March Narrative Medicine Rounds with Jens Brockmeier

For our March rounds we are thrilled to welcome Jens Brockmeier, Ph.D., a scholar of philosophy, psychology, and linguistics/literary theory, and professor at The American University of Paris. Dr. Brockmeier will speak to us on the question of the resiliency of the self, in a talk titled “How resilient is the self? A hermeneutic look at an unresolved question.”

Dr. Brockmeier received his degrees in philosophy, psychology, and linguistics/literary theory from the Free University Berlin where, at age 26, he took on his first appointment as assistant professor of epistemology and philosophy of science. Since then, he has held teaching and research appointments at the University of Toronto, The New School New York, and Linacre College Oxford, among others, before he joined the American University of Paris in 2014. His research is concerned with the cultural fabric of mind and language, with a focus on narrative. His main interest is in the constructive and creative function of narrative for autobiographical memory, personal identity, and the understanding of time and temporality. He has explored these issues both empirically and philosophically – empirically, in various languages and sociocultural contexts, as developmental phenomena, and under conditions of health and illness; philosophically, in terms of narrative hermeneutics. Some of his recent books include Erzählung als Lebensform [Narrative as form of life] (Psychosozial-Verlag, 2022); Beyond the Archive: Memory, Narrative, and the Autobiographical Process (Oxford University Press, 2015; rev. paperback version 2018); Cultura e narrazione [Culture and Narrative], (Mimesis, 2014); Beyond Loss: Dementia, Memory, and Identity (ed. with L.-C. Hyden and H. Lindemann Nelson, Oxford University Press, 2014); and the paperback edition of Literacy, Narrative and Culture (ed. with M. Wang and D. R. Olson, Routledge, 2014).

Dr. Brockmeier will be in conversation with our own philosopher and scholar Craig Irvine, Ph.D. Dr. Irvine holds a PhD in Philosophy. For over 20 years, he has been designing and teaching cultural competency, ethics, Narrative Medicine, and Humanities and Medicine curricula for residents, medical students, physicians, nurses, social workers, chaplains, dentists, and other health professionals. Dr. Irvine is co-author of The Principles and Practice of Narrative Medicine and Co-Director of Narrative Medicine at Columbia University, and has published articles in the areas of ethics, residency education, and literature and medicine. He has presented at numerous national and international conferences on these and other topics.

Narrative Medicine Rounds are monthly rounds held on the first Wednesday of the month during the academic year, hosted by the Division of Narrative Medicine in the Department of Medical Humanities and Ethics at Columbia University Irving Medical Center. Rounds are supported by live captioning. If you have any other accessibility needs or concerns, please contact the Office of Disability Services at 212-854-2388 or disability@columbia.edu at least 10 days in advance of the event. We do our best to arrange accommodations received after this deadline but cannot guarantee them. A recording of our Virtual Narrative Medicine rounds is available following the live session on the Narrative Medicine YouTube channel, and you can watch other recent Rounds events there.