Shelley McKellar

Associate Professor
PhD, University of Toronto, 1999

Recent Talks & Displays | Selected Publications | Teaching

Research Interests

Professor McKellar studies the history of medicine and disease, with a special interest in the history of medical technology, instruments and devices, the history of surgery, and medical biography. She is presently completing a manuscript on the history of the development and use of artificial hearts from the 1950s to present day, which is tentatively entitled "Artificial Hearts: Sustaining the Allure of Medical Technology and the Rebuilt Body."

Professor McKellar also curates the UWO Medical Artifact Collection, which is a university study collection under ongoing development as a teaching and research source. The collection contains approximately 1,000 objects, ranging from bloodletting instruments and surgical sets to microscopes and pharmaceuticals, representative of late 19th- and early to mid-20th century practice and teaching of health and medicine in southwestern Ontario. It can be viewed online at www.medicalhistory.uwo.ca.

Recent Talks & Displays

April 5, 2011 - "Michael DeBakey, Denton Colley, and the Controversial Artificial Heart Implants of the 1960s," The 23^rd Annual Mark M. Ravitch History of Medicine Lecture, School of Medicine, University of Pittsburgh

March 27, 2011 - "Cholera and the Gospel of Sanitation: Disease and Public Health in 19^th Century London, Ontario," Public Lecture, Museum London

November 4, 2010 - "The Man Who Had Three Hearts: Cardiac Transplantation, Artificial Hearts, and the Allure of Organ Replacement in 1960s America," The Inaugural Stanley Friesen Lecture in the History of Surgery, Department of History and Philosophy of Medicine, University of Kansas

March-April 2011 - "Instruments and Devices: The Material Culture of Medicine," showcasing the UWO Medical Artifact Collection, D.B. Weldon Library, UWO

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.

Teaching

Professor McKellar's teaching is directly linked to her research interests. In 2010-2011, she offered two new courses on the history of disease (undergraduate) as well as history and material culture (graduate). She advises a number of graduate students, and welcomes inquiries from MA and PhD students interested in the history of medicine and disease.

Master's and Doctoral Level supervisory privileges

Also from this web page:

Current Courses

HIS 2812E - Plague, Pox and Flu: Disease in Global History
HIS 4205E - Smallpox to SARS: Disease and Illness in History
HIS 9832B - History of Things: An Introduction to Material Culture

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