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Research projects

Medical Humanities Research Network

In early 2011, an interdisciplinary research network for the Medical Humanities will be launched in the College of Humanities and Social Science.

Its initial phase of activity will consist of a series of interdisciplinary seminars involving both Edinburgh University academics and invited outside speakers. This local network is the forerunner of a planned Medical Humanities Research Network Scotland co-organised with Glasgow University, and extending throughout the Scottish Higher Education sector.

Information about the Edinburgh University Medical Humanities Research Network (EUMHRN) and its members will be shared in due course through a blog hosted on Wordpress.

The aims of the EUMHRN are:

  1. to build capacity for future Edinburgh University research in this area, including funding applications (e.g. to the Wellcome Trust), and high-quality work suitable for REF submission.
  2. to foster research that can inform future teaching in the Medical Humanities.
  3. to prepare for inter-institutional links with other Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) active in the Medical Humanities, particularly Scottish HEIs.

What are the Medical Humanities?

The Medical Humanities use the methods of the arts, humanities and social sciences to contextualise, complement, and criticise biomedical accounts of human nature, health, and wellbeing. The medical humanities include medical law and ethics, and the history and philosophy of science and medicine, as well as newer areas such as: the creative practices of therapeutic writing and the arts in healthcare; theological accounts of spiritual care, wellbeing, and healing; the literary analysis of medical narratives; and studies of the social, historical and cultural construction of disability. This is only a partial list of subdisciplines in a relatively new and still growing field.

The Edinburgh University Medical Humanities Research Network is co-ordinated by Dr Claire McKechnie and for all inquiries, please email her.

This article was published on Nov 7, 2011


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