Experience

Rice University

• Rice University

• Professor in the Pracice of Humanities, Associate Director of the Humanities Research Center

  • 2005 - Present

  In the medical humanities, Melissa Bailar’s research focuses primarily on medical and anatomical museums, particularly questions about their curation and the ways in which their objects play on the uncanny. Many European museums cultivate a jumbled curiosity shop aesthetic, while displaying skeletons, wax models, and preserved human anomolies as well as sinister-looking medical instruments and occasional artifacts assembled from human body parts. Additionally, she researches the history of… Show more In the medical humanities, Melissa Bailar’s research focuses primarily on medical and anatomical museums, particularly questions about their curation and the ways in which their objects play on the uncanny. Many European museums cultivate a jumbled curiosity shop aesthetic, while displaying skeletons, wax models, and preserved human anomolies as well as sinister-looking medical instruments and occasional artifacts assembled from human body parts. Additionally, she researches the history of anatomical models, specifically the “anatomical venuses” fabricated during the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries when a new appreciation for pathology led to the creation of surgery as a medical specialty. Outside of the medical humanities, Bailar’s research ranges from narrative structures of French feminist film, to literary and photographic representations of performing women, to the effects of digital knowledge platforms on higher education. Bailar teaches courses in medical humanities, French and francophone film, and French literature. Her medical humanities courses include HURC 307, “Critical Humanities of Health and the Body,” and HURC 306/506, “Health and Humanities Master Class.” She structures these courses either as lecture series or as a cohesive collection of modules, thus taking advantage of expertise at Rice University and in the Texas Medical Center, as well as visiting scholars. Questions of particular importance in her classes are the ways in which film and literature represent medical professionals and patients and the motivations and consequences of such portrayals; the metaphors and moral traits associated with various ailments and what effect these have on medical research and treatments; and how medicine and the arts draw from and inform one another. Her courses also require original research projects using the vast resources available through the McGovern Historical Center and include field trips to museums, centers, and archives. Show less In the medical humanities, Melissa Bailar’s research focuses primarily on medical and anatomical museums, particularly questions about their curation and the ways in which their objects play on the uncanny. Many European museums cultivate a jumbled curiosity shop aesthetic, while displaying skeletons, wax models, and preserved human anomolies as well as sinister-looking medical instruments and occasional artifacts assembled from human body parts. Additionally, she researches the history of… Show more In the medical humanities, Melissa Bailar’s research focuses primarily on medical and anatomical museums, particularly questions about their curation and the ways in which their objects play on the uncanny. Many European museums cultivate a jumbled curiosity shop aesthetic, while displaying skeletons, wax models, and preserved human anomolies as well as sinister-looking medical instruments and occasional artifacts assembled from human body parts. Additionally, she researches the history of anatomical models, specifically the “anatomical venuses” fabricated during the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries when a new appreciation for pathology led to the creation of surgery as a medical specialty. Outside of the medical humanities, Bailar’s research ranges from narrative structures of French feminist film, to literary and photographic representations of performing women, to the effects of digital knowledge platforms on higher education. Bailar teaches courses in medical humanities, French and francophone film, and French literature. Her medical humanities courses include HURC 307, “Critical Humanities of Health and the Body,” and HURC 306/506, “Health and Humanities Master Class.” She structures these courses either as lecture series or as a cohesive collection of modules, thus taking advantage of expertise at Rice University and in the Texas Medical Center, as well as visiting scholars. Questions of particular importance in her classes are the ways in which film and literature represent medical professionals and patients and the motivations and consequences of such portrayals; the metaphors and moral traits associated with various ailments and what effect these have on medical research and treatments; and how medicine and the arts draw from and inform one another. Her courses also require original research projects using the vast resources available through the McGovern Historical Center and include field trips to museums, centers, and archives. Show less