2024-25 UTM-JHI Annual Seminar: Medicine and Theatre (1)
When and Where
Description
Margaret Edson’s W;t | Guests: Linda Hutcheon/Michael Hutcheon, Comparative Literature/Medicine, University of Toronto
This seminar will engage with the remarkable play W;t (awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1999) by Margaret Edson which takes the audience through the chemotherapy and cancer death of the fictitious English professor (and Donne specialist) Vivian Bearing. A sophisticated modern tragedy (with its fair moments of comedy), the play will be used as a springboard for stimulating discussion about the interface of science and the Humanities as well as the role which theatre-and-performance based approaches to medical research and practice could play in the future. We will attempt to recruit, probably from the U of T ecosystem, individuals from the fields of medicine and/or nursing, to supplement our discussions. The seminar will also include a table read/scene studies of select moments from the play.
Lunch will be available from 12:30 p.m. onwards
About the Series
The recent pandemic has made it abundantly clear that scientific insights must be communicated clearly and effectively so that the public understands and ‘buys in’ by changing its behavioural practices collectively. Persuasive social theatre and suggestive performance techniques are crucial parts of scientific communication strategies — the sciences need the theatre! This need for ‘self-theatricalization’ will only grow in the future, as most key sciences in the 21st century will be ‘embodied sciences.’
On the other hand, there is (and continues to be) a rich and important history of playwrights putting science and scientists on stage, thereby creating interfaces and highly visible public discourses at the intersection of society, religion, politics, knowledge creation, and ethics.
In this series, we’ll examine some of the manifold modes in which sciences and theatre-and-performance art continue to interact. We’ll explore key areas of contact between science/technology and theatre/performance; which sciences and scientists currently attract theatrical interest; where and how scientific knowledge begins and ends — and who needs to know it; and how theatre and performance can best contribute to such re-conceptualized ‘scientific knowledge.’
