This page introduces you to a range of resources for thinking about Health and the Humanities, both on campus and in the wider world.
Campus Events
Campus is full of events related to Health and the Humanities! Here are a few 2017-2018 events we hope you’ll consider attending:
Sunday, October 15, 2017 @ 7 pm
The documentary MIXED MATCH focuses on mixed race blood cancer patients who must consider their multiracial identities as they struggle to find bone marrow donors because of their complex genetics. This film screening is part of Madison’s Asian American Media Spotlight. For more details, click here.
October 27-29, 2017
“Frankenstein in Popular Culture,” a 3-day symposium celebrating the 200th anniversary of the creation and publication of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, a novel concerned with science, ethics, and politics. For more information, find the flyer here.
Postponed until Spring 2018
“Opioids in Wisconsin,” a Humanities NOW event presented by the Center for the Humanities, at which “an interdisciplinary group of UW scholars come together to discuss the current opioid epidemic, which is making headlines nationally, in Wisconsin, and in Madison.” For more details click here.
February 21, 2018 @ 5:30pm
“The Great Disruption: Biologists, Revolutions, and the Values of Science ca. 1848,” a talk by Lynn K. Nyhart, who is the Vilas-Bablitch-Kelch Distinguished Achievement Professor of the History of Science at UW. This talk is presented by the Center for the Humanities as part of the Focus on the Humanities series. For more details click here.
Monday, April 9, 2018 @ 7:30pm
A talk by biologist, author, and cancer survivor Sandra Steingraber, who writes about climate change, ecology, and the links between human health and the environment. This talk is presented by the Center for the Humanities as part of the Humanities Without Boundaries series. For more details click here.
Scholarships and Opportunities
There are many programs and scholarship opportunities related to the medical humanities. One great example is the Sherwin B. Nuland Summer Institute in Bioethics at Yale, which you can learn more about here. Stay tuned for more opportunities!
Featured Works
Check back in here for a rotating set of featured movies, books, TV shows, and artworks that deal with health and medicine. What have you been reading, watching, or listening to that impacts your thinking about health, wellness, power, and care?
Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking
Didion’s memoir about her year of grief after the death of her husband John Gregory Dunn won the 2005 National Book Award for Nonfiction. You can read an excerpt from the memoir and listen to Didion talk about her grief and her book in this piece from NPR.
Damon Tweedy, Black Man in a White Coat
In this memoir, originally published in 2015, Damon Tweedy writes about his experiences as a black man at an elite medical school and as a practicing physician. Black Man in a White Coat was a New York Timesbestseller and one of Time magazine’s top 10 nonfiction books. It was also the Spring 2016 selection for the Center for Pre-Health Advising’s book club. You can read about Tweedy’s work in this review from the New York Times and this piece from Time.
For more medically related reading, click here to check out book recommendations from current and past medical students and professors.