Dr Havi Hannah Carel
Senior Lecturer
BA, MA Tel-Aviv, PhD (Essex)
email: Havi.Carel@uwe.ac.uk
I joined UWE as a Senior Lecturer in Philosophy in November 2005. Before coming to UWE, I taught at the University of York and at the Australian National University. I received my PhD from the University of Essex in 2002. My current research interests are philosophy of medicine, phenomenology, the metaphysics of death, and film and philosophy. My recent monograph, Illness, was published in September 2008 (Stocksfield: Acumen). My previous monograph, Life and Death in Freud and Heidegger (New York: Rodopi) was published in 2006, and I am the co-editor of What Philosophy Is (London: Continuum, 2004) and the co-translator of The Order of Evils, by Adi Ophir (New York: Zone Books, 2005).
My current research explores the phenomenology of illness. I am interested in augmenting the naturalistic approach to illness with a phenomenological perspective. I believe that as embodied persons we experience illness primarily as a disruption of lived body rather than as a dysfunction of biological body. But medicine has traditionally focused on returning the biological body to normal functioning, and has therefore worked from within a problem-focused, deficit perspective that ignores the lived body. A phenomenological approach can provide a framework for incorporating the experience of illness into the medical naturalistic account, by providing a rich description of the altered relationship of the ill person to her world.
I am currently engaged in several research projects: one examines the discrepancy between objective and subjective accounts of wellbeing in illness (see details of publications below). I am co-authoring a paper on patient-physician interaction examined from a phenomenological perspective (with Matthew Broome). I am also interested in applying phenomenology to healthcare issues, such as understanding the experience of illness, enhancing communication between healthcare practitioners and patients and identifying focused interventions.
I spend much of my time discussing these issues with medical and nursing staff and students and welcome every opportunity to engage with them. I recently gave talks at the Bristol Royal Infirmary, the Faculty of Health and Social Care, UWE, Bristol and at registrar and nursing training days. I also teach at the Bristol Medical School and on the intercalated BA in Medical Humanities at the University of Bristol.
I am currently leading an AHRC-funded project on the Concepts of Health, Illness and Disease. I recently co-organised the first international film and philosophy conference and I am on the editorial board of Film-Philosophy.com.
Recent Publications
Authored Books
Illness (Stocksfield: Acumen, 2008)
Click here to read a review of Illness in the Times Higher Education (13 November 2008)
Click here to read Julian Baggini’s review of Illness in the Guardian (2 September 2008)
And here to read another review of Illness in the Times Higher Education (24 July 2008)
Click here to read a review of Illness in Metapsychology.net (15 September 2009)
Life and Death in Freud and Heidegger (New York & Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2006)
(reviewed in Mortality 13(1):86-7, 2008 and in Psychologist-Psychoanalyst: the newsletter of the Division of Psychoanalysis of the American Psychological Association, 2008).
What Philosophy Is: Contemporary Philosophy in Action (London: Continuum Books, 2004) (co-edited with D. Gamez) (reviewed in Modernism/Modernity 11(4):848 and in Philosophical Writings 32:83-5, 2006)
Edited Books
What Philosophy Is : Contemporary Philosophy in Action, Continuum Books, London, ISBN 0826472419 co-edited with David Gamez; published March 2004
Translated Books
The Order of Evils, by Adi Ophir, MIT Press, New York, (translated from Hebrew), ISBN 189095151 co-translated with Rela Mezali; Published June 2005
Journal Articles
“’I Am Well, Apart from the Fact that I Have Cancer’: Explaining Wellbeing within Illness”, in The Philosophy of Happiness, L. Bortolloti (ed.) (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009 (in press))
“The Ubiquity of Moods: Commentary on Stanghellini and Rosfort” (with MR Broome), Philosophy, Psychiatry and Psychology (forthcoming)
“The Problem of Organ Donation”, The Philosopher’s Magazine 42:43-49, 2008
“Illness and Authenticity”, in Art and Authenticity, J. Lloyd Jones (ed.) (Sydney: Australian Scholarly Publishing (in press))
“Freud and Psychoanalysis”, in the Continuum Companion to Continental Philosophy, B. Lord & J. Mularkey (eds.) (London: Continuum, 2009 (in press))
“Temporal Finitude and Finitude of Possibility: The Double Meaning of Death in Being and Time”, International Journal of Philosophical Studies 15(4):541-56, 2007
“Mourning Terminable and Interminable”, International Journal of Psychoanalysis 88(4):1071-82, 2007
“Can I be Ill and Happy?”, Philosophia 35(2):95-110, 2007
“A Phenomenology of Tragedy: Illness and Body Betrayal in The Fly”, SCAN 4(2), 2007
“Born to be Bad or Born to Die? Evil and Finitude in Freud’s Death Drive”, in So Many Faces: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Evil, Nancy Mardas (ed.) pp.233-250 (New York: Rodopi, 2007)
“Death and the Other: The Ambivalence of Mourning”, in Death and Dying, Asa Kasher (ed.) pp.81-90 (New York: Rodopi, 2007)
“Moral and Epistemic Ambiguity in Oedipus Rex”, Janus Head 9(1):91-109, 2006
“Secrets and Lies: What Oedipus Really Knew”, Organdi Quarterly 8, 2006
“Philosophy as Listening: the Lessons of Psychoanalysis”, in What Philosophy Is: Contemporary Philosophy in Action (H. Carel & D. Gamez eds.) pp. 225-238 (London: Continuum, 2004)
Reviews
- Feminist Philosophy by Herta Nagl-Docekal, Feminist Theory, Volume 6, 2, August 2005, pp.222-4
- “The Uncanny: An Introduction”, Modernism/ Modernity, Volume 11, 3, September 2004, pp.598-9
- “Continental Philosophy: a Very Short Introduction”, Philosophy Today, Volume 16, 41, October 2002, pp.5-6
- Equals by Adam Phillips, Review on Sep 16th 2002
- “Whose Freud?”, Philosophy in Review, Volume XXI, 4, pp. 242-244 2001
- Happiness, Death and the Remainder of Life by Jonathan Lear, Reviewed on Mar 7th 2001
- Darwin’s Worms by Adam Phillips Reviewed on May 19th 2001
- Emotion by Dylan Evans Reviewed on Oct 15th 2001
