Upcoming conference: 'Life Histories in Mind: Mental Ill Health and Learning Disability in Context', 21 July 2026
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.
MMU Disability Reading Group - Meeting 2: 24 Oct
Manchester Metropolitan University Disability Reading Group - Meeting 2: 24 October 2025
Advertising the regular meetings of the Disability Reading Group, a collaborative, inclusive group that meets monthly to discuss texts considering disability. The group was established by Arlene Jackson, a PhD student with the School of History, Politics and Philosophy at Manchester Metropolitan University. Everyone welcome.
Meeting 2: Friday 24 October at 1:30pm via Teams.
Chapters 1, 3, 25, 27, 38 (Read as much or as little as you wish) from The Disability Studies Reader by Lennard J. Davis (5th edn) Routledge
The selected text is The Disability Studies Reader by Lennard J. Davis. If you have any difficulty accessing the book, please contact Arlene Jackson to arrange access. You can do so by going to this page, and clicking on Arlene's profile picture (bottom left), which will open an email.
Please register by contacting Arlene or leaving a comment below, and we will send through a Teams link in advance of the meeting.
DoWell Co-Design Workshop and Lectures Series 2025
DoWell Co-Design Workshop and Lectures Series 2025
Advertising a series of upcoming lectures and workshops from DoWell - Design for Health and Wellbeing Research group
At DoWell –Design for Health and Wellbeing Research group– we pioneer the use of collaborative creative processes from craft and design to support people’s mental and physical health and to improve products, environments, services and interactions for health and care. We co-design our research into the social and societal aspects of health and wellbeing with the people who will benefit from our studies. Our research contributes to national and international action on mental health, disability, dementia and neurodiversity.
Everyone welcome. Please register through Eventbrite.
Session 7: Co-Designing with Neurodiverse People: An Embodied Creativity Perspective (FINAL SESSION)
Wednesday 25 June 2025, 3.30-5pm, Online session
Dr Laura Malinin, Inaugural Director, Nancy Richardson Design Center & Associate Professor of Interior Architecture + Design, Colorado State University
This presentation describes two multi-year projects where an interdisciplinary group of researchers and students engaged neurodiverse people in co-design processes to improve inclusion and engagement in community programming. The first case involved older adults with dementia and their care partners to develop community performing arts programming. The second project engaged a group of autistic youth to improve visit-ability at a science museum. The projects will be discussed using the lens of embodied creativity as a framework to explain the design and methods used in the different cases as well as outcomes.
