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51����’s Maine Women Writers Collection, in conjunction with the University of Kent in Canterbury, U.K., is co-sponsoring a symposium and workshop on the topic of “Artists’ Books and the Medical Humanities.” The event will be held April 21-22, 2016, at the University of Kent.

Both the symposium and an accompanying exhibition at the Beaney Museum will highlight the artist’s books of Martha A. Hall, who created artwork about her experience of being treated for cancer over the course of fourteen years. The Maine Women Writers Collection will lend its collection of Martha Hall’s artist’s books to the exhibition, which will be on display from April 22 to August 14, 2016.

Dorothy M. Healy Professor Jennifer S. Tuttle, Ph.D., and Cathleen Miller, M.A., M.L.S., curator of the Maine Women Writers Collection, will present a talk at the symposium titled “‘I make books so I won’t die’: Artists’ books in the archives and classroom.” Tuttle and Miller will also present at an experiential workshop that will explore the rhetorical strategies in Martha A. Hall’s artist’s books and engage the participants in reflection and activities about their personal reactions to the books.

The symposium received generous funding from the Wellcome Trust and the University of Kent as well as funding from the University of New England’s Maine Women Writers Collection, Department of English, Women’s and Gender Studies Program and Westbook College of Health Professions. For more information, contact Cathleen Miller by email or phone (207-221-4334).