Skull Base Knowledge. Cultural Implications of Cranial Plastic Surgery
As a starting point, the project chose the discrepancy between the technologically advanced procedures in plastic surgery and the vague terminology used in the evaluative description of its ‘objects.’ The project investigated the cultural and scientific-historical origins of implicit cultural norms and ideals regarding physical appearance (and its function as an indicator of personality) as it presents itself in the current medical discourse, in visual representations, and in medical practice and therapy. Here, the project focused on the human skull as a body part which plays a crucial role in self-perception and in the perception of others.
The project responds to specialized surgical practices (the correction of cranial malformations in infant skulls [Craniosynostosis] at the Charité University Hospital Berlin) demanding an incorporation of cultural preconditions and contexts into their practice and therapy. The project aimed at developing the preconditions which allow for a reflected and patient-oriented working method supported by knowledge.
The historical part of the project investigated the genesis of a ‘well-formed’ (child’s) skull, a concept that emerged from the correlation of medical knowledge, the arts, and cultural semantics. The contemporary part of the project organized an exchange between medical doctors and patients.
The three parts of the project analyzed the following:
- Texts (textbooks and professional articles from the field of plastic surgery),
- Visualizations and models as a template of normality (proportion studies for artists, anatomy textbooks, medical photographs, imaging techniques, databases for the preparation of therapy),
- Practice and therapy (observational supervision of individual cases, interviews with patients).
Subproject(s)
Texts: Rhetoric and Cultural Semantics of Cranial Knowledge in Medicine
Focusing on the genealogy of and current discourse on craniosynostosis, this project analyzes the discursive field of the »malformed skull«. Since the discovery of prematurely fused cranial sutures by Virchow around 1860 and the routinization of its surgical treatment about 40 years ago, the vocabulary to describe the pathological skull shape has changed considerably. Through qualitative content-analysis of medical articles and textbooks, the project will establish the semantic field that characterizes cranial knowledge. With special attention to the cultural and historical connotations of medical rhetoric (»malformation«, »deformity«), the study examines the underlying cultural assumptions behind the distinction between »deviant« and »normal« head shapes.
Visualizations: Cranial Images in Art, Medicine and Statistics
All medical professional publications work with visualizations (whether they are drawings, photographs, diagrams, or pictures and models produced by imaging technologies). As art history, visual studies, and media studies have demonstrated, images are not merely illustrations of pre-existing knowledge but play an instrumental part in the actual generation of that knowledge.
This project analyzes the specific rhetoric of images in contemporary and historical cases involving craniosynostosis along with different interactions between text and image.
Medical Practices: Physician-Family Interaction
Craniosynostosis diagnoses and operations affect both self-perception and how an individual is perceived by others. What questions, doubts, and hopes come to light when societal expectations, cultural patterns of significance, and the possibilities of advanced surgery meet? And what decision-making and communication patterns also become apparent? Valuable insights can be found in a range of sources, including conversations between doctors and patients (or their next of kin); statements; accounts from forums, blogs, webpages, brochures, and advice books; and technical and practical everyday testimonies. Using semantic analysis (e.g., analysis of speech and language games, phraseme research), the subproject will explore the cultural semantic space in which craniosynostosis is dealt with and treated: How do estimates of shape and deformation figure explicitly and implicitly into language? What linguistic means and argumentative tactics are employed in the decision-making process for or against an operation? How is the temporal dimension of problems associated with craniosynostosis (e.g., simulations of the growing skull, anticipated future experiences in social settings, subjunctive self-understanding, retrospective biographical narratives) adopted into language?
Cultural Historical Investigations into Correlations between the Figure of the Doctor and the Artist
The dissertation project examines interrelations between art and plastic surgery. The focus of the analysis is the search for form and how it is constituted in both disciplines.
The project aims at characterizing this relationship by looking at the specific ways materials are used and techniques are established at the end of the 19th and over the course of the 20th century in both contexts. Concepts of movement and immobility as well as of the body are also considered in order to understand the processes and outcomes within the »productions« of forms.
Publications
Schädel Basis Wissen I
Kultur und Geschichte der chirurgischen Korrektur der Schädelform
Schädel Basis Wissen II
Texte zur Wissensgeschichte eines Knochens
Konstruktion – Erweiterung – Rekonstruktion
Verfahren der plastischen Chirurgie und Prothetik in der künstlerischen Praxis des 20. Jahrhunderts
- Uta Kornmeier, Simon Strick: Sammeln und Bewahren, Erforschen und Zurückgeben – ›Human Remains‹ aus der Kolonialzeit in akademischen und musealen Sammlungen, conference report, 4–6 Oct 2012, Berlin, in: H-Soz-u-Kult, 20 Apr 2013
- Uta Kornmeier: Goldene Schnitte? Künstlerische und mathematische Referenzsysteme in der kraniofazialen Chirurgie, in: Trajekte 25 (2012), 34–39
- Simon Strick: Digitale Schönheit – Avatare, Geschlechterideale und das Uncanny Valley, in: Sexuologie 21.3/4 (2014)