BU Research Blog

You are cordially invited to this seminar which is open to all BU staff and students.

Wednesday 25th April 2018

2 – 3.30 pm

F307, Fusion Building, Talbot Campus

‘Representing Dementia in Film and Fiction’ Dr David Orr, University of Sussex and Dr Yugin Teo, Bournemouth University

From something that was ‘not really talked about’ publicly, the last two decades have seen dementia explode into the public sphere and contemporary culture’s creative imaginary. Cinema, documentary, theatre, art, memoirs, biography, poetry, literary fiction and genre fiction have all taken up dementia as a prominent theme. The gerontological humanities have been exploring what these works reveal of the experiences, preoccupations, dilemmas and misapprehensions to which dementia gives rise. This presentation discusses selected examples of engagement with dementia within (1) cinema and (2) crime fiction, asking how these narratives might reflect and shape audience perceptions of living with the condition.

Biographies

Dr David Orr is Senior Lecturer in Social Work at the University of Sussex, where his principal research interests focus on adult safeguarding and self-neglect, global mental health, and representations of dementia in contemporary films and fiction. He has worked on a number of knowledge reviews for the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) and is co-editor of the Palgrave Handbook of Sociocultural Perspectives on Global Mental Health. Before entering academia, he worked in Community Mental Health Teams in the areas of Adult Learning Disability and Older Adult Mental Health.

Dr Yugin Teo is Lecturer in English and Communication at Bournemouth University. He has previously taught literature and film at the University of Brighton and the University of Sussex where he completed his doctorate. His research on the representation of memory in literature and film has been published in the journals Critique, Medical Humanities and Science Fiction Film and Television. His research monograph Kazuo Ishiguro and Memory was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2014.

‘Ethnography of the Environment of Hospital Wards for Patients with Dementia, and the Role in which Music Can Play Within this’ Rosanna Mead, University of Exeter

Rosanna Mead discusses her PhD research exploring how music can play a role within acute hospital ward environments for patients with dementia, with a specific focus on agitation and methods to measure levels of agitation in patients with dementia, in relation to environmental factors. She draws on findings from her ethnographic study conducted within two acute hospital wards for patients with dementia, exploring the link between environments and health, considering health/illness states as something which can fluctuate in relation to the environment, and within this gaining a grounded understanding of the interaction between agitation and the environment.

Biography

Rosanna Mead is a PhD Candidate at the University of Exeter in the Sociology Department, under the supervision of Professor Tia DeNora and Dr Hannah Farrimond. She is also the Director of Dorset based social enterprise Musica Music and Wellbeing.