Chronic Illness and Well-Being

Time: 9.30 am - 6.30 pm

This event will tackle the problem of how to map well-being during life-limiting illness: How is the sense of 'who I am' unsettled during life-limiting illness? What is the relationship between remorse, loss, guilt, shame, and fear to life-limiting illness? How can we accommodate new identities, bodily shapes and somatic capacities at this time? Does chronic illness fit with the current disability model? Is chronic illness a relational or social condition?

The workshop aims to attract a mixture of scholars and clinicians and will be open to the general public.  Confirmed speakers include:

Arthur W Frank - acclaimed author of At the Will of the Body (1991, new edition 2002); The Wounded Storyteller: Body, Illness, and Ethics (1995); and The Renewal of Generosity: Illness, Medicine, and How to Live (2004)  - will give the plenary lecture.

Claire Colebrook is Professor of English at Pennsylvania State University and the author of Milton, Evil and Literary History (Continuum 2008), Deleuze and the Meaning of Life (Continuum 2010), and William Blake and Digital Aesthetics (Continuum 2011).

Liz Bentley, 'sit-down comedienne', will entertain us with poetry, music and stories. http://www.lizbentley.co.uk/

There will be three panel sessions on broad-ranging and multi-disciplinary topics including: the phenomenology of illness; reading and chronic pain; creative embodiment and politics; dementia and well-being.  Full programme to be confirmed.

Registration is free and will include lunch and refreshments, but please email: [email protected] to reserve a place, detailing affiliation, email, dietary and any other requirements.

  New Thinking on 'Living with Dying' is an AHRC-funded network of academics and practitioners interested in exploring questions about the implications of living with dying.  The interdisciplinary network is based at the University of Liverpool, although members are from various universities and organisations within the UK and beyond.  Follow us on Twitter: @NewThink1.