Community Commons is a place to discuss topics and post documents and references relating broadly to medical humanities.

Community Commons Project


Link added by Arden Hegele to Community Commons | 7 Jul 2021

Synapsis Special Issue: On Police, Prison, and Plagues

Special issue curated by Max Mishler (University of Toronto).


Link added by Arden Hegele to Community Commons | 1 Jul 2021

Summer Institute 2021: Asynchronous Resources

Please enjoy the asynchronous resources provided by our host institution, the University of Southern Denmark! These include keynote presentations and publications associated with the conference.


Link added by Arden Hegele to Community Commons | 17 Mar 2021

New Medical Humanities Major Combines Health and Culture

When medical humanities was introduced as an academic track almost nine years ago in 2012, its founding director, Dr. Rishi Goyal PS’01, GSAS’10, couldn’t have imagined it would one day become a full major in the midst of a global pandemic.


Link added by Arden Hegele to Community Commons | 12 Jan 2021

Julio Frenk-Delivering Equity Through the Public Health System-Jan21

January 21, 2021, 11:30 AM ET Columbia Mailman School of Public Health: The Dean's Grand Rounds on the Future of Public Health. Featuring: Harvey V. Fineberg, MD, PhD, President of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, and Julio Frenk, MD, MPH, PhD​, President, Professor of Public Health Sciences, Health Sector Management and Policy, and Sociology, University of Miami -- Winners of the Frank A. Calderone Prize in Public Health. Linda P. Fried, MD, MPH (moderator) Dean, Columbia Mailman School of Public Health


Link added by Arden Hegele to Community Commons | 10 Nov 2020

Humanities in the Emergency Room-Dec 7

For the final Health Humanities Research Seminar of 2020, the University of Texas at Austin Humanities Institute is pleased to welcome Rishi Goyal, M.D., PhD, Director of the Medicine, Literature, and Society Program and Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine at Columbia University Medical Center. His most recent research explores the political, aesthetic, and social dimensions of the representation of physical trauma in literature. Dr. Goyal’s HHRS presentation, “Humanities in the Emergency Room," will take place at 4pm on December 7. The presentation is inspired by his experiences as an ER physician in New York City during the COVID pandemic. To RSVP for this event, visit https://utexas.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_bBnyWXd0OZmtV77.


Document (pdf) uploaded by Arden Hegele to Community Commons | 12 Oct 2020

Virtual Conference-L'indiscipline des humanités médicales-Nov 26-27

Quelle place les humanités occupent-elles actuellement dans l’enseignement des métiers du soin, en France et à l’étranger ? Quelles fonctions et quels usages les soignants peuvent-ils tirer des humanités dans leurs pratiques auprès des patients ? Ce colloque tâchera de donner une visibilité à quelques propositions innovantes mises en place en Europe et en Amérique du nord tant dans les pratiques médicales que sur le plan de la formation initiale et continue. Notre attention se portera plus particulièrement sur deux enseignements qui ont rejoint les humanités médicales depuis peu en France : la méditation (MBSR – Jon Kabat Zinn, MIT) et la médecine narrative (Rita Charon, Columbia University). Il s’agira donc de partir des pratiques et des travaux de recherche, pour explorer les propositions d’enseignements. Le Groupe Bordeaux Nord Aquitaine mécène du colloque Avec le soutien de la Fondation Anthony Mainguené


Link added by Arden Hegele to Community Commons | 21 Sep 2020

Covid-19: Reframing Ageing

Report on the Interdisciplinary Webinar, University College Dublin, 12 June 2020. // Our webinar asked: What biases has Covid-19 revealed in public discourse and political rhetoric? Is the widespread policy of “protecting” a particular group by means of chronological age a necessary defense against a virus with highly age-sensitive impacts, or a disturbing reframing of older people in society? Is the language used to identify particular cohorts of the population appropriate? Is it consistent with a normative discrimination that typically frames (and writes off) people in this age-group as “elderly”? What can governments, policy-makers, and wider society learn from this situation? Four panels discussed these issues from interdisciplinary perspectives, straddling gerontology, sociology, gender studies, history, art practice, and literary studies.


Comment by Tanya Sheehan on Community Commons | 13 Sep 2020

CFP: 2021 CAA session on art therapy

We hope you will consider submitting proposals to a session we are co-chairing on art therapy at the 2021 College Art Association conference. Below is the session abstract and here is a link with details on how to submit a proposal by the deadline of Wed, September 16. The conference will take place virtually online on February 10-13, 2021 (even though parts of CAA’s website still list the location as New York). Please reach out to us with questions and/or preliminary ideas before the deadline! Best wishes, Tanya Sheehan, Colby College -​tsheehan@colby.edu ​Suzanne Hudson, University of Southern California -​suzannephudson@gmail.com ---- Modern Art and/as Therapy Histories of modern art have had little to say about art therapy, despite its widespread practice in the United States, where it emerged out of psychology and progressive education in the early twentieth century. Indeed, creative art making and viewing came to be commonplace in hospitals, clinics, community centers, and prisons, fueled by a belief in the transformational power of art for psychological diagnosis and healing. This session seeks to explore the conversations between the therapies associated with these extra-artistic spaces and the modernism that visual arts developed at the same time. We invite papers dealing with the visual language and theories shared by art therapy and modernism; conceptions of modernism as therapeutic in popular and fine-artistic discourses; modernist artists’ own encounters with art therapy in clinical settings; and art therapy’s entry into the spaces of modernism, including the art museum and gallery. We especially encourage interdisciplinary papers that situate case studies in relation to discourses in medical humanities, disability studies, and related fields.


Link added by Arden Hegele to Community Commons | 9 Sep 2020

Plagues, Epidemics, and Culture: Histories of Crisis and Care

Sept. 14 and 23, 2020 // Hosted by Institute for Humanities Research // In this series, invited humanities scholars discuss their research in the context of the current COVID-19 crisis. These talks will address how we might draw lessons and envision equitable futures of care for our own local and global communities. Upcoming talks include "Disease, Colonialism and Genocide in American Indian History," with Jeffrey Ostler (Sept 14) and "Medicalizing Blackness: Lessons from the 18th-century American Atlantic," with Rana Hogarth (Sept 23). These online events are free and open to the public, but pre-registration is required.


Link added by Arden Hegele to Community Commons | 8 Sep 2020

Sept 11: "Home, Hospital, Birth Center? A Critical Appraisal"

A Critical Appraisal of Birth Settings in the U.S. // September 11, 2020, 2:00 PM // As hospital births became the norm over the course of the 20th Century, the percentage of women giving birth at home took a nosedive. In the past few decades, however, home births have started regaining popularity among women who fear the impersonality of the hospital setting. Join OB/GYN Dr. Andrei Rebarber and Certified Nurse Midwife Cara Muhlhahn for an illuminating discussion on the landscape of birth settings in the U.S., how our model compares to other countries, and how we can increase collaboration between hospitals and midwives to provide safer birth experiences. This event is being organized by Saving Mothers, an NYC-based 501(3)(c) dedicated to improving the reproductive and maternal health of women worldwide. Tickets are free, but please register in advance: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_zZaQ-1NVRUif5NxIEj-D2g.


more