International Health Humanities Network

Project Duration

June 2011 - May 2013

Funder

Arts and Humanities Research Council

Funding

£37,780

Aims

The International Health Humanities Network provides a global platform – via an interactive website, a series of four seminars and an ongoing series of international conferences - 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 to explore, celebrate and develop new approaches in advancing health and wellbeing through the arts and humanities in hospitals, residential and community settings. 

Supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, this initiative begins a new era in developing the way that arts and humanities knowledge and practice can enhance health and wellbeing, thus finding new people and practical resources around the world that help bring the human back into health.

On the website, members can log the impact of language, literature, history, theology, law, philosophy, visual, performing and multimedia arts, as well as area studies, media and cultural studies, for example, in enhancing the health and wellbeing of society. Informal carers, service users and the self-caring public are invited to share their ideas of how arts and humanities have benefited them and may benefit others experiencing a particular challenge to their health and wellbeing. 

Nurses, doctors, occupational therapists, psychologists, dentists, physiotherapists, social workers, childcare and school workers, alternative and complimentary therapists, as well as those who have traditionally drawn on the arts and humanities such as music therapists, dance and drama therapists, poetry therapists, art therapists, bibliotherapists and sports therapists, are invited to join and report on successful, innovative projects and events in this field.

Methods

An interactive website, a series of four seminars and an ongoing series of international conferences.

Outcomes and Findings

This project is now complete. Visit www.healthhumanities.org

A series of four invited UK-based seminars were held at the Institute of Mental Health and the Centre for Advanced Studies, The University of Nottingham, with talks by important scholars examining health-related aspects to ecology, music, language and film media and health. Each of these one-day seminars on average attracted 20 scholars from the subject fields, other humanities and social science disciplines, senior health service managers, clinicians and service users. Where permission was granted, podcasts, Powerpoints or audio files from the seminar days were made available at www.healthhumanities.org

The seminars/ workshops were as follows:

1) Music and Health
Venue: Institute of Mental Health, Jubilee Campus, The University of Nottingham
Date: 9 March 2012

• Plenary 1: Professor Leslie Bunt (UWE), "Music as an agent for transformation: its place in contemporary health and social care"
• Keynote: Professor Brian Abrams (Montclair State University, US), "Musica Humana: When Music Breaks the Sound Barrier in Music Therapy"
• Plenary 2: Professor Aaron Williamon (Royal College of Music, UK), "Rhythm for Life: Music and wellbeing in older adulthood"

2) Ecology, health and Literature
Venue: Institute of Mental Health, Jubilee Campus, The University of Nottingham
Date: 30 March 2012

• Plenary 1: Professor Terry Gifford (Bath Spa University), "Ecopoetry, Healing and Public Health: The case of Ted Hughes"
• Keynote: Keynote: Professor Catrinona Sandilands,
• Plenary 2: Dr Adeline Putra-Jones (University of Exeter), "Borrowing the World from our Children: Gender, Posterity and Well-being in the Climate Change Novel"

3) Impact of Applied Linguistics in Healthcare
Venue: Institute of Mental Health, Jubilee Campus, The University of Nottingham
Date: 26 January 2013

• Professor Brian Brown (De Montfort University), "Re-imaging health through language" 
• Professor Srikant Sarangi (Cardiff University), "Janus-Faced Translational Research in Health Communication: Some Reflections" 
• Professor Peter J. Schulz (Lugano University, Switzerland), "Between the humanities and health sciences: Health literacy and patients' empowerment"

4. Media and Film in healthcare
Venue: Centre for Advanced Studies, The University of Nottingham
Date: 28 June 2013

• Professor Danny Wedding (Alliant International University, US)
• Professor Jenny Kitzinger (King's College London, UK)
• Dr Ahmed Hankir and Dr Mark Agius 

2nd International Health Humanities Conference

The 2nd International Health Humanities Conference: Music, Health, and Humanity was held at Montclair State University, New Jersey, on 9-11 August 2012 with major US keynote speakers (Kate Pierson of the B52s, composer Joel Thome) alongside other prominent UK and US academic speakers.