This workshop seeks to explore the social, cultural, political, and medical aspects of reanimation and resuscitation from the Early modern period to the present. From the emergence of societies ‘for the recovery of persons apparently drowned’ across Europe from 1770s to the setting up of first-aid medical services in the modern world, the subject of resuscitation has taken on a high social and medical significance. Early on, medals were awarded to bystanders who leapt into rivers to save hapless swimmers; attendants were stationed at the edge of hazardous boating lakes; and a variety of life-saving tools were touted to a burgeoning consumer society.

More broadly, changing views about the obligation to save lives are indicative of a profound shift regarding the nature of death and the value of human life, involving both an increasingly secularized conception of the possibility of resurrection (most famously explored in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, 1818), and the development of a society characterized by its understanding and management of risk.

Attendees at the workshop will consider how these phenomena appeared as key concerns of the Enlightenment – initially as miraculous moments, and then as displays of medical prowess and manifestations of civic responsibility. The aim of the meeting is to explore how these ideas and practices have developed through time in literary, popular, and medical narratives, as new technologies both ‘medicalised’ resuscitation and extended its practice beyond the medical arena. As a result, we aim to develop new insights, not only into the development and dissemination of medical knowledge but also into broader cultural issues such as citizenship and civic duty, perception and management of risk, and changing notions of what it meant to be human.

Through a set of panels and round tables we wish to foster fruitful interactions between scholars at all career stages.