FAB Gab Episode 14: Hilde Lindemann on Language Suburbs and Her Plenary Address
9:41AM Nov 16, 2021
Speakers:
Kathryn MacKay
Hilde Lindemann
Keywords:
hilde
fab
paper
plenary
write
dying
thought
narrative
suburb
podcast
philosopher
bioethics
slide
language
started
publish
murder mysteries
clinician
talk
kathryn
Hello and welcome to FAB Gab. This is the podcast for the International Journal Feminist Approaches to Bioethics brought to you by FAB Network. My name is Kathryn Mackay and today I'm joined by Hilde Lindemann, formerly of Michigan State University. And we're discussing Hilde's paper, which is the fab plenary lecture from 2020 'Stories that Free Us'. Hello, Hilde.
Hello, Kathryn.
How are you?
I'm very well, it's lovely to be on the programme.
It's great to have you. I'm really excited that you joined us. Um, I guess to get us started, I noted that your paper was based on the plenary address from fab 2020. And I thought I would just start by asking you how you decided to speak on this topic.
Um, I often go back to Wittgenstein when I'm giving a paper. And he has such interesting things to say about language games and how they work. And so I started thinking about patients, and which language games they're excluded from, or they don't know how to play. And so I thought I'd write a paper about that.
Have you? Well, I know that you've worked on ideas around narrative. Yes, before. And for our listeners who might not be as familiar with your work? How does this fit into the work that you've done before on kind of narrative and, and telling our stories and explaining our points of view?
I have a master's in theatre studies. And that's what got me into narrative. And so I wrote a book in 2000, called damaged identities, narrative repair. And that was about the social pressures on people who are oppressed. And so I wanted, I wanted to write something about the counter stories that could repair those identities. And then later, I wrote holding and letting go, and that's full of narratives. And this is all. Damn, Id wasn't about this. But holding, letting go is a bioethics book. And so I guess the paper comes out of that work.
Hmm. So I thought it would be really interesting to ask you a little bit about language games. And I really enjoyed the idea in the paper of language suburbs. So what what's the language suburb?
Well, think about your Canadian, I think about the US and Canada. I think they inhabit very close suburbs, almost the same, but they act the same as, as, as England. For instance, in England, you say? You say CKAN. And in the United States, we say scone. And so again, fairly similar, but not quite the same. And in Australia, it's it's also very similar, but the accent is different. So the accent puts you into a different suburb. And I, I was working out the idea that clinician speak, is a different suburb of the language from the one that people speak in, in the centre of the Old City, which is where a lot of us live. And the clinicians live in a suburb because they use words that aren't used in the same way as people in the Old City. And so for example, in one of my case studies, there's a man who calls emergency you know, he wants help with his dying wife. And because he calls them and what he wants is for them to abide with her while she's dying. And they think they're supposed to resuscitate her. And so they kind of torture her and over medicalize her and that wasn't at all what he had in mind.
Yeah. Yeah, the case studies that you provide are so evocative because I thought they really showed how the same word and one of the examples the word is convenient, right? Yes, completely differently interpreted. And so it's actually very similar to, you know, any, any simple word that might have a kind of different meaning in one place compared to another, which I think I do encounter lots of time in language. But it was really striking in that medical example, where convenience for a patient means something completely different when it falls on the ears of the clinician.
Yeah, there's Annie Lyerly, who's a feminist for heaven's sakes. And she turns convenience into control. And that isn't what the patient wanted it all. It wasn't about control. Sometimes control is really difficult. And right, she wanted was a time for her baby to be born. That was convenient to the rest of the family.
Right? Yep. Which is just, I love the way that you describe that it's considered to be such an outrageous desire. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. And though and the drug addict, who Yeah. And that's not in the clinicians vocabulary at all. But what again, what she wants is someone to abide with her while she's dying. And to have a soothing cigarette, and then go back into the hospital, and have them with her and holding her hand. And she's in Chris Chris, bed linens, and, and comfortable and then instead, she dies in the gutter. What's that all about?
Yeah, I thought that was a really interesting example. Because, well, I guess just because of the status of smoking itself. In the medical world, sometimes I joke that there's a particular building on our campus here that is the kind of it is this formidable structure of public health. And sometimes I just joke that it would be funny to walk in with a can of Coke and a cigarette. People do?
I wish you would do it.
I think some people would just flat out call security. I'm so kind of just asking you about what it's like to give a plenary address. Um, I guess I thought, you know, you're, you're at a point in your career where you're that kind of really well respected and well regarded, you've been so important in our field. And, oh, you've contributed so much. And for people who are more junior, and some folks who listen to the podcast are PhD students, or they would like to do a PhD. That would be really interesting to hear from you about what it's like to give a plenary? How do you go about sort of doing that?
I've gotten lots of plenaries. I can't even count how many. And you're always invited to do that. And then first, you write your paper. And then you have serious stage fright. Most of the time, I've had a live audience. So you get out on stage, and then you have to act. So you look at your audience, you gauge them, and then you start in on the paper. And often, you have slideshows. So what I usually do in that case, is I've got the slides on the screen, but I'm also reading the paper. So as I'm reading, I've moved from slide this slide. I'm using my computer to do that. Um, and, yeah, it really is acting. So again, my theatre training came in pretty handy there.
Yeah, that's so interesting. I didn't know that you had a background in theatre. I've also never really thought about that as acting, but I can
see. It's a performance. Yeah, it helps exhibitionist, which I am.
And it really is the delivery of a paper. It's kind of its kind of reading a paper even if you're sort of slide assisted.
Yeah, there are lots of bio Ephesus, who don't do that. They just have the slides up and those are an aid to memory. And then they just talk, but I never could do that. I never had the confidence to do it. So I always have to read, but and when you're reading, you have to give lots of eye contact. You can't just look down at the paper and read. So yeah,
yeah, well, that's really interesting. I'm sorry. wondered what you were kind of working on these days? If you're working on anything, what are you working
on? I am in blissful retirement. Well, nowadays, I just do what I'm asked to do a fair amount, I'll be organising, helping helping to organise the programme for the next fab Congress, and Jackie Skelly who was a slave driver? I think four or five papers, since I retired. And I liked that work, you know, it's nice to keep my hand in just a little bit. But no, I'm not gonna write any more books, you know, and that buyer was famous for that. She was churning out books on Hume, probably until the day she died. But I never was that kind of a philosopher. I was 53, before I got my PhD. And so for a long time, I had been an editor, I was an editor at The Hastings centre. And I didn't know it, it just never, it was never a central part of my identity.
I didn't realise that. You got your PhD later, after having another career.
I started out as a freelance copy editor. And then in 1990, my partner and I saw the Hastings centre report, and there were two advertisements. One One was for philosopher on staff, and the other one was for an editor at the report. And so we looked at each other and said, Let's do it. And we talked our way into jobs. So you can't be at a research institute without doing research unless you're brain dead, in which case they fire you. And so I started publishing. And after I had 25 published articles under my belt, I decided I needed to have a PhD. And Fordham was just just down the road. And Margaret Walker was there who I admired and respected. So I got my PhD from Fordham. And so I kind of fell into bioethics. I started
doing it backwards. Right before we went to the Hastings centre, I'd been writing novels. So I had two murder mysteries written. So you can see where the narrative stuff comes from.
Wow, I didn't know that. Yeah, I
then publish them. Written? Yeah. Oh, hell
that you should publish them.
Well, I might publish the first one. I've been reading it lately. And it's pretty good if I say.
A biophysicist writes a murder mystery. That seems really odd to me.
Yeah. Well, Kelly Oliver is a philosopher and she writes murder murder mysteries. But yeah, I don't know where I'd publish it. I guess I could ask my friend Peter Alene. He'd know an agent or somebody who could help me with that.
Yeah. Well, thank you so much for speaking with me. This has been so interesting. Do you think you'll do any work on language suburbs?
I might. Yeah. All you do is
well, consider this a formal request.
All right. Very good. Get Jackie Scully to make me do it. Hey, Jack.
I'll ask her. Thanks so much for talking with me, Hilde.
It's been lovely Kathryn, enjoyed it very much.
Thank you. And thank you so much for listening to this episode of FAB Gab. You can find Hilde's this paper linked in this episode's notes along with a transcript of our discussion. FAB Gab is hosted by me Kathryn Mackay and produced by Madeline Goldberger. You can find our other podcasts on Spotify, Radio Public, Anchor or wherever you get your podcasts of quality. Thanks again for listening. Bye.