LOC Swann Lecture : Were They So Torturous? Reevaluating Modern Surgery's Underdog Story

Were They So Torturous? Reevaluating Modern Surgery's Underdog Story

Zoe Copeman

Library of Congress Swann Fellow Lecture March 12, 2024

https://www.loc.gov/item/webcast-11275/

https://tile.loc.gov/streaming-services/iiif/media:webcasts:2024:240312pnp1200:240312pnp1200-1280x720_2000/full/full/0/full/default.txt

Summary

• The Swann Fellow Lecture focuses on caricature and cartoon. Zoe Copeman, Ph.D. candidate in art history and archaeology at the University of Maryland, argues the history of surgery often discusses the field's rise from barbaric vocation to distinguished discipline, playing up the "torturous tools" early modern surgeons used to illustrate how far modern surgery has come. Drawing from the Library of Congress's 18th- and 19th-century caricatures, this research traces changes in the public perception of surgery and how visual media across disciplines would transform the surgeon (and his tools) into a powerful metaphor of European and American modernity.

Event Date

• March 12, 2024

Running Time

• 48 minutes 14 seconds