'A shocking disease': a hypochondria workshop 1700 to the present

Members may be interested in a medical humanities workshop on hypochondria to be held at Northumbria University on 11 May 2012. The aim of the one-day workshop is to consider the origins and development of today’s hypochondria, beginning with its identification in the eighteenth century.

Of particular relevance to NENC members are the first four speakers, all from Northumbria University. Dr Diane Buie will give a paper entitled 'The Medical Diagnosis of Hypochondriacal Illness in the Eighteenth Century', followed by Professor Allan Ingram's paper on 'James Boswell's Hypochondria'. Dr Clare Elliott will talk about Dickens and hypochondria in '“Always complaining and never ill”: Dickens's Hypochondriacs in Sketches by Boz', and towards the end of the long nineteenth century Dr Katherine Baxter will give a paper entitled 'Incurably Foreign: Language and Illness in Joseph Conrad's “Amy Foster”'.

The workshop, which is free, runs from 10.00am to 3.45pm in Room 121, the Lipman Building, Northumbria University. Further information, including a full programme, can be found here.