"Dissecting Anatomy" Call for Papers

I just came across this call for papers on the Medical Humanities blog that I thought might be of interest to some Morbid Anatomy Readers, especially as it seeks work from "a variety of disciplinary or interdisciplinary perspectives." The deadline for submissions is January 10th. I have posted it here in its entirety:

Dissecting anatomy – historical, cultural and ethical perspectives on teaching and research [deadline: 10 January 2010]. Themed issue of Medicine Studies.
International Journal for the History, Philosophy and Ethics of Medicine & Allied Sciences, 2.1 (2010)

"A necessary inhumanity” is what Edinburgh anatomist William Hunter expected students to gain from the dissection course they went through as a “rite of passage” at the beginning of their university careers. Learning human bodily structure by performing hands-on dissections in the anatomical theatre has become a fundamental element of modern medical education, almost everywhere on the globe. Only recently, concerns have been raised over the pedagogical adequacy of using cadavers in first-year training. “Living and Virtual Anatomy” has been proposed as one possible alternative approach to students’ first encounter with the human body.

Historically, opportunities for “doing” anatomy were restricted by various and varying prohibitions and taboos. Apart from brief episodes in Antiquity, the interior of human bodies was not available for examination by physicians nor for the instruction of their pupils. When public dissections were first permitted, professors had prosectors demonstrate the accuracy of authoritative texts, long before empirically-based criticism of received opinions was encouraged. Ethical debates about the status of the dead human body have changed over time, between cries of desecration and calls for democratic knowledge, with different connotations in different cultures. This themed issue encourages papers dealing with questions such as the following:

How is the ontological status of the dead person affected by various forms of preservation and preparation, dissection and display?

What epistemological changes between “knowing” and “doing” anatomy are effected by different methods of teaching?

Is there a specific impact of different cultural environments on the generation, development, and reproduction of anatomical practices, and to what extent are these processes gendered?

Papers from a variety of disciplinary or interdisciplinary perspectives are invited.

For details of aims and scopes and formal aspects, including style sheet, etc., please consult the journal’s website Manuscripts need to be submitted online by 10 January 2010 at . Please, follow instructions provided on the site. For any preliminary inquiries, contact one of the issue editors:
Samantha Regan de Bere (s.regandebere@plymouth.ac.uk);
Alan Petersen (alan.petersen@arts.monash.edu.au);
Rainer Brömer (rainer.broemer@gmx.de).

You can visit the original post by clicking here.

Illustration: John Bell (1763-1820) [anatomist; artist], Engravings of the bones, muscles, and joints, illustrating the first volume of the Anatomy of the Human Body. 2d ed.; London, 1804. Etching. National Library of Medicine. From the incomparable Dream Anatomy website and book.

Second Nature: International Journal of Creative Media, Vol 1, No 1 (2009)

Shirlee Saul, proprietress of Memory Palace and Curiosity Cabinet (as well as a really wonderful Flickr photostream) is now also the editor of a new journal "Second Nature: International Journal of Creative Media." Volume One, Issue One--which has just launched, in web and PoD Lulu format--is themed "Role Models," and includes a beautifully presented piece on Anatomical Theatre, a photographic exhibition of medical museums that I launched a few years ago. The rest of the journal looks to be pretty interesting as well; here is a description of the journal and this particular issue, from the Lulu page:

Second Nature: The International Journal of Creative Media is a new open access, peer-reviewed online journal that explores the distinctive particulars of and interconnections between textual, visual, aural and interactive creative research and practices. This issue, 'Role Models', is headlined by a keynote article 'Down with the Design Professions!' from eminent MIT scholar, Prof. William J. Mitchell. Articles by other scholars and researchers tease out some of the issues and ideas suggested by Mitchell, interrogating the theme 'role models' from a variety of angles. The journal's 'Projects' include suites of photography -- suggesting non-linguistic approaches to the conceptual and creative challenges and opportunities that the past poses for the present.

You can peruse the entire journal online by clicking here. You can view the Shirlee's piece on Anatomical Theatre by clicking here; click here for more on the exhibition. You can order a hard copy of the journal--full color and 200 pages!--by clicking here. The theme of issue 2, incidentally, will be "Mobile Gaming and Haptic Screen Cultures;" if you are interested in submitting a paper or in finding out more, click here.