> THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT SAN ANTONIO

UTSA Neurosciences Institute

One UTSA Plaza San Antonio TX 78249

> Joint Public Lecture Nov 10:

Alice Wexler

Research Scholar UCLA Center for the Study of Women

Presented in conjunction with The UTSA Amercian Studies Program & Honors College

Stigma, Secrecy &

Medical History:

What we can learn from

Huntington's Disease

November 10, 2009

Retama Auditorium UC 2.02.02

1604 Campus

Reception 4:30p

Lecture 5:00p

click here for Alice Wexler on The Diane Rehm show

click cover art for publisher information and reviews

Parking & Directions

Illnesses and disabilities perceived as hereditary, especially those affecting mental functions, have long been stigmatized in western culture.   Still, in the US in the 19th and 20th centuries, the historical representations and experiences of families and individuals with inherited disorders have varied considerably across different social locales. 

In this public lecture, Dr. Alice Wexler will draw on the example of Huntington’s disease—a late-onset inherited neurological and psychiatric illness featured in novels such as Ian McEwan’s Saturday and in such television dramas as “House”—to suggest the ways in which both biology and history, including the eugenics movement of the twentieth century, helped shape the perception and experience of hereditary disease and disability in the past, and how this history may offer insights for policy in the present.