From Face/Off to the Face Race: An emotional history of the face transplant

Centre for Global Health Histories Lectures

Isabelle Dinoire, the world’s first face transplant recipient, died in April 2016, just eleven years after the procedure that brought her unwanted fame and media attention. More than forty face transplants have taken place around the world since 2005. Medical debates centre primarily on such concerns as immunosuppressant use and organ donation. Far less attention has been paid to the ethical, emotional and psychological history of face transplants and their meanings for personal and social identity, though these were concerns of the earliest post-war reconstructive surgeons. This talk explores the emotional history and ethics of face transplants, raising questions about gender, facial politics, and the limits of medical science.

Other lectures in this series include: 

• Marginalised mothers: Health communication and maternal health in East Africa, 1920-2017