Controversy & Conversation Film Screening: Vessel

Thursday, August 2, 2018
Terrazas Branch, Austin Public Library, 1005 E. Cesar Chavez St.
Austin, TX 78702
6:30 PM - 9:00 PM

Free and open to the public.

Controversy & Conversations is a collaboration between the Difficult Dialogues Program and the Austin Public Library. Every month, Austin Public Library hosts a documentary film screening and a moderated discussion around a current controversial topic.

August's screening of VESSEL (2014) focuses on the work of Women on Waves, an organization founded by Dutch physician and activist Rebecca Gomperts. The organization, founded in 1999, aims to provide medical abortions in international waters to women whose countries restrict or prohibit the procedure. Winner of SXSW's audience award, the film follows Gomperts as she travels from country to country, eventually using the organization's notoriety to stage demonstrations and further her advocacy work. The film details the original roots of Women on Waves, as well as the challenges and controversies surrounding the project.

The screening will begin at 6:30pm, to be followed by a brief community conversation. Refreshments will be provided.

Controversy & Conversation Film Screening: Do Not Resist

Thursday, September 6, 2018
Terrazas Branch, Austin Public Library, 1005 E. Cesar Chavez St.
Austin, TX 78702
6:30 PM - 9:00 PM

Free and open to the public.

Starting on the streets of Ferguson, Missouri, as the community grapples with the death of Michael Brown, Do Not Resist (2016) offers a look at the current state of policing in America and a glimpse into potential futures. The Tribeca Film Festival winner for Best Documentary explores the militarization of police forces and perspectives on police violence, broadening its scope from the local officers of Ferguson to police forces across the U.S. The film also looks at where controversial new technologies, including predictive policing algorithms, could potentially lead the field.

The screening will begin at 6:30PM, to be followed by a brief community conversation. Refreshments will be provided.

The Health & Humanities Pop-Up Institute (PUI)

The Humanities Institute, with support from the Vice Provost for Research and other departments on campus, held the Health & Humanities Pop-Up Institute (PUI) from May 7th to May 30th.Three dozen scholars from the College of Liberal Arts, Dell Medical School, and 7 other schools and colleges at UT participated. The PUI also featured four public lectures and three community panels.

The PUI convened scholars to conduct an interdisciplinary exploration of the impact of humanistic approaches to medicine on patients, caregivers, healthcare workers, and underserved communities. The Institute was organized around three fields of inquiry:

(i) Narrative Medicine/Narratives of Medicine, which addressed how effective care, including communication of illness and disease in ways that impact the success of treatment, requires the ability to tell and recognize stories and narratives;

(ii) Humanistic Approaches to Health Equity and Justice, which addressed how humanities training can further medical inquiry into health disparities, increase cultural and structural competency, and integrate non-Western and biomedical practices of care; and,

(iii) Community Practice, which addressed how the medical humanities can foster partnerships with community organizations in order to develop a more caring society, including increased support for healthcare workers. In order to foster a sustainable, coordinated medical humanities program at UT, the Pop-Up Institute worked to address the need to measure the objective health outcomes of humanistic approaches to medicine with regard to patients, patient communities, and the medical community itself.

Scholars questioned how to best improve clinical practice through the humanities, how to promote healing through narrative, and how to utilize UT-Austin's particular strengths in further interdisciplinary collaboration.

Pop-Up Institute Hosts Lecturers from Across Disciplines

What makes a healthy community? How do we include the humanities in medicine--and why is it important? Participants and speakers at the Health & Humanities PUI had a few ideas.

The PUI hosted four public lectures from leading scholars in medicine, psychology, and sociology to consider these subjects, and to further encourage collaboration and interdisciplinary research.

Dr. Vanessa Grubbs, Associate Professor of Medicine in the Division of Nephrology at the University of California, San Francisco, began the series of public lecture with a talk entitled "Are We Still Worlds Apart?: Racial & Ethnic Disparities in Kidney Transplantation."

Dr. James Pennebaker, Regents Centennial professor of liberal arts at the University of Texas at Austin, described the power of expressive writing in his talk, “Expressive Writing and Health: How Putting Upheavals into Words Can Affect Our Thoughts, Feelings, and Behaviors.”

Dr. Annie Brewster, founder and executive director of Health Story Collaborative in Cambridge, Massachusetts, asked participants how they could press stories into the practice and work of healing in her talk on May 21st:“Putting Stories to Work: Why and How Sharing Stories Promotes Health.”

During the PUI's concluding symposium, special guest and keynote speaker Dr. Jonathan Metzl of Vanderbilt University gave his lecture, “Structural Competency Five Years On: Tracking a New Medical Approach to Stigma and Inequality" after a morning of enlightening community panels.

Mobilizing Health Equity at the PUI Symposium

The University of Texas at Austin’s Health & Humanities Pop-Up Institute (PUI) hosted a Symposium on May 30th, featuring keynote speaker Jonathan Metzl, who discussed structural competency. The Symposium featured leaders of community and health organizations from across the Austin metro area discussing “The Humanities in Practice," among other topics.

Several speakers focused on implementing humanities methodologies in health and social justice activism, including representatives from Mobile Loaves and Fishes, the Texas After Violence Project, and Texas Folklife. Speakers from the University of Texas discussed UT Voices Against Violence and the Value Institute of Dell Medical School. Throughout the panel, audience members and speakers meditated on how these methodologies can bring scholars and community members' work together.

PUI Symposium Discusses Healing "Superpower" of Music and Art

Art and music can be essential forms of healing--that’s what many of the panelists at the University of Texas Health & Humanities Pop-Up Institute (PUI)’s concluding Symposium will tell you. Held on May 30th, the Symposium featured leaders of community and health organizations from across the Austin metro area discussing “humanistic methodologies in community health organizations.”

Three community panels discussed ways of fostering community health and healing through the arts and humanities. Possibilities for partnerships between community organizations and the university were also discussed. Panelists represented a number of local social service, humanities, and art organizations such as Art from the Streets, Austin Classical Guitar, Health Alliance for Austin Musicians, and VSA Texas.