). Combining medical history with approaches from the history of technology as well as science and technology studies he examines how surgery achieved the high level of technical effectiveness it has today. At the same time he looks at how surgery became built into the fabric of modern society and culture. His work thus aims at providing a new and better basis for understanding surgery鈥檚 current status as the most important but least questioned technique of body manipulation.