Medical humanities is a cutting-edge interdisciplinary field that aims at building bridges between biomedical health care and the subjectivity of the person. It is located at the intersection of a range of disciplines that focus on issues and debates on illness, health, and well-being. Its interdisciplinary nature situates illness and health in their cultural and historical contexts, as well as including discussions on ethics. Medical Humanities thus emerges as a significant platform for humanities to explore the relationship between art, literature, culture and medicine.
In our workshop in Istanbul, Transcultural Dialogues in Medical Humanities, we intend to convene a forum for exchange of ideas related to Medical Humanities research and its methodological approaches. We seek to discuss possibilities of collaboration between various medical and humanities fields that inquire into the human condition in its complexity, pivoting around the relationship between the body and the mind (and their varying accounts).
We invite participants to bring questions within Humanities in relation to the themes of illness, ageing, death, trauma, and mental health. We welcome papers in literature and culture, and theoretical and methodological approaches to Medical Humanities.
The workshop will take place 24-25 November 2016 at Özyeğin University, Istanbul. Please submit a 250-word proposal with a 150-word bio before 5 November 2016 and direct any questions to Dr. Burcu Alkan and Dr. Çimen Günay-Erkol by email.