WHAT ARE THE MEDICAL HUMANITIES?
The critical health and medical humanities as a field of inquiry explore the intersections between the human condition through the arts, philosophies, literatures and histories and their engagement with a broad spectrum of the health and biological sciences and practices, including illness, medicine, treatment, recovery and death.
This conference offers a formal space to further our understanding of how illness, wellbeing, medicine & treatment intersect with the arts and humanities and to encourage discussions about what these concepts mean in an African context. It provides a highly interdisciplinary platform for a diversity of perspectives and inquiries into African concepts of health and wellbeing. Malawi’s own scholars–the late Professors Steve Chimombo and Chris Kamlongera–were pioneers in bringing the arts into conversation with health, community and development. We aspire to showcase the vibrant, contemporary medical humanities research within Malawi and throughout the African continent.
This conference offers a formal space to further our understanding of how illness, wellbeing, medicine & treatment intersect with the arts and humanities and to encourage discussions about what these concepts mean in an African context. It provides a highly interdisciplinary platform for a diversity of perspectives and inquiries into African concepts of health and wellbeing. Malawi’s own scholars–the late Professors Steve Chimombo and Chris Kamlongera–were pioneers in bringing the arts into conversation with health, community and development. We aspire to showcase the vibrant, contemporary medical humanities research within Malawi and throughout the African continent.
THE BODY: IN PARTS OR AS WHOLE
The College of Medicine is proud to host the 2nd Wellcome Trust & University of Edinburgh-funded International Medical Humanities Conference. This year’s theme brings forward conversations about various discourses and modes of representing the body: in parts or as a whole, as an individual or within community or as part of the environment.
We seek to engage participants from creative, social, research, clinical and artistic domains to explore the transdisciplinary space between the health sciences, social sciences and the arts and humanities. This conference will also serve a starting point to build a medical humanities platform in Malawi from the ground up. It will engage local and regional narratives, continental ideas and practices, and voices from the diaspora. A final day is reserved for networking, proposal generation and an Open Space forum to draw concrete plans for future directions for medical humanities scholarship within the College of Medicine, across Africa and with global partners.
The College of Medicine-hosted conference in partnership with international colleagues is offering a ground-breaking space to support the creation of a pan-African and African-led initiative to formalise medical humanities studies, research and scholarship taking place across the continent.
We seek to engage participants from creative, social, research, clinical and artistic domains to explore the transdisciplinary space between the health sciences, social sciences and the arts and humanities. This conference will also serve a starting point to build a medical humanities platform in Malawi from the ground up. It will engage local and regional narratives, continental ideas and practices, and voices from the diaspora. A final day is reserved for networking, proposal generation and an Open Space forum to draw concrete plans for future directions for medical humanities scholarship within the College of Medicine, across Africa and with global partners.
The College of Medicine-hosted conference in partnership with international colleagues is offering a ground-breaking space to support the creation of a pan-African and African-led initiative to formalise medical humanities studies, research and scholarship taking place across the continent.
This event is hosted by the College of Medicine in collaboration with the following funders and partners: