This online lecture series is designed to highlight the critical interdependencies and synergies between the humanities and medicine. Traditionally seen as separate realms – arts and sciences – this series demonstrates the power of their convergence in addressing some of the world's most pressing challenges.
Featuring distinguished researchers from the Circle U. Universities, this lecture series delves into how the synthesis of perspectives from medicine and the humanities is pivotal in tackling the key focus areas of the Circle U. alliance – climate change, democratic deficits, global health disparities, and the evolving challenges of artificial intelligence.
The field of medical humanities was initially developed to provide medical students with a grounding in literature, philosophy, art, music, history, and drama, enhancing their understanding of illness experiences and cultivating their empathy. However, the scope of medical humanities extends far beyond these initial benefits.
Medical humanities also introduces innovative ways to understand the intricate relationships between technological advancements, environmental disruptions, governance systems, lifestyle choices, and health – complex networks that cannot be fully explored by a single discipline but require a comprehensive bio-social approach.
Central to this effort is the concept of translation – broadly seen as an active process of dialogue, negotiation, and mutual transformation between different systems of knowledge.
The lecture series is tailored for students and scholars from any discipline eager to explore innovative and deeply interdisciplinary approaches to wide-ranging health issues and complex societal problems.
Open online lectures:
Lecture 1: How can the medical humanities contribute to sustainability and help achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)?
Lecture 2: Medical humanities in medical education: Teaching the ethics of care through cinema
Lecture 3: The lived experience of rare disease recovery
Lecture 4: Accepting uncertainty and transforming medical knowledge into clinical wisdom, the role of the humanities and learning for the spaces between the facts
Lecture 5: Health and Media Literacy in Times of Crises: Learnings from Literary and Cultural Studies
Event ID: 01524-T5M3B