Critical Approaches to Like and Dislike in Medicine, Law, and Society

Dear All,

Please join us at the hybrid event for Centre for Health, Law, and Society Annual Symposium.

What does it mean to like – or dislike – someone? What does it pivot on, and what consequences can it have? Following emerging critiques in feminist political science and literary and narrative studies, we contend that likeability frequently has a politics, and understanding that politics can help chart a way through a series of contested medical, legal, and social arenas. Attending to the causes and consequences of like and dislike from multiple, more-than-disciplinary perspectives reveals significant – and unjust – disparities in experiences and outcomes that otherwise elude analysis. Rethinking likeability as a problem of power – and taking in their epistemic and emotional dimensions – opens up and threads together work in a number of different spaces.

This interdisciplinary symposium brings together scholars in Law, History, Philosophy, Science and Technology Studies, Medical Education, English, and the Visual Medical Humanities, to ask new questions and break new ground. The event is free and open to anyone.

9.30. Registration/coffee

10.00. Fred Cooper and Sheelagh McGuinness, Law, University of Bristol. Critical approaches to like and dislike.

10.20. Lucy Series, School for Policy Studies, University of Bristol. Keynote speech: On smiling less.

11.10. Break

11.30. Panel 1:

Alessandro Guardascione, Philosophy, University College Dublin. The Normativity of Likeability: Towards A Phenomenological Approach.

Eleanor Byrne, Philosophy, University of Nottingham. High-stakes emotional expression in functional neurology.

Paula Muhr, Transdisciplinary Studies, Brand University of Applied Sciences. Functional Seizures and the Persistence of Historical Stereotypes of the ‘Difficult’ Patient.

13.00. Lunch.

14.00. Panel 2:

Pravajya Pandey, Independent researcher. Masked and Unlikeable: Affective Injustice and Epistemic Erasure in ADHD Women.

Sandra Duffy and Abs S. Ashley, Law/English, University of Bristol. Can the neurotrans person speak?

Noemi Paciscopi, Cristina Ganz and Mara Floris, Philosophy, Università Vita-Salute San Raffaele. Likeability, Silence, and Power: Affective and Epistemic Injustice in Obstetric Care.

15.30. Break

15.50. Panel 3:

Barry Lyons, School of Medicine, Trinity College Dublin. Like/Dislike and the Consequences of Adverse Events in Medicine.

Davy Tennison, Science and Technology Studies, UCL. “How can you stand those women??”: understanding the dislike of fibromyalgia patients as both epistemic injustice and epistemic dysfunction.

Hugh Robertson-Ritchie, Philosophy, University of Kent. Unlikable Responses to Medical Uncertainty: Evidence from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

17.20. Closing remarks and reception.

This symposium is supported by the University of Bristol Law School and the Wellcome Trust-funded project EPIC: Epistemic Injustice in Healthcare.

https://epistemicinjusticeinhealthcare.org