NEWConnections Seminar: CARE
Three women with varied hairstyles and outfits appear in a collage
NEWConnections: a space for interdisciplinary conversation and connection around key themes, and thorny issues, in research and the contemporary social world.
Caragh Brosnan is Associate Professor of Sociology and co-director of the Centre for Society, Health and Care Research. She completed her PhD in the sociology of medical education at the University of Cambridge in 2008 and worked in the UK before joining the University of Newcastle in 2012. Focusing on the health professions, Caragh’s empirical research has examined patient-practitioner interactions, ethical issues, contested evidence, global knowledge flows, and professionalisation processes in areas including medicine, midwifery, nursing, neuroscience, and complementary and alternative medicine. Underpinning her research is a broad question around hierarchies of knowledge and practice - including the place of care - in health contexts, and how they are reproduced.
Catharine Coleborne is a historian of illness, health and medicine, especially mental illness and institutions. Her career contributions include a focus on patients, asylum records and medical case book narratives in the archive, and interactions between families and medical personnel in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Much of her work has considered the implications of institutional ‘care’, as well as touching on the roles of unofficial carers such as families, and more recently, models of post-institutional care in the wider community. She is currently leading an Australian Research Council project (with Dr Effie Karageorgos) focused on mental health aftercare in New South Wales, Victoria and Western Australia, 1900 to 1960. This project aims to disturb our current understandings of care by presenting stories of mental health aftercare to a wide audience.
Kate Teal-Spicer is a PhD student in Cultural Studies. Her creative component is a documentary film, Her Heart Is In The Right Place, in which she applied an ethics of care approach to her filmmaking. The documentary explores understanding women’s healthcare challenges in NSW. Kate works as a practising freelance artist, writer and filmmaker. Her artwork has been in multiple exhibitions, including two solo shows. Kate has worked across a diverse range of film, television, and independent projects, including as the art director on feature film Beat (2021), production designer on Luca Brasi music video Party Scene (2022), and researcher on ABC TV programme Compass (2024).
Zoom link: join the meeting here
Meeting ID: 834 9384 5411
Passcode: 784494
Event Information
- Date: This public lecture took place on Tuesday 5 August 2025
- Location: Room X602, Level 6, NUSpace, Newcastle, 2300
The University of Newcastle acknowledges the traditional custodians of the lands within our footprint areas: Awabakal, Darkinjung, Biripai, Worimi, Wonnarua, and Eora Nations. We also pay respect to the wisdom of our Elders past and present.