Starting on Friday 21 September we’ll hear around once a month from each of our regular columnists.
Did You Hear That Too? Music and the Medical Humanities
Nathan Fleshner
Did you hear that too? will explore interactions between the study and creation of music and the medical humanities. It will favor the Introducing our Regular Columnsexploration of musicians and their music through the lens of mental health (the focus of Nathan’s research) but also address broader connections between music and medicine.
Medical Humanities 2.0
Beata Gubacsi
Posthumanism is an emergent philosophical trend including different approaches to the human and non-human, their interactions with each other, and technology. While transhumanism seeks to enhance the physical and mental capacity of humans, critical posthumanism is most concerned with deconstructing narratives of human exceptionalism and creating sustainable societal and environmental models of thinking. Posthumanism, as an umbrella term for future-oriented narratives, often overlaps with popular culture, relying on fantastic literature, film and gaming to illustrate its arguments, or affecting popular thought on body, “madness” or the perspectives and aspirations of humanity. Medical Humanities 2.0 will focus on the interdisciplinary exchanges between posthumanism, popular culture and medical humanities to map our changing concepts of health, care and the future.
The arts and heritage in medical and health humanities
Victoria Hume
The arts and heritage in medical and health humanities column will explore the developing relationship between cultural or creative practice and the medical and health humanities. The arts have always been part of the medical humanities, but as the arts in health movement expands to consider its own relationship with broader cultural contexts, it is a good moment to think about how these two sometimes connective, sometimes divergent movements might feed into each other. This column will also incorporate perspectives, news and insights from the Medical Humanities in Africa network, of which Victoria is a part.
PreSCRIPTion
Leah Sidi
PreSCRIPTion will publish reviews and commentary exploring illness, medicine and disability in contemporary theatre, performance and film. Contributions from reviewers and performance-makers are welcome.
