Literary and Cultural Studies in Health Humanities: Literature and culture as practices of care
Target audience
PhD Students
Organizing and scientific committee
Organising committee:
Luna Dieleman
Zoë Ghyselinck
Jürgen Pieters
Contact: jurgen.pieters@ugent.be (09.264.40.97)
Scientific Committee:
Louise Benson James (Ghent University, Literary Studies)
Piet Bracke (Ghent University, CHARM - Sociology)
Vanessa Joosen (University of Antwerp – Literary Studies, Metrodora)
Zoë Ghyselinck (Ghent University, CHARM – Literary Studies)
Tessa Kerre (Ghent University, CHARM – Medicine)
Jürgen Pieters (Ghent University, CHARM – Literary Studies)
Kris Rutten (Ghent University, Research Group Culture and Education)
Joris Vandriessche (KULeuven – History, Center for Health Humanities)
Hannah Van Hove (VUBrussel – Literary Studies)
Topic
In the past few decades, literary and cultural studies have obtained a rightful place within the interdisciplinary field of Medical and Health Humanities. Surveys of the multidisciplinary constellation of medical and health humanities traditionally point out the legitimate presence of literary and cultural studies in the domain, next to other humanities and social science disciplines, such as history, sociology, philosophy, art history, theatre and performance studies, ethics. One might even say that literary studies, in the initial phase of Medical Humanities that was substantially oriented towards the interactions between literature and medicine (Howard Brody, Rita Charon, Arthur Frank), has played a foundational role in shaping key discussions in this field.
As a consequence, literary studies have developed a more distinctive position within the field, not only by contributing to the analysis of narrative and textual representations of illness, death and care, but also by offering theoretical and methodological insights that broaden our thinking about health and well-being. Applied literary studies, for example, have been instrumental in developing reading and storytelling practices in clinical, therapeutic and community settings. At the same time, literary scholars have played a central role in the more recent developments of Critical Medical Humanities and health humanities, which both emphasize the ways in which literature and cultural narratives shape and challenge dominant understandings of health, embodiment and medical ethics. Recent surveys of both the Critical Medical Humanities and Health Humanities confirm the foundational importance of literary and cultural studies in the respective domains. This is confirmed by the numerous contributions on literature and culture in central journals to the field and by the thriving of global and local research networks, among which our own university’s International Thematic Network CHARM (Consortium for Health Humanities, Arts, Reading and Medicine). The present application is an outcome of work on this ITN, members of which contain prominent health humanities institutions and initiatives worldwide.
In this DS-program, we aim to highlight, on the one hand, the multitude and complexity of perspectives that literary and cultural studies bring to Critical Medical and Health Humanities. Literature offers a unique space to explore embodied experiences, affective and narrative complexities, and the entanglement of cultural, sociopolitical and medical imaginaries. On the other hand, we also want to critically examine how this dynamic within this interdisciplinary field affects literature, its form and functions, and how and to which extent the rise of initiatives of what one might call ‘literary care’ has broadened our conception of what literary and cultural sociologists tend to see as the literary and cultural fields. In line with the latter issue, we ask to what extent literary and cultural scholarship can and should resist the pressures of instrumentalization? How can we contribute to the broader Medical Humanities without reinforcing a utilitarian framework that is often taken to reduce literature and culture to tools for healthcare interventions?.
The societal value of Health Humanities research is in many ways self-evident. As the scholarship that has come out of this interdisciplinary field shows, health humanities research is aimed at improving the culture of health-care and often stands as a corrective to an all too strict biomedical approach that threatens to forget the human aspects of medicine and care. With the DS, it is also our hope to contribute to a recent call for action in the field, by one of our invited experts, Neil Vickers. In his most recent book (Being Ill.On Sickness, Care and Abandonment (2024)) Vickers and his co-author Derek Bolton hold a plea for a closer rapprochement between health humanities research and recent biomedical developments and results in the study of illness and health. With specific respect to the value of literature, culture and art, research has focused primarily on the potential of literary and other artistic objects and practices in medical and healthcare teaching contexts, but also on the beneficial impact of these objects and practices on the wellbeing of patients and caregivers. The outreach event that we are planning in the context of the DS will be devoted to an in-depth discussion between scholars and practitioners in the field.
Lecturers
- Neil Vickers is Professor of English Literature and the Health Humanities and co-director of the Centre for the Humanities and Health at King’s College, London. An epidemiologist by former training, he is the author of Coleridge and the Doctors: 1795-1806 (Oxford UP, 2004) and (together with Derek Bolton) Being Ill. On Sickness, Care and Abandonment (University of Chicago Press, 2024). He has published extensively on illness narratives and is currently working on a history of the medical humanities.
- Laura Wittman is Associate Professor of Italian and French Literature and Culture at Stanford University, and co-chair of the Medical Humanities Workshop at the Stanford Humanities center. She is a cultural and literary historian whose work centers on how modernity articulates new relationships between religious experience, embodiment, mortality, health, and politics. She is the author of The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Modern Mourning, and the Reinvention of the Mystical Body (University of Toronto Press, 2011) and is currently completing a book entitled Faith in the Age of Irony that explores visions of the afterlife in modern literature and culture through Lazarus stories, as a window toward our changing attitudes toward “the good death.” Her current work in progress is on television and film representations of questions of illness and health.
- Thor Magnus Tangeras is Associate Professor of Rhetoric and Narrative Methods at Kristiania University college (Norway). His research areas are Transformative Aesthetic Experiences; Bibliotherapy and Practices of Mediation of Literature. He is the author of Literature and Transformation: A Narrative Study of Life-Changing Reading Experiences (Anthem Press, 2020) He has published a number of articles on the methodology of Shared Reading, a literary practice of care on which he is finishing a book (in Norse).
- Alice Scavarda is Assistant Professor at the Department of Cultures, Politics and Society of the University of Turin (Italy). She is trained as a medical sociologist and co-founded and co-directed the international research group ESA Epistemic Community on Welfare Disability Policies in Europe (2021-2023). She is a member of the Advisory Board of the European Society for Health and Medical Sociology (ESHMS) and a founding member of Graphic Medicine Italia. Her main research interests are disability, chronic illness and prevention, with a focus on stigma and medicalisation. She is also interested in analysing the methodological and ethical features of creative methods, in particular comics and applied theatre. She holds the first CHARM-Chair (UGhent, 2024-25).
- Dieter Declercq is Lecturer in Medical Humanities (Narrative Medicine) at Glasgow University. Before joining Glasgow, he was a Senior Lecturer in Film and Media at the University of Kent, where he co-founded and co-directed the Centre for Health and Medical Humanities. He is the author of Satire, Comedy and Mental Health: Coping with the Limits of Critique (Emerald Publishing, 2021). He has published widely on the use of satire and humor in contexts of mental wellbeing.
- Leni Van Goidsenhoven is an Assistant Professor of Critical Disability Studies at the University of Amsterdam. Her research focuses on disability, illness, neurodiversity, inclusive learning environments, and representations of non-normative bodyminds in arts and literature. She mostly engages with crip theory, Mad and Disability Studies, (speculative) care ethics, and Cultural Studies. She co-founded both the Autism Ethics Network (Funded by FWO) and the Neurodivergent Humanities Network (funded by NNMHR). She has published widely on related topics as autism, outsider art, and developmental diversity.
Dates and venue
27 August - 29 August 2025
Museum dr. Guislain (Jozef Guislainstraat 43b
B-9000 Gent ; Lezingenzaal
Programme
Wednesday August 27:
09.00-10.30: Lecture 1 (Neil Vickers) + discussion
Coffee break
11.00-13.00: Presentations by 3 students, followed by discussion, reflection and feedback on methods and contents of papers sent in advance
13.00-14.00: Lunch
14.00-15.30: Presentations by 2 students
Coffee break
16.00-17.30: Lecture 2 (Alice Scavarda) + discussion
18.30-20.30: Group dinner
Thursday August 28:
08.30-9.00: Welcome
09.00-10.30: Lecture 3 (Laura Wittman) + discussion
Coffee break
11.00-13.00: Presentations by 3 students
13.00-14.00: Lunch
14.00-15.30: Presentations by 2 students
Coffee break
16.00-17.30: Lecture 4 (Thor Magnus Tangeras) + discussion
19.00-21.00: Outreach Event
Friday August 29:
09.00-10.30: Lecture 5 (Dieter Declercq) + discussion
Coffee break
11.00-13.00: Presentations by 3 students
13.00-14.00: Lunch
14.00-15.30: Presentations by 2 students
Coffee break
16.00-17.30: Lecture 6 (Leni Van Goidsenhoven) + discussion
Apart from the invited speakers, feedback will also be provided by a number of colleagues who belong to the organisational and scientific committee (Zoë Ghyselinck, Louise Benson James, Jürgen Pieters, Hannah Van Hove, Vanessa Joossen)
Registration
- Please register by sending an e-mail to zoe.ghyselinck@ugent.be. We check if you are eligible to participate.
- Participants who wish to join without submitting a paper, can register here.
- Cancellation of your registration can only be performed by sending an email to doctoralschools@ugent.be.
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The no show policy applies.
Registration fee
Free of charge for Doctoral School members.
Number of participants
Maximum 15 participants
Language
English
Training method
Each of our invited international experts will be invited to present a lecture that illustrates the specific interdisciplinary angle of their own approach and that takes into account current developments in the field. Each day opens and ends with a 40 minute lecture by one of the international experts and a 50 minute discussion session that will be moderated by the PhD-students and center around their responses. (i.e. six sessions of 1.5 hours)
Each day will contain two sessions centrally devoted to the presentation and discussion of the students’ work. Since they will be asked to submit their paper beforehand, the presentation itself can be brief (10-15 minutes), and will be followed by a 30 minute discussion. We will structure the discussion by working out a system of responses, so that each student gets a response by the scholars present whose work is closest to their topic. Each student will have a time-slot of 45 minutes, the program allows for 5 student-presentations per day, i.e. we can accommodate 15 students.
Evaluation method
Recognition of the summer school within the doctoral training program is based on a set of
criteria that assess the depth of engagement, scholarly contribution, and active participation of participants:
· Full Attendance: Participants are expected to attend all sessions of the summer school, including ex cathedra lectures, case presentations, paper presentations, and discussion sessions. Full attendance demonstrates commitment to the program and ensures comprehensive learning.
· Active Participation: Active participation (asking questions, sharing insights, and engaging with peers and lecturers) in discussions, case presentations, and paper presentations is essential for enriching the learning experience and fostering intellectual exchange.
· Presentation of Cases/ Papers/Methods: Participants are required to present work in progress (either a case study related to the theme of the summer school or a research paper that aligns with the interdisciplinary nature of the program). They will have to send this in advance and present this. Presentations should demonstrate the adopted theoretical frameworks and the findings (of applicable, also a case study). The quality of presentations/papers will be evaluated based on clarity and depth of the analysis, coherence of arguments, and relevance to the theme of the summer school. Presenters should effectively communicate their ideas to the evaluators/instructors and respond to questions and feedback with professionalism.
By incorporating these criteria into the doctoral training program, the summer school can provide participants with a comprehensive learning experience that combines theoretical and methodological knowledge, practical skills, and scholarly engagement.
After successful participation, the Doctoral School Office will add this course to your curriculum of the Doctoral Training Programme in Oasis. Please note that this can take up to one to two months after completion of the course.