Franks Room, Wellcome Collection, 13:00-18:00.
What is it to see difference or pathology? We are becoming familiar with brain images produced by scanners that render the brain thinkable in terms of its neuronal structure, its patterns of activation, its neural circuits. In this workshop we will explore a different ‘neurological gaze’ as it took shape in the films of ‘holistic’ neurologists Kurt Goldstein (1878-1965) and Oliver Sacks (1933-2015). Both sought to counterbalance reductionist perspectives of disordered nervous system. Their emphasis on the complexity of the “performances” of their patients made film a crucial technology of documentation and diagnosis.
13:00 Arrival, registration, and reception (coffee and tea)
13:30 Introduction
__Nikolas Rose (King’s College London). On the project and modes of visual representation of the brain.
13:45 Panel 1: Kurt Goldstein, “[Tonus]”, late 1930s. Chair: Caitjan Gainty (King’s College London).
Screening
__Edgar Jones (Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience) On the representation of movement disorders in military medical film.
__Stefanos Geroulanos (New York University, by video-link). Co-author of the forthcoming: The Human Body in the Age of Catastrophe: Brittleness, Integration, Science, and the Great War (Chicago, 2018).
__Leander Diener (University of Zurich). On making the brain visible on film and neuro-cinematography in the 1920s, 30s, and 40s.
14:30 Panel 2: Bill Morrison Re:Awakenings (2013). Chair: Kathryn Schoefert (King’s College London).
Screening
__Christos Lynteris (St Andrews). On the footage as visual evidence of a neurological plague, encephalitis lethargica.
__Kelina Gotman (King’s College London). On the study of performance, temporality, and medical mise en scène.
15:25 Reflections. Chair: Nikolas Rose, Caitjan Gainty, Kathryn Schoefert.
15:45 Break
16:00 Awakenings (1974)
16:00 Welcome
16:05 Introduction and comments
__Andrew Lees (Institute of Neurology). Introduction.
__Tara Mahfoud (King’s College London). On Awakenings as ethnography.
__Janneke van Leeuwen (University College London). On the social brain in encephalitis lethargica.
16:35 Screening
17:20 Discussion and Reception.
18:00 End.