
Comics and Medicine 6th International Conference:
SPACES OF CARE
16th – 18th July 2015
Culver Arts Center
University of California, Riverside
The theme of the 2015 Comics & Medicine conference, Spaces of Care, invited us to think about space as a critical element in health care and comics. Receiving medical treatment can affect how we relate to and interact with each other and our environments. Medical care is often thought of as taking place primarily in clinical spaces. A strength of comics is their ability to visualize care beyond these settings to include geographic, physical, ideological, imaginative, temporal, and social spaces.
Juliet McMullin, Organizer of the 2015 Comics & Medicine conference, Riverside, CA
I currently teach and research in the areas of comics and narrative in anthropology and medical humanities with a specific focus on cancer and health inequalities. I am a Professor of Anthropology and the Director for Medical and Health Humanities in the School of Medicine and the College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences at the University of California, Riverside. My most recent work explores how storytelling about illness in graphic form creates communities of support. I have a current project that explores how creating comics about a person’s experience with cancer helps with symptom management. I also teach classes in Graphic Medicine to medical students and undergraduates. All of my projects are committed to creating opportunities for students and the communities I collaborates with to share their stories. I am the author The Healthy Ancestor: Embodied Inequalities and the Revitalization of Native Hawaiian Health, an edited volume Confronting Cancer: Metaphors, Advocacy, and Anthropology, and numerous articles in the field of Graphic Medicine. I had a terrific time hosting the 2015 Comics and Medicine Conference with the theme Spaces of Care. You can find me on Instagram and twitter @4pumehana and at julietmcmullin.com
Conference Schedule
Click here for conference photos and blog posts.
The Keynote speakers
Carol Tyler, Adjunct Professor of Fine Art, University of Cincinnati
creator of You’ll Never Know, Late Bloomer, The Job Thing
listen to Carol’s keynote here.
Steven Keewatin Sanderson, self taught animator and illustrator
creator of Journey of the Healer
Justin Green, sign painter and cartoonist
creator of Binky Brown Meets The Holy Virgin Mary
Jared Gardner, Professor English & Film Studies, The Ohio State University
author of Projections: Comics and the History of 21st-century Storytelling
listen to Jared’s keynote address here.
Is the location of 2016 conference known?
Yes it is Dundee, United Kingdom on 7- 9 July.