Film and Discussion Group: Safe
GTC Medical Anthropology Film & Discussion Group
Tuesday 21 May 2019 15:30 to 17:00Location: |
Barclay Room, Green Templeton College |
Please note this event will now take place in the Barclay Room.
Everyone is welcome to join this session which will discuss the film Safe (1995), directed by Todd Haynes.
Set in an affluent neighbourhood of the San Fernando Valley, California, this drama recounts the life of Carol White, a typical upper-middle class suburban housewife whose life deteriorates under the stress of unpredictable and strange bodily manifestations, such as persistent fatigue, uncontrollable coughing, nose bleeding and convulsions. Doctors are at a loss of how to help her cope or cure her. To find treatment, Carol journeys to New Mexico and enrols in the Wrenwood Institute, a New Age facility designed for healing people suffering from ‘environmental illnesses’.
The Green Templeton College Medical Anthropology Film and Discussion Group explores the extent to which film can complement, enrich and further the study of medical anthropology themes, topics and methods. We discuss a film’s content and approach, and interrogate its capacity to support the analysis of issues relating to illness, crisis, health and wellbeing.
This term we ‘cross boundaries’ with medical humanities. We discuss clips from feature films on different kinds of ‘boundaries’: body-mind; body-environment and human-animal being.
Location:
Barclay Room
Green Templeton College
43 Woodstock Road
Oxford
OX2 6HG
