Life Histories in Mind: Mental Ill Health and Learning Disability in Context
Date: 21 July 2026
Venue: Manchester Metropolitan University
In summer this year, Cultures of Disability and Health members Professor Rob Ellis and Dr Rebecca Ball are hosting a conference examining life history, mental ill health and learning disability. The event will be run in conjunction with departmental research groups Histories of Race, Gender, Sexuality, and Identity (RGSI), the Manchester Centre for Public Histories and Heritage, and Cultures of Disability and Health.
The keynote lecture will be given by Professor Catharine Coleborne, a Visiting Professor of Mental Health History at Manchester Metropolitan University (June 2025-May 2028) and co-Director of the Centre for Society, Health and Care Research at the University of Newcastle (Australia).
Conference brief below, and further details to come closer to the event:
The aim of the conference is to explore mental ill health and learning disabilities in the context of life and experiential histories. Early research in these areas focussed on biographies of relatively well-known medical practitioners, with details of their achievements in progressing the history of ‘care’ and treatment. Since the 1980s, scholars have attempted, with varying degrees of success, to prioritise the ‘voices’ of patients and service users with a view to capturing a more detailed and critical understanding of the past and present. As historical inquiry has moved into newer areas of analysis there is now a clearer understanding of the many individuals and groups, beyond those offered up by institutional and medical records, involved in treatment regimes. This includes the importance of life beyond the diagnosis. Allied to this has been the newer modes of storytelling that have arisen from online opportunities and creative partnerships between academics and specialists in other fields, including, artists, theatre practitioners, and heritage professionals. These efforts reflect the inter-and cross-disciplinary interest in life histories and the complexities of sharing them.
Within this broad framework, the conference seeks to reinvigorate the possibilities offered by life narratives (broadly defined) and their place within our understandings of mental health and illness and learning disability.