2004 McCord/AMS Colloquium

International scholars gather at the McCord to discuss child health in the 20th century

Montreal, Quebec, October 29 & 30, 2004

Montreal, Friday, October 22, 2004 — Organized jointly by the McCord Museum and McGill University, this colloquium, entitled Comparative and Interdisciplinary Approaches to Child Health in the 20th Century, will bring together scholars in history, anthropology, sociology, medicine, film, cultural studies, and art history. It will feature international and interdisciplinary perspectives, and include work about Canadians. Session topics include: the historiography of child health in North America and Europe; responses to child health problems in comparative perspective; the public image and social role of the sick or suffering child; the quantification of children's health; images of health, disease and death; and hearing the voice of the sick child.

This is a unique opportunity to hear and speak with an international group of scholars from a variety of disciplines. The 2004 McCord/AMS Colloquium occurs in conjunction with the opening of the exhibition Growing Up in Montréal on October 28, 2004 at the McCord Museum of Canadian History.

McCord Museum of Canadian History
690 Sherbrooke Street West
Montreal, QCH3A 1E9  

$75 ($30 for students)  

Friday, October 29

9:30-10:45 am Perspectives on Child Health: European and North American Histories
North American Perspectives on the Historiography of Child Health, Neil Sutherland, University of British Columbia
Ten Years of European Research on the History of Infancy and Childhood, Catherine Rollet, Université de Versailles, Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (France)

     
Social Representations of Child Health
AIDS Orphans, Raped Babies, Suffering Children: The Moral Construction of Childhood in Post-Apartheid South Africa, Didier Fassin, Université de Paris-Nord and Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (France)
Selling Disability: Tools of the Trade, Laurie Block, filmmaker and director: www.disabilitymuseum.org (US)  

1:45-3:00 pm
Counting Children
The Historical Epidemiology of Mental Retardation in the United States, Jeffrey P. Brosco, University of Miami (US)
Politics, Policy and the Measuring of Child Health, Richard Meckel, Brown University (US)

3:15-5:00 pm
Comparative Perspectives on Child Health
The Struggle Against Infant Mortality: Some Particularities of the Quebec Experience, 1910-1970, Denyse Baillargeon, Université de Montréal
Sickled Cells, Jewish Disease and Caucasian Maladies: The Problem of 'Ethnic Pain' in the Post-World War II History of Childhood Genetic Disease, Keith Wailoo, Rutgers University (US)

Saturday, October 30

9:30-10:45 am 
The Voice of the Child
"Don't feel today like speaking": Children, Experts, and Conceptions of Health in English Canada, 1900 to 1950, Mona Gleason, University of British Columbia
"It's Back!": Children with Cancer Talking About Their Disease, Themselves and Their Options for Care and Treatment, Myra Bluebond-Langner, Rutgers University (US)

The Social Construction of Children
Mental Hygiene, Film and Family in Post-World War II North America and China, Brian Low, HuaQiao University (China)
Conceptualizing the Developing Body: Medicine, Psychology, and the Adolescent 'Body Image,' 1920-1940, Cynthia Comacchio, Wilfrid Laurier University  

1:45-3:00 pm
Representing the Child's Body
Dr Norman Bethune and His Circle of Artists: The Image of the Child in Art, Medicine and Society, Loren Lerner, Concordia University
From the Last Sleep to the First Steps: Postmortem Portraits, Childhood and Amateur Photography, Vincent Lavoie, McCord Museum of Canadian History  

3:15-4:15 pm
A Kind of Childhood (Direct Cinema), film by Susan Bissell, Innocenti Research Center, UNICEF (Italy)

4:30-5:30 pm
Closing remarks and discussion
George Weisz, McGill University
Cornelius Borck, McGill University
Janet Golden, Rutgers University
Anne-Emmanuelle Birn, University of Toronto

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INFORMATION AND REGISTRATION:      
Melanie Martens
Tel: (514) 398-7100, ext. 239
melanie.martens@mccord.mcgill.ca  

The organizers wish to acknowledge the generous assistance of Associated Medical Services:

"Associated Medical Services Inc. (AMS) was established in 1936 by Dr. Jason Hannah as a pioneer prepaid not-for-profit health care organization in Ontario. With the advent of medicare AMS became a charitable organization supporting innovations in academic medicine and health services, specifically the history of medicine and health care, as well as innovations in health professional education and bioethics."