Health and humanities research projects

This research investigates the relationship between reality TV and women’s experiences of pregnancy and labour. The project will bring together perspectives from midwifery, sociology, television studies and health humanities, as well as seeking the views of service users, activists and the TV industry. The objective is to develop a new approach to questions about the role of TV in shaping women’s perceptions of risk, autonomy and choice during labour. This project is funded by a Wellcome Seed Award.

Performing CP: Healthcare, Ageing, Access is an interdisciplinary research project funded by the AHRC's Impact Accelerator Award. The aim of the project is to investigate the potential of creative practice to create educational resources that communicate new knowledge and understanding on ageing and experiences of healthcare for people living with cerebral palsy (CP).

The International Health Humanities Network provides a global platform for innovative humanities scholars; medical, health and social care professionals; voluntary sector workers and creative practitioners to join forces with informal and family carers, service-users and the wider self-caring public. These collaborations explore, celebrate and develop new approaches in advancing health and wellbeing through the arts and humanities in hospitals and residential and community settings.

The Madness and Literature Network aims to stimulate cooperation and co-working between researchers, academics, clinicians, service users, carers and creative writers in order to develop an interdisciplinary, global dialogue about the issues raised around representations of madness in literature. 

This project featured researchers with backgrounds in literary studies, social psychology, medical psychiatry and psychiatric nursing. It also led to a monograph looking at representations of madness in a range of texts by postwar writers such as Ken Kesey, Marge Piercy, Patrick McGrath, Leslie Marmon Silko, William Golding, Patrick Gale, William Burroughs and J.G. Ballard, to name a few. The project explored ways in which these representations help to shape public perceptions and how they portray highly unique experiences of mental disorder.