Literature and Health in the 21st Century
A special issue of Humanities (ISSN 2076-0787).
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 1 June 2026 | Viewed by 910
Special Issue Editors
Interests: Danish and Nordic literature; narrative medicine; medical- and health humanities
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
What is the use of literature in view of today’s health challenges? This Special Issue focuses on the European region and invites papers that explore current challenges in health, well-being, and healthcare as represented in literature. The challenges, we see, are plenty: growing social inequality and political polarization with effects on public health, including various kinds of addiction; decreasing trust in science and institutions impacting vaccination programs; the multiple causes of migration, which require new competences in culture and language; a focus on fertility and the care of older citizens in response to demographic changes; fast-paced lives and unattainable ideals on social media that have been correlated with mental stress and psychiatric illnesses; the ethics of using artificial intelligence in health care; the increasingly tangible impact of climate change; and, last but not least, a present risk of new pandemics. By literature, we understand reading and writing, visible in book form, on walls and screens, in academia, in the clinic, and with vulnerable people. How have European writers in the 21st century explored these contemporary challenges as they impact health, well-being, and health care, and can facilitated activities of creative writing and shared reading in some ways support those solutions? Topics may include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Empathy, compassion, and justice in healthcare;
- Stigma and stereotypes (e.g., migrants, ethnic minorities, transgendered persons);
- Access to public health care;
- Psychiatric diagnosis (e.g., autism, depression, schizophrenia);
- Mental health of adolescents;
- Dependency (e.g., alcohol, drugs);
- Vaccination programs;
- Reproductive health and aging;
- Suicide related to A.I.;
- Climate anxiety;
- Pandemics (e.g., COVID-19).
Dr. Anders Juhl Rasmussen
Dr. Anita Wohlmann
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Humanities is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- literature
- medical humanities
- health humanities
- narrative medicine
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