Andrea Charise
Biography
Dr. Charise joins UTSC’s Health Studies Program from the University of Iowa where she was Postdoctoral Fellow-in-Residence at the Obermann Center for Advanced Studies. In addition to receiving recognition for her teaching and scholarship in literature, Dr. Charise has also had a productive career as a medical researcher (geriatrics, clinical epidemiology). She is the Founding Director and Principal Investigator of SCOPE: The Health Humanities Learning Lab (www.scopelab.ca), an arts- and humanities-based research and education initiative and home to Canada’s first undergraduate curriculum in Health Humanities. In April 2016 she was named “Professor of the Year” (Arts, Literature, and Language) by the UTSC student journal, The Underground. Dr. Charise welcomes inquiries from students and colleagues interested in the interdisciplinary conceptualization of health and illness, especially arts- and humanities-based methods, theory, and creative practices (e.g., literature, film, visual arts). For more, see www.andreacharise.com and www.scopelab.ca.
Education
Ph.D, English (with collaborative program in “Healthcare, Technology, and Place”), University of Toronto
M.A, Theory and Criticism, University of Western Ontario
B.Art.Sc, Bachelor of Arts and Science (Comb. Hons. Comparative Literature, summa cum laude), McMaster University
Affiliations
- International Health Humanities Network (appointed to International Advisory Board in 2014)
- Founding Executive Committee member, Modern Languages Association (MLA) Forum on “Medical Humanities and Health Studies”
- International Conference on Romanticism (ICR)
- North American Society for the Study of Romanticism (NASSR)
- North American Victorian Studies Association (NAVSA)
- North American Network of Aging Studies
- Canadian Association on Gerontology (CAG)
- Canadian Geriatrics Society (CGS)
- Delegated Ethics Review Co-ordinator for Undergraduate Course-Based Research, Health Studies, University of Toronto Scarborough (2014-present)
- Associate Researcher, Aging+Communications+Technologies (ACT) Project, Concordia University
Teaching Interests
- Health Humanities
- Aging and the life cycle
- Literary and textual studies
- Critical approaches to human health
- Qualitative and arts-based methods
- For more, see: http://www.utsc.utoronto.ca/people/acharise/teaching/
Research Interests
- Health Humanities
- Arts- and Humanities-based approaches to health, illness, and the body
- English literature (emphasis: nineteenth-century British writing and the novel)
- Age studies, older age, geriatrics
- Critical theory
- Health literacy
- Interdisciplinarity
- Undergraduate medical education
- Narrative medicine and narrative training for health professionals
Awards and Grants
SELECTED:
- (2016-17) Jackman Humanities Institute Working Group Research & Operating Grant, “The Art and Science of Immunization” (Principal Investigator)
- (2016)Professor of the Year (Arts, Language, and Literature), University of Toronto Scarborough student journal The Underground.
- (2015, 2016) Decanal Special Merit Award (recognizes faculty who have demonstrated leadership in their field and/or outstanding achievement), University of Toronto Scarborough.
- (2014) The John Charles Polanyi Prize for Literature
- (2014) Jackman Humanities Institute Working Group Research & Operating Grant, “Exploring Neuroculture: Science, Ethics, Humanities” (Principal Investigator)
- (2013) Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Postdoctoral Fellowship
- (2011) The Lore Metzger Prize; best paper at the International Conference on Romanticism
- (2009) Best Conference Presentation: The Annual Tri-City Geriatric Medicine Research Day, Universities of Western Ontario, McMaster, and Toronto
- (2008) AgePlus Prize, Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR): for research excellence by Canadian scholars in the field of aging
- (2007-9) Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Doctoral Fellowship in “Health Care, Technology, and Place”
- (2006) The Dr. Willard & Phoebe Thompson Award: best presentation at the Canadian Geriatrics Society Annual Scientific Meeting
Publications
- “G.H. Lewes and the Impossible Classification of Organic Life.” Victorian Studies 57.3 (2015): 377-386.
- Aging, Population, and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination (book-in-progress)
- “Spots of Future Time: Tableaux, Masculinity, and the Enactment of Aging.” Modern Drama 59.2 (2016): 155-176.
- “The Future is Certain: Manifesting Age, Culture, Humanities.” Age, Culture, Humanities: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 2014.
- “Romanticism Against Youth.” Essays in Romanticism 20 (2013): 83-100.
- “‘Let the reader think of the burden’: Old Age and the Crisis of Capacity.” Occasion: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Humanities 4 (2012): 1-16.
- “‘The tyranny of age’: Godwin’s St Leon and the Nineteenth-Century Longevity Narrative.” English Literary History (ELH), 79.4 (2012): 905-33.
- Diachun LL, A Charise, M Goldszmidt, Y Hui, L Lingard. “Exploring the Realities of Curriculum by Random Opportunity: The Case of Geriatrics on the Internal Medicine Clerkship Rotation.” Canadian Geriatrics Journal 17.4 (2014): 126-132.
- Diachun LL, A Charise, L Lingard. “Old News: Why the 90-year Crisis in Medical Elder Care?” Journal of the American Geriatrics Society 60.7 (2012): 1357-60.
- Charise A, H Witteman, S Whyte, E Sutton, JL Bender, M Massimi, L Stephens, J Evans, C Logie, RM Mirza, M Elf. “Questioning Context: An Interdisciplinary Tool for Exploring Non-medical Factors Affecting Health Decision-making.” Health Expectations 14.2 (2011): 115-132.
- Diachun L, L Van Bussell, K Hansen, A Charise, M Reider. “‘But I see old people everywhere’: Dispelling the Myth that Eldercare is Learned in Nongeriatric Clerkships.” Academic Medicine 85.7 (2010): 1221-28.
- Massimi M, A Charise. “Dying, Death, and Mortality: Towards Thanatosensitivity in HCI [Human-Computer Interaction].” Proc. CHI 2009 Extended Abstracts, 2459-2468.