Medicine & Humanities: The Andrew Vincent White and Florence Wales White Graduate Student Scholarship, 2023–24

Excited to share that I’ve received the The Andrew Vincent White and Florence Wales White Graduate Student Scholarship (2023–24) for my dissertation research. This award, which is given to two UC graduate students per year, is intended to support projects “that approach unique topic areas from interdisciplinary humanities perspectives, and which clearly show the relevance of the research to broader debates within the growing field of medical humanities.”


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Upcoming Lecture, 5/18/22: UCI Center for Medical Humanities

I’m looking forward to giving a “work in progress” talk at UCI, hosted by the Center for Medical Humanities.

Details for the lecture can be found here!

While many know of the rich literary friendship between C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, as well as their involvement in the Oxford writing group known as the Inklings, few are aware that a physician counted among their number. Robert E. Havard (1901-1985), known as the “medical Inkling,” was a physician-scientist and writer whose biomedical research was balanced by an enduring interest in aesthetics, religion, and literature. In reviewing Dr. Havard’s published and unpublished writings on psychological medicine, this talk will explore Dr. Havard’s Catholic “medical imagination” as a holistic alternative to the totalizing gaze of 20th century Freudianism and scientism.  

Havard’s position is undoubtedly unique: the only scientifically trained member of the Inklings, and a practicing physician embedded among some of the most popular authors of the 20th century. By identifying R.E. Havard as a mediating figure between the disciplines, this talk will illustrate shared ground between Inklings studies and the Medical Humanities. 

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