Shelley McKellar

Associate Professor
PhD, University of Toronto, 1999

 

ON SABBATICAL - JULY 1, 2009-JUNE 30, 2010

Research Interests

Professor McKellar specializes in the history of health and disease predominantly in nineteenth and twentieth century North America, with research interests in the history of surgery, medical instrumentation and technology, the history of the body, and medical biography. She is presently conducting research on the history of artificial hearts for her next book, tentatively entitled Rebuilding Bodies: Artificial Hearts and Organ Replacement Technology in Medicine and Society.

Selected Publications

Medicine and Technology in Canada, 1900-1950. with Allison Kirk-Montgomery. Transformation Series #16 (Ottawa: Canada Science and Technology Museum, 2008). 171 pp.





Essays in Honour of Michael Bliss: Figuring the Social. Co-edited with Alison Li, Elsbeth Heaman. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008). 491 pp.





Surgical Limits: The Life of Gordon Murray (University of Toronto Press, 2003). 270 pp.

Shelley McKellar's Surgical Limits chronicles the life of one of Canada's most prominent and controversial surgeons, Gordon Murray (1894-1976).



“Limitations Exposed: Willem J. Kolff and his Contentious Pursuit of a Mechanical Heart,” in Essays in Honour of Michael Bliss: Figuring the Social, (University of Toronto Press, 2008): 400-434.

“Learning Through Objects: Development of the UWO Medical Artifact Collection as a Teaching and Research Resource,” Canadian Bulletin of Medical History Vol.23, No.1 (2006): 217-241.

“The Dracula of Medical Technology: The Artificial Heart as a Therapeutic Technology for Cardiovascular Disease,” Artificial Bodies – Alive Technology: Technical Models of the Body in Historical Perspective, edited by Barbara Orland (Row: Interference – Studies for the Cultural History of Technology, Volume 8, 2004): 179-196.

“Artificial Hearts – A Technological Fix More Monstrous Than Miraculous?” Technological Fix: How People Use Technology to Create and Solve Problems, edited by Lisa Rosner (Routledge Press, 2004), pp.13-30.

“Innovation in Modern Surgery: Alexis Carrel and Blood Vessel Repair," Creating a Tradition of Biomedical Research: Contributions to the History of The Rockefeller University, Darwin H. Stapleton, ed., (NY: Rockefeller University Press, 2004), pp.135-150.

See the UWO Medical Artifact Collection at www.medicalhistory.uwo.ca

Doctoral Level supervisory privileges

Also from this web page:

Courses Taught

  • HIS 146G-001 - The Cultural Mosaic and the Melting Pot
  • HIS 493E-001 - Disease, Illness and Health in Society
  • HIS 570G-001 - Social History of Disease and the Body