News

New public lecture series starts at Durham University: ‘Flesh and Blood: The Body and the Arts’

(17 October 2005)

A fascinating new series of 14 evening lectures starts at 6.15pm on Monday 17 October at Durham University.

The lecture series, entitled ‘Flesh and Blood: the Body and the Arts’ will explore how the body is represented in, and has influenced literature, fine art, opera, dance and film, as well as a number of arts disciplines, such as philosophy and theology. The lectures are free and open to the public and will run from October 2005 until March 2006, with eight lectures being held in the Michaelmas Term.

The first lecture Flesh Revealed: Medicine, Art and Anatomy will focus on the vivid topic of dissected human flesh as represented and as actually present in art. It will examine a trend in modern art of using human and animal organic matter in artworks such as those by Damien Hirst, Marc Quinn and controversial anatomist/artist Gunther von Hagens, whose recent exhibition of plastinated corpses, ‘Bodyworlds’, created global debate. This lecture represents the first major re-examination of the relationship between art and anatomy since the Renaissance.

The lecture will be presented jointly by Dr Jane Macnaughton, a physician, medical educator and Director of the Centre for Arts and Humanities in Health and Medicine (CAHHM), and Dr Richard Sugg, a Renaissance specialist and Fellow in Literature and Medicine in the Department of English Studies. From their different perspectives the presenters of Flesh Revealed: Medicine, Art and Anatomy will consider the shift in focus from the Renaissance artist’s sense of wonder at human flesh revealed to the modern emphasis on mechanism and art as ‘education’ for a public woefully lacking in knowledge about their own bodies. Following the lecture there will be the opportunity to ask questions. This first lecture will be chaired by the Vice Chancellor of Durham University, Sir Kenneth Calman, and a drinks reception will be held after the lecture.

Co-organiser Dr Corinne Saunders, Reader in the Department of English Studies at Durham University, said: “We are thoroughly delighted with the range of speakers who have agreed to contribute to this fascinating series, and with the wide range of their subjects. People throughout history have been fixated by the human body – as is demonstrated by the current obsession in popular culture with youthful and ‘perfect’ bodies – and this fixation has been expressed in many art forms over time such as painting, writing, opera and dance. This series of lectures will shed new light on the representation of the body with interesting and original perspectives from contributors from a diverse range of backgrounds, from medicine to crime writing and sculpture.”

Sponsored by the Wellcome Trust, the lecture series is a joint collaboration between the Department of English Studies and Centre for Arts and Humanities in Health and Medicine (CAHHM) at Durham University, following the success of their recent collaboration in a lecture series on ‘Madness and Creativity’ (published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2004). Guest lecturers in the series will include prize-winning writer of fiction, criticism and theory, Professor Marina Warner, on 14 November, sculptor Antony Gormley on 6 February, and crime writer P. D. James. on 6 March 2006. Following the series the lectures will be published as a collection of essays on the subject. The lectures will all take place on Mondays at 6.15pm at Elvet Riverside, Durham University at dates stated below.

Details
Date: Monday 17 October 2005
Venue: Lecture theatre 201, Elvet Riverside, New Elvet, Durham University DH1 3JT
Time: 6.15pm (lecture should last an hour)
Cost: Free
Lecture title: ‘Flesh Revealed: Medicine, Art and Anatomy’

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