Wednesday, February 12, 2020, 15:30-17:00
Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences, Grote Gracht 80-82, Attic (3rd floor)
Unexpectedly, we have a window of opportunity to offer you a follow-up on Paul Craddock’s much appreciated talk in the work-in-progress seminar last January on developing the role of film as part of a research method in the humanities. We will now actually screen a selection of his short films as and about research. We will start with the film concerning the fascinating links between the history of embroidery and surgical skills—the one Craddock introduced us to last time: “A Film about Skin”. In addition, we will screen films about DNA-RNA transformations performed as dance, the history of laparoscopic surgery, the epiploic cube (no idea what that is?—this is your chance to learn more about it!), the history of the flush lavatory, the role of touch in pottery and music making, and more. Paul Craddock will provide introductions and context where necessary.
Bio
Paul Craddock is a cultural historian of medicine, his main area of expertise being the cultural history of transplant surgery. Dragon in a Suitcase (Fig Tree/Penguin) explores transplant surgery from the sixteenth century to the present day, and will be his first book. Paul is currently Research Film Maker on the V&A Research Institute’s Encounters on the Shop Floor project led by Dr Marta Ajmar. Encounters highlights the role of embodied knowledge in medical and creative craft, industry, and education. He is also working with Dr Anna Harris at the on her Making Clinical Sense project. As a film maker for research and cultural institutions, Paul is currently working with Imperial College, London, and the College of Physicians of Philadelphia. His earlier film work has been featured in Nature, the Frankfurt Book Fair, and MoMA. Paul holds an honorary appointment Senior Research Associate in the Division of Surgery and Interventional Sciences at UCL Medical School in London. He is represented by Jenny Hewson at Lutyens and Rubenstein Literary Agency.