HOLLYWOOD’S PHYSICIANS Area
2008 Film & History Conference
“Film & Science: Fictions, Documentaries, and Beyond”
October 30-November 2, 2008
Chicago, Illinois
www.uwosh.edu/filmandhistory
Third-Round Deadline: August 1, 2008

AREA: Hollywood’s Physicians

Throughout the history of motion pictures, physicians have played prominent roles both as the subjects of film and as pivotal characters within the storyline. As sworn guardians of human life, cinematic MDs have represented the best and worst of human nature—variously portraying nurturers, visionaries, mavericks, charlatans, and madmen. The Hollywood’s Physicians Area examines some of the great moral, ethical, and social questions of human existence, such as “What constitutes life?” “Who decides who lives and who dies?” “Where are the boundaries between God and Man?” and “When do the gifts of science endanger humanity?” These questions join those treating the cultural standards of beauty, the artificial prolongation of life, and genetic research and engineering. Cinematic attempts to respond to or resolve these conflicts often represent wider cultural conversations, as well as influencing the tide of public opinion.

This area seeks papers related to the study of “Hollywood’s Physicians.” The list could be significant—ranging from Madame Curie to The Boys of Brazil (Dr. Mengele). But aside from this extreme range, other doctors have played significant roles in motion pictures—ranging in variety from surgeons (The Fugitive) and psychiatrists (One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest) to administrators (The Hospital and, on recent television, House)—in comedic and dramatic roles. This brief listing should spark the imagination. Did Dr. Watson ever see a patient in the Sherlock Holmes films of the 1930s and 40s? Or was “Dr.” sufficient to qualify the character as a certain kind of authority. Film and television physicians reveal as much about Hollywood—and its audience—as about medicine itself.

Please send your 250 word proposal by August 1, 2008 to Area Chair:


Erwin F. Erhardt, III, Ph.D.

Department of Economics

University of Cincinnati

Cincinnati, Ohio 45221-0371

513-556-2624

Submissions by email are encouraged.

Panel proposals for up to four presenters are also welcome, but each presenter must submit his or her own paper proposal. Third-round deadline: August 1, 2008.

This area, comprising multiple panels, is a part of the 2008 biennial Film & History Conference, sponsored by The Center for the Study of Film and History. Speakers will include founder John O’Connor and editor Peter C. Rollins (in a ceremony to celebrate the transfer to the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh); Wheeler Winston Dixon, author of Visions of the Apocalypse, Disaster and Memory, and Lost in the Fifties: Recovering Phantom Hollywood; and Sidney Perkowitz, Charles Howard Candler Professor of Physics at Emory University and author of Hollywood Science: Movies, Science, & the End of the World. For updates and registration information about the upcoming meeting, see the Film & History website (www.uwosh.edu/filmandhistory).