Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Gut Health: Historical and Contemporary Insights

Join us for an extended cross-disciplinary discussion, centred on Dr Elsa Richardson’s Rumbles: A Curious History of the Gut (2024). This event brings together historians, biomedical scientists, and visual artists to explore how historical ideas about digestion continue to inform and challenge contemporary understandings of the gut, the microbiome, and the gut-brain axis.

Following Dr Richardson’s keynote talk, a panel of respondents (Dr Ruairi Roberston, Dr Rhodri Hayward, Dr Merrilees Roberts, Joanna Penso, Jennie Pedley) will offer insights from medical science, the humanities, and creative practice, opening a conversation on the cultural and scientific significance of gut health. The event will also feature an interactive performance by sound artist Joanna Penso and a presentation by visual artist Jennie Pedley.

With thanks to The Centre for the Study of the Nineteenth Century & its Legacies, the Health Humanities Research Forum, the Centre for the History of the Emotions, QMUL Microbiome Network, and the Centre of the Cell for their generous sponsorship.

This event will be photographed for internal and external promotional purposes only by Queen Mary University of London. If you object to appearing in the photographs, please let our photographer know on the day.