Stephanie Brown Clark, assistant professor in the Division of Medical Humanities at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, will speak on "Hideously Deformed and Loathsome: Monsters, Medicine and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein" at 12:30 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 7, in the Gamble Room of Rush Rhees Library on the University of Rochester's River Campus.
Clark teaches in the Division of Medical Humanities, which is an interdisciplinary group drawn from the medical specialties and the humanities. Its application of philosophy, history, literature, and jurisprudence to the study of medicine and the care of patients is a part of the University of Rochester's traditional consideration of the social and ethical contexts of medicine.
Clark received her medical degree at McMaster University in Canada and her doctorate in medical history and literature at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands. She currently teaches courses in literature and medicine, and medical history topics to medical students. As part of her recent work on the history of the disabled body, Clark examines the medical explanations of congenital malformations or "monstrosities" at the turn of the 19th century in the nascent science of teratology, and the literary explorations of monstrosity in Mary Shelley's novel, Frankenstein.
The lecture, which is free, is one in a series sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities and co-sponsored by the Margaret Warner Graduate School of Education and Human Development, and the Susan B. Anthony Institute for Gender and Women's Studies. The purpose of the series is to consider the development of a humanities-based disability studies curriculum in high schools and colleges.
Light refreshments will be available. For more information, contact Linda Ware at (585) 275-3010.