Thursday, April 23, 2009

Medicine, Arts and Culture Important Intersections for New Advisory Board Member

posted by: Cheryl McLean
Canadian Creative Arts in Health, Training and Education Journal


Journal Welcomes Dr. Michael Hutcheon to Advisory Board



The Canadian Creative Arts in Health, Training and Education Journal (CCAHTE) has recently announced that Dr. Michael Hutcheon has joined the journal Advisory Board. Dr. Michael Hutcheon is Professor of Medicine, University of Toronto and Deputy Physician-in-Chief for Education, The University Health Network. His research training in respirology was in pulmonary physiology and lung mechanics both at The University of Toronto and the Mayo Clinic.

Dr. Hutcheon is a physician who has explored the intersections of the arts and health. Opera in medical education is a particular interest. He reports, "I have explored the meanings taken on by illnesses and the people who have them when medical information is interpreted in a social or cultural context. We have used opera as the cultural vehicle for this exploration. This has been my primary research interest for the past ten years."

Michael Hutcheon and collaborator Linda Hutcheon, Professor of English and Comparative Literature, University of Toronto, have published a number of articles and three books. Their work on the cultural construction of sexuality, gender and disease in opera has been published in a book entitled Opera: Desire, Disease, Death (1996). Their second book, a study of both the real and the represented operatic body entitled Bodily Charm: Living Opera, was published in 2000. They have also published articles in this area in journals such as The Cambridge Opera Journal, Opera Quarterly, and the University of Toronto Quarterly. Their latest collaborative book called Opera: The Art of Dying, was published by Harvard University Press in 2004. They are currently studying creativity and aging through the late style and later lives of nineteenth and twentieth century opera composers.

"Few art forms are as thoroughly dependent as is tragic opera upon desire, suffering and death as narrative and emotional staples. The body, the live singing body on stage, gives voice to the drama of the suffering person."
Michael Hutcheon, Linda Hutcheon