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slobogin.bsky.social
Christine Slobogin
@slobogin.bsky.social
6.8K followers 1K following 270 posts
Art historian of medicine
Asst Prof, Health Humanities & Bioethics @ Uni of Rochester
plastic surgery illustration, anonymity, humor
Book: https://boydellandbrewer.com/book/putting-plastic-surgery-on-paper/
@drawingbloodpod.bsky.social co-host
she / her
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slobogin.bsky.social
Christine Slobogin @slobogin.bsky.social · Jun 24
It's publication day!!

Thank you to all of the folks at @urochester.bsky.social press and @boydellandbrewer.bsky.social who helped to make this book so beautiful. And thank you AGAIN to all of the folks in my (very earnest) acknowledgments.
Happy author (me) holding a bunch of hardcover copies of _Putting Plastic Surgery on Paper_. I am a white blonde woman with short hair wearing a white top and in an office with bookshelves visible in the background. Holding the hardcover version of _Putting Plastic Surgery on Paper_ up in front of two framed posters. The cover of the book shows a face being surgically reconstructed, in six steps, drawn with pencil on beige paper. The title (in caps) is backed by a dark red (the full title is Putting Plastic Surgery on Paper: How Art and Archives Defined Second World War Reconstructive Surgery in Britain). The back of the book, held in front of the same two framed posters. The text isn't super visible, but it includes the blurb of the book from the publisher's website, and the bio of the author, Christine Slobogin, as well as the press's logo and the barcode. The beige text box is outlined in dark red. The dedication page of the book reads "For my dad"
Reposted by Christine Slobogin
joshshepperd.bsky.social
Legendary founder of NPR programming Bill Siemering is enjoying Zoom visiting with students so much that he's asked me to put a second call out. No honorarium necessary. Any takers?
joshshepperd.bsky.social Josh Shepperd @joshshepperd.bsky.social · Jan 7
Bill Siemering, founding program director of NPR, author of its mission statement, has asked me to inquire if any profs might be interested in a Zoom class visit? No honorarium necessary. Bill founded All Things Considered, Fresh Air, won a MacArthur, etc.
A Founding Father of NPR Worries About Its Fate
www.nytimes.com
February 14, 2026 at 7:13 PM
Reposted by Christine Slobogin
aselrod.bsky.social
Gambling is already an addiction-prone activity. But we’ve married it to the engagement strategies of social media and the 24/7 availability of the internet.

That is insane. What chance do users stand? How is anyone with even the slightest problem gambling tendencies supposed to resist?
February 12, 2026 at 3:16 PM
slobogin.bsky.social
If anybody at or around Notre Dame wants to hear me talk about my book, Feb 17 is your chance!

reilly.nd.edu/news-and-eve...
Christine Slobogin: "Putting Plastic Surgery on Paper: How Art and Archives Defined Second World War Reconstructive Surgery in Britain"
Christine Slobogin's new book, Putting Plastic Surgery on Paper: How Art and Archives Defined Second World War Reconstructive Surgery in Britain, shows ...
reilly.nd.edu
February 9, 2026 at 7:18 PM
Reposted by Christine Slobogin
slobogin.bsky.social
Corner Society is back for the spring semester!

This month's speaker is our very own @andrewlea.bsky.social - come out to the Rochester Academy of Medicine (or watch on Zoom) to hear his talk "Who's in Whose Pocket? Reference Tools, Industry Interests, and the Quest for Therapeutic Reform"
GEORGE WASHINGTON CORNER SOCIETY FOR THE HISTORY OF MEDICINE Who's in Whose Pocket? Reference Tools, Industry Interests, and the Quest for Therapeutic Reform Wednesday, February 25, 2026 5:30 pm Lecture 6:30 - 7:15 pm Social Gathering Physicians have carried practical guides for centuries. These tools—variously called “manuals," “handbooks,” “pocket remembrancers,” or more commonly, “vade mecums” (Latin for “go with me”) — served as on-the-go memory stimuli. Nineteenth-century manuals, such as Robert Hooper’s The Physician’s Vade-Mecum sought to “compress” for the busy physician the vast expanse of descriptive medical knowledge into a useful companion. This act of compression resulted in a knowledge bottleneck: with such limited space, including certain kinds of information invariably came at the expense of other types of information. The vade mecum would therefore become a contested site over what counted as “appropriate,” “important,” and “rational” medical knowledge. This lecture explores these themes by focusing on the American Medical Association’s Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry (CPC), which, in the early 1930s, created a vade mecum to counter the excesses of proprietary drug manufacturers and inculcate a rational approach to medical therapeutics. Andrew Lea is an assistant professor of health humanities and bioethics at the University of Rochester and a general internist at the Strong Memorial Hospital. His research explores the history of artificial intelligence, communications media, and information technology in medicine and has appeared in leading historical and medical journals, including Isis and the New England Journal of Medicine. His first book, Digitizing Diagnosis, examined early efforts to computerize medical diagnosis and decision-making. He is working on his second book, Aid to Thought: A History of the Peripheral Brain in Medicine. Register here: https://www.raom.org/event-6469091
February 4, 2026 at 10:27 PM
slobogin.bsky.social
Corner Society is back for the spring semester!

This month's speaker is our very own @andrewlea.bsky.social - come out to the Rochester Academy of Medicine (or watch on Zoom) to hear his talk "Who's in Whose Pocket? Reference Tools, Industry Interests, and the Quest for Therapeutic Reform"
GEORGE WASHINGTON CORNER SOCIETY FOR THE HISTORY OF MEDICINE Who's in Whose Pocket? Reference Tools, Industry Interests, and the Quest for Therapeutic Reform Wednesday, February 25, 2026 5:30 pm Lecture 6:30 - 7:15 pm Social Gathering Physicians have carried practical guides for centuries. These tools—variously called “manuals," “handbooks,” “pocket remembrancers,” or more commonly, “vade mecums” (Latin for “go with me”) — served as on-the-go memory stimuli. Nineteenth-century manuals, such as Robert Hooper’s The Physician’s Vade-Mecum sought to “compress” for the busy physician the vast expanse of descriptive medical knowledge into a useful companion. This act of compression resulted in a knowledge bottleneck: with such limited space, including certain kinds of information invariably came at the expense of other types of information. The vade mecum would therefore become a contested site over what counted as “appropriate,” “important,” and “rational” medical knowledge. This lecture explores these themes by focusing on the American Medical Association’s Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry (CPC), which, in the early 1930s, created a vade mecum to counter the excesses of proprietary drug manufacturers and inculcate a rational approach to medical therapeutics. Andrew Lea is an assistant professor of health humanities and bioethics at the University of Rochester and a general internist at the Strong Memorial Hospital. His research explores the history of artificial intelligence, communications media, and information technology in medicine and has appeared in leading historical and medical journals, including Isis and the New England Journal of Medicine. His first book, Digitizing Diagnosis, examined early efforts to computerize medical diagnosis and decision-making. He is working on his second book, Aid to Thought: A History of the Peripheral Brain in Medicine. Register here: https://www.raom.org/event-6469091
February 4, 2026 at 10:27 PM
Reposted by Christine Slobogin
purseigle.bsky.social
🚨History Job: Assistant Professor in Early Modern British History (Permanent) 🗃️

Come work with us at Warwick! You will join a group of excellent early-modernists and one of the nicest bunches of historians around!
👇👇👇

@uni-of-warwick.bsky.social

warwick-careers.tal.net/vx/lang-en-G...
Assistant Professor in Early Modern British History (111286-0126) - University of Warwick
Title: Assistant Professor in Early Modern British History (111286-0126). Application Deadline: . Position Type: Permanent
warwick-careers.tal.net
February 4, 2026 at 11:13 AM
Reposted by Christine Slobogin
disabilitystor1.bsky.social
What really gets to me about generative AI, especially art, images and videos, is that it is so clearly a technology designed to enrich the companies and the wealthy by stealing the labor, creativity, efforts, ideas and time of actually creative human beings. Why partake in this?
jaypeters.net Jay Peters @jaypeters.net · 17d
Google’s new world AI model tool let me generate a bunch of Nintendo-inspired games. Including one featuring Link with a paraglider! Gift link: www.theverge.com/news/869726/...
January 29, 2026 at 9:32 PM
Reposted by Christine Slobogin
katiesnow.bsky.social
A sneak peak of our new book, Sick Jokes, which shares some of the best medical humanities research happening around visual humour & health! It's been so great to work on this w/ our contributors. On the @manchesterup.bsky.social website come spring 🌱 @slobogin.bsky.social @lauracowley.bsky.social
Sick Jokes Cover Sick Jokes content
January 28, 2026 at 9:33 AM
slobogin.bsky.social
Much needed good news: _Sick Jokes_ is in production @katiesnow.bsky.social @lauracowley.bsky.social

Our brilliant authors have written chapters on the intersection of visual culture, humor, and health (see ToC)

And we're thrilled with the cover from @manchesterup.bsky.social - more in next post.
Cover of a book "Edited by Christine Slobogin, Katie Snow and Laura Cowley. Sick jokes: Visual histories of humour, health and the body." The cover image is a black-and-white photograph of a white man with short hair, a gold earring, stubble, glasses, and an oxygen tube. He makes eye contact with the viewer and his mouth is slightly open, perhaps in a smile. His hospital gown is pulled up to reveal both a Kaposi's lesion and a smiley face tattoo. Table of Contents Introduction Christine Slobogin, Katie Snow and Laura Cowley PART I – PATHOLOGIES AND POWER IN PRINT Chapter 1 – ‘Uncorking Old Sherry’: Alcohol, the body and political decline in visual culture. The case of Richard Brinsley Sheridan Callum Smith Chapter 2 – Bedroom eyes as bedside manner: Humorous expressions of medical impropriety in mid-nineteenth-century visual culture Rebecca Whiteley Chapter 3 – ‘The top set’s artificial, but the bottom’s my own!’: Comic representations of false teeth and denture users in mid-twentieth-century British seaside postcards Georgia Haire PART II – DYING LAUGHING: DEATH, DISFIGUREMENT, DISEASE, AND DISABILITY Chapter 4 – Dancing, laughing and sexing (with) death: Edvard Munch’s gendered medical humour Allison Morehead Chapter 5 – Tube pedicles and positionality: The visual humour of a plastic surgery technique Christine Slobogin Chapter 6 – The bittersweet look(s) of AIDS: Consuming the ironic waste of HIV/AIDS imagery (and other butts of the joke) in Diseased Pariah News Jo Michael Rezes Chapter 7 – Irony, assisted dying and The Disabled Avant-Garde Laura Cowley PART III – COMICAL HEALTH COMMUNICATIONS Chapter 8 – ‘Doctor, are you speaking in tongues?’: Humour and the health humanities of Selma and Lois DeBakey Jeffrey S. Reznick Chapter 9 – Tough Shit Thomas and Peanut Pete: Harm reduction comics and British identities in the 1990s Peder Clark Chapter 10 – Pandemic funnies: Humour in COVID-19 comics Soha Bayoumi
January 27, 2026 at 4:47 PM
Reposted by Christine Slobogin
nursingclio.bsky.social
We’re looking for scholars who can write CLIO ER articles for the following topics: mutual aid, comparisons between MN and previous moments, and reduced vaccine uptake. We will also accept any other pitches you have! Pitch submission instructions below nursingclio.org/write-for-us...
Pitch Nursing Clio
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nursingclio.org
January 26, 2026 at 7:45 PM
slobogin.bsky.social
Lovely to see _Art and the Critical Medical Humanities_ out in open access format!!

Co-authored a chapter with my humor co-conspirators @katiesnow.bsky.social and @lauracowley.bsky.social - and so many other brilliant folks included in this volume!!

www.bloomsburycollections.com/monograph?do...
Art and the Critical Medical Humanities
www.bloomsburycollections.com
January 19, 2026 at 4:36 PM
Reposted by Christine Slobogin
katiesnow.bsky.social
🥳 New publication! Art & the Critical Medical Humanities is now online, fully open access. Thrilled to have co-written “Punchlines and power: visual humour as a disruptive tool for the critical medical humanities" w. @slobogin.bsky.social & Laura Cowley: www.bloomsburycollections.com/monograph-de...
Art and the Critical Medical Humanities
www.bloomsburycollections.com
January 19, 2026 at 9:45 AM
Reposted by Christine Slobogin
darapurvis.bsky.social
Very cool and normal day when a professor friend I texted to check in on after reports of a shooting at the start of last semester texts to check on me after reports of a shooting at the start of this semester.
January 12, 2026 at 11:08 PM
slobogin.bsky.social
I made two new friends yesterday visiting the Eastman Institute for Oral Health for my work on dental phantoms.

Meet Dexter and Bob - and I'm sorry about the nightmare fuel!
A rubber beige mask in the shape of a man's face - with blank eyes open. His mouth is also wide open to reveal a set of very yellow fake teeth. No tongue. A beige rubber mask in the shape of a man with his eyes closed and his mouth wide open. The open mouth reveals prominent white teeth in pink gums with a pink tongue.
January 8, 2026 at 2:15 PM
Reposted by Christine Slobogin
bhgross144.bsky.social
Excited to learn about the launch of the Injury Studies Network. Lots of talented scholars are involved, including @safetyworkhstm.bsky.social, @bachynski.bsky.social & @slobogin.bsky.social!

(Many thanks to @neurotimes.bsky.social for calling attention to this group on LinkedIn!) #histSTM #STS 🗃️
Injury Studies Network – The Injury Studies Network is an international community of researchers, practitioners, and artists committed to the study of injuries.
injurystudies.org
December 18, 2025 at 6:14 PM
slobogin.bsky.social
Register now for our next National Collaborative on Humanities & Ethics in Dentistry event!

(And no - it's not about *that* Dr. Seuss.)

And sign up for our mailing list here: ucdenver.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...
Dentists During the Nazi Regime: Dr. Suess, Prisoner Dentists & the SS - Lessons in Bioethics for Today Howard Israel, DDS Professor of Clinical Surgery Division of Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery, Weill Cornell Medicine January 20, 2026 2 pm EST RSVP at https://bit.ly/NCHEDJan2026 SUMMARY The role of the medical profession in committing crimes against humanity during the Nazi regime has been studies extensively. Still, it is difficult to comprehend how a profession of healers morphed into executioners to promote the pseudoscience of "racial hygiene." The history of the dental profession in Europe during the Third Reich has received little attention. Learning this history today should be a high priority in dental education to reinforce the importance of ethical decision making in the care of each individual patient.
December 17, 2025 at 2:31 PM
slobogin.bsky.social
Our final Season 2 ep of "In the Same Vein" is out!

Master's student Diana Herrmann and I had a blast interviewing Helen Frisby, talking about everything from rosemary in coffins, to beeswax candles, to (yes) decaying corpses, to whisky fumes and funeral cakes.

open.spotify.com/episode/3AZt...
S2 Ep6: On Smell, Death, and Funerary Rituals with Helen Frisby, PhD
open.spotify.com
December 16, 2025 at 5:18 PM
Reposted by Christine Slobogin
michellehenning.bsky.social
We’re doing a photography conference! Please circulate!
cceluliverpool.bsky.social Centre for Culture & Everyday Life @cceluliverpool.bsky.social · Dec 10
A single-stream 2 day International Conference hosted by the Centre for Culture and Everyday Life, School of the Arts, University of Liverpool.

Full CFP at www.ccel.uk
December 10, 2025 at 12:21 PM
slobogin.bsky.social
www.rochester.edu/newscenter/r...
Faculty works: New books and recordings by URochester professors
A selection of recently released works by the University of Rochester's esteemed educators.
www.rochester.edu
December 2, 2025 at 2:40 PM
Reposted by Christine Slobogin
slobogin.bsky.social
New "In the Same Vein"!

With Bryanna Moore, we dive into ethical quandaries of AI pediatric therapy chatbots, potential risks / rewards of this tech, the unique needs of children, and what we *don't* know about the role of AI in healthcare.

Thanks for listening!

open.spotify.com/episode/6Fup...
S2 Ep5: On AI Therapy Chatbots in Pediatrics with Bryanna Moore, PhD
open.spotify.com
December 1, 2025 at 6:39 PM
slobogin.bsky.social
New "In the Same Vein"!

With Bryanna Moore, we dive into ethical quandaries of AI pediatric therapy chatbots, potential risks / rewards of this tech, the unique needs of children, and what we *don't* know about the role of AI in healthcare.

Thanks for listening!

open.spotify.com/episode/6Fup...
S2 Ep5: On AI Therapy Chatbots in Pediatrics with Bryanna Moore, PhD
open.spotify.com
December 1, 2025 at 6:39 PM
slobogin.bsky.social
🎙️ NEW EPISODE: In the Same Vein

In this ep, we dive into philosophical discussions with PhD student of philosophy, Ashley Labodda and prof. David DeGrazia about his book _A Theory of Bioethics_

Listen here!
open.spotify.com/episode/6UWK...
S2 Ep4: On A Theory of Bioethics with David DeGrazia, PhD
open.spotify.com
November 18, 2025 at 4:20 PM
Reposted by Christine Slobogin
slobogin.bsky.social
It's Corner Society week! Join us in person or online to hear @maryfissell.bsky.social give a talk titled "Savin, Sex, and Scandal: Rethinking Abortion in Early Modern Anglo-America."

She'll also be giving grand rounds this Thursday!
George Washington Corner Society for the History of Medicine Wednesday, November 19 5:30 p.m. Lecture 6:30 - 7:15 p.m. Social Gathering Rochester Academy of Medicine 1441 East Avenue, Rochester, NY Savin, Sex and Scandal: Rethinking Abortion in Early Modern Anglo-America Abortion only rarely went to court in early-modern England or the American colonies. Before 1803, there was no English criminal statute prohibiting it. Yet the 2022 Dobbs decision declared that abortion had always been perceived as wrong in England and early America. This talk explores a few unusually-detailed legal cases as well as medical sources to explore how seventeenth-century people understood ending a pregnancy. Co-sponsored by the Rochester Institute of Technology's College of Liberal Arts Mary E. Fissell is the Inaugural J. Mario Molina Professor of the History of Medicine at Johns Hopkins University, with additional appointments in History and in History of Science and Technology. She is president of the American Association of the History of Medicine and edited the Bulletin of the History of Medicine for 15 years. Her fellowships include the NLM, Folger Shakespeare Library, and Princeton’s Davis Center. Her books include Vernacular Bodies (Oxford, 2004) and Pushback (Seal, 2025), a history of abortion from antiquity to antibiotics. THE DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH HUMANITIES AND BIOETHICS GRAND ROUNDS Bluejays and Footballs: Vernacular Abortion Knowledge in 1950s Baltimore Mary Fissell, PhD Johns Hopkins University Thursday, November 20, 2025 12:00 - 1:00 PM Large SMD Auditorium 2-6424 & ZOOM This presentation explores the wide range of abortion options in 1940s and 50s Baltimore, including self-managed abortions (before they were called that!) and those provided by MDs and by informally-trained providers. I argue that a 1940s crackdown had the effect of making abortion more dangerous but not reducing its incidence.
November 17, 2025 at 5:37 PM
slobogin.bsky.social
Last week I took a dreamy trip to Smith College to give a book talk, meet with pre-health majors, and visit an Art and Medicine class to talk about anonymity & photography ethics. I had a blast and so enjoyed meeting these fabulous students. Thanks @kathleenpierce.bsky.social for inviting me!!
Photo of me (blonde white woman with a colorful patterned sweater) gesturing while giving a talk behind a lectern. In front of an intro slide with "Putting Plastic Surgery on Paper: How Art and Archives Defined Second World War Reconstructive Surgery" over drawings of facial surgery. Smith College Museum of Art under a cloudy sky.
November 17, 2025 at 5:50 PM
slobogin.bsky.social
It's Corner Society week! Join us in person or online to hear @maryfissell.bsky.social give a talk titled "Savin, Sex, and Scandal: Rethinking Abortion in Early Modern Anglo-America."

She'll also be giving grand rounds this Thursday!
George Washington Corner Society for the History of Medicine Wednesday, November 19 5:30 p.m. Lecture 6:30 - 7:15 p.m. Social Gathering Rochester Academy of Medicine 1441 East Avenue, Rochester, NY Savin, Sex and Scandal: Rethinking Abortion in Early Modern Anglo-America Abortion only rarely went to court in early-modern England or the American colonies. Before 1803, there was no English criminal statute prohibiting it. Yet the 2022 Dobbs decision declared that abortion had always been perceived as wrong in England and early America. This talk explores a few unusually-detailed legal cases as well as medical sources to explore how seventeenth-century people understood ending a pregnancy. Co-sponsored by the Rochester Institute of Technology's College of Liberal Arts Mary E. Fissell is the Inaugural J. Mario Molina Professor of the History of Medicine at Johns Hopkins University, with additional appointments in History and in History of Science and Technology. She is president of the American Association of the History of Medicine and edited the Bulletin of the History of Medicine for 15 years. Her fellowships include the NLM, Folger Shakespeare Library, and Princeton’s Davis Center. Her books include Vernacular Bodies (Oxford, 2004) and Pushback (Seal, 2025), a history of abortion from antiquity to antibiotics. THE DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH HUMANITIES AND BIOETHICS GRAND ROUNDS Bluejays and Footballs: Vernacular Abortion Knowledge in 1950s Baltimore Mary Fissell, PhD Johns Hopkins University Thursday, November 20, 2025 12:00 - 1:00 PM Large SMD Auditorium 2-6424 & ZOOM This presentation explores the wide range of abortion options in 1940s and 50s Baltimore, including self-managed abortions (before they were called that!) and those provided by MDs and by informally-trained providers. I argue that a 1940s crackdown had the effect of making abortion more dangerous but not reducing its incidence.
November 17, 2025 at 5:37 PM