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Humanities
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Translating Health through the Humanities
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Translating Health through the Humanities

A special issue of Humanities (ISSN 2076-0787). This special issue belongs to the section "Transdisciplinary Humanities".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 August 2022) | Viewed by 6091

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Amanda M. Caleb

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Medical Education, Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine, Scranton, PA 18509, USA
Interests: health humanities; health communication; health narratology; narrative medicine; literature and medicine
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

This special issue of Humanities looks to explore the translational work of the humanities as a conduit to improve health care, public health, and health outcomes by decoding individual experiences, community responses, healthcare knowledge, and health policies.

Dear Colleagues,

As the COVID-19 pandemic exposed structural cracks in public health policies and health care systems around the globe, the humanities intensified arguments for their inclusion in health care, health education, policy development, and public health initiatives, citing, among other things, their existing work on cultural analysis, gender, race, and class, disease construction, illness narratives, the decoding of text, and perspective-taking. At the onset of the pandemic, humanities scholars from across the world quickly produced editorials and lecture series, arguing for, and demonstrating the value of, the humanities in responding to the global health crisis. These efforts emphasized the humanities as translational, both through the application of their disciplines to address the impact of the pandemic and through their application to make sense of individual experiences that could impact health care and health policies and to decode health and government policies to understand their impact on individuals.

This Special Issue of Humanities looks to explore the translational work of the humanities as a conduit to improve health care, public health, and health outcomes by decoding individual experiences, community responses, healthcare knowledge, and health policies. Possible topics include:

  • The relationship between the humanities and health communication;
  • The importance of empathy in health care;
  • Humanities models of understanding and contextualizing disease, illness, and sickness;
  • Healthcare ethics and social justice;
  • Historical framings of disease as relevant to policy creation;
  • Developments within medical/health humanities and/or public health humanities;
  • The role of the humanities in health education;
  • Applications of narrative medicine, art, and/or music within health care settings.

Please send a 300-word abstract to Amanda Caleb ([email protected]) by May 12. Authors will be informed of decisions by May 31. Full articles (6,000-7,000 words) due by August 31.

Prof. Amanda M. Caleb
Guest Editor

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 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

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 semimonthly 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

  • health humanities
  • medical humanities
  • public health humanities
  • health education
  • health outcomes
  • translational health
  • healthcare ethics
  • narrative medicine
  • empathy in healthcare
  • social justice

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

12 pages, 315 KiB  
Article
Reading Performances of Illness Scripts, Clinical Authority, and Narrative Self-Care in Samuel Beckett’s Malone Dies and Jérôme Lambert’s Chambre Simple
by Swati Joshi and Claire Jeantils
Humanities 2022, 11(6), 140; https://doi.org/10.3390/h11060140 - 9 Nov 2022
Viewed by 1783
Abstract
Malone Dies (1956) by Samuel Beckett and Chambre simple (2018) by Jérôme Lambert present the narratives of precarity in the clinical setting, wherein the clinical caregivers view the suffering of the patients as a spectacle and chart out pre(script)ions and pro(script)ions for them. [...] Read more.
Malone Dies (1956) by Samuel Beckett and Chambre simple (2018) by Jérôme Lambert present the narratives of precarity in the clinical setting, wherein the clinical caregivers view the suffering of the patients as a spectacle and chart out pre(script)ions and pro(script)ions for them. Both novels open on a note of uncertainty. This paper examines the narratives of fear and anxiety of the institutionalized patients (probably) in the mental asylum in Malone Dies and the public hospital in Chambre simple. The caregivers in both novels represent the voice of medical authority who focus on cure rather than care, providing their patients food and medications or conducting tests. Hence, Malone and le Patient are compelled to develop artistic coping mechanisms of self-care, reclaiming the ownership of the self. In Malone Dies, the abatement of in-person care and the fear of spending time in isolation before death motivates Malone to devise the narratives. Malone is the sole performer and spectator of his performance of patienthood. Similarly, le Patient chooses the position of the spectator, thus turning upside down the “spectacle” of the epilepsy script, where the patient is viewed as the performer of catharsis by the clinical audience. Here, the lens of performance studies helps us understand clinical caregivers’ emphasis on preparing an illness script that governs Malone and le Patient’s script of narrative self-care. We argue that caregivers’ expectations pressurize patients with chronic conditions to implement forms of artistic self-care in clinical settings. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Translating Health through the Humanities)
12 pages, 301 KiB  
Article
Transits in Oncology: A Protocol Study for a Therapy-Educational Training Built-In Intervention
by Carolina M. Scaglioso
Humanities 2022, 11(6), 136; https://doi.org/10.3390/h11060136 - 31 Oct 2022
Viewed by 1320
Abstract
The study “Transits in oncology” has been perfected with the collaboration of the UOC of Oncological Mammary Surgery of the Azienda Ospedaliero Universitaria Senese Siena, specifically by Prof. Donato Casella. The study means to analyze the impact of art-therapy interventions aimed at minimizing [...] Read more.
The study “Transits in oncology” has been perfected with the collaboration of the UOC of Oncological Mammary Surgery of the Azienda Ospedaliero Universitaria Senese Siena, specifically by Prof. Donato Casella. The study means to analyze the impact of art-therapy interventions aimed at minimizing psychological distress in women with a diagnosis of breast cancer/mammary carcinoma (anxiety/depression), hence improving their psychophysical wellbeing. To this end, the study employs the evaluation of specific psychological parameters with the purpose of monitoring anxiety and depression levels, while investigating a potential correlation between the anxiety and depression levels and other psychological variables, such as alexithymia. The mammary carcinoma diagnosis, to all effects, constitutes an actual “disorienting dilemma” for the woman: it leads to questioning one’s way of life, and their past and future choices; the upheaval is conducive to a reflective phase that upsets one’s “expectations of meaningfulness”. The art-therapy intervention has been elaborated in a protocol that underscores its transformative methodology qualities: it aims to act on the regenerative potential of the turmoil, for an elaboration of trauma that does not negate it or further it (the feeling that nothing will change and everything will go back to the way it was before), but rather disrupts it. The final goal is to promote new existential practices, generating positive change towards self-awareness, stimulating the activation of one’s latent resources by accessing one’s symbolic world and one’s imagination. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Translating Health through the Humanities)
12 pages, 280 KiB  
Article
The Future of Public Health through Science Fiction
by Jarrel Kristan Zakhary De Matas
Humanities 2022, 11(5), 127; https://doi.org/10.3390/h11050127 - 16 Oct 2022
Viewed by 2018
Abstract
This study investigates the ability of science fiction to address issues that emerge in public health. The issues that form the focus of this paper include the spread of misinformation and disinformation, dependence on technology, and competent public-private partnerships that serve the interests [...] Read more.
This study investigates the ability of science fiction to address issues that emerge in public health. The issues that form the focus of this paper include the spread of misinformation and disinformation, dependence on technology, and competent public-private partnerships that serve the interests of society. Each of these issues is brought under the spotlight by Barbadian sociologist Karen Lord in ‘The Plague Doctors’ and American psychiatrist Justin C. Key in ‘The Algorithm Will See You Know’. The stories, although set in unrealized futures and describe as yet inconceivable advancements in technology, contain real-world problems involved in accessing healthcare. In doing so, both writers attend to the viability of literature, and the humanities in general, as a vehicle for encouraging reform to public health policies that face challenges such as inequities in healthcare and raising greater awareness of health concerns. My study bridges public health and literature, specifically science fiction, to get certain messages across. These messages include effectively communicating risks to people’s health, increasing understanding of social responsibility, and addressing uncertainty with transparency. The stories in question reveal futures where public health management has, for the most part, either got it right, in the case of ‘The Plague Doctors’, or not quite, in the case of ‘The Algorithm Will See You Now’. Because I consider the COVID-19 pandemic to be less of a disruptor to public health and more of a revealer of what public health needs to focus on, I foresee interdisciplinary projects such as mine as crucial to bridging the disconnect between people and public health policies. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Translating Health through the Humanities)
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