Author: Centre for the Humanities and Health
The Centre for the Humanities and Health (CHH) is a UK leader in the Health Humanities, dedicated to researching the cultural meaning and lived experiences of wellbeing and illness, through humanities and creative arts scholarship and practices. CHH is interested in investigating the roles patient experiences play in cultural and medical discourses and how they are valued or disregarded as forms of evidence and expertise contributing to medical and scientific knowledge. CHH aims to
- raise academic and public awareness of the Health Humanities as a locus of research, reflection and teaching on health, wellbeing and illness
- revalorise subjectivity in healthcare practices and scholarship
- engage with healthcare services, researchers and patient organisations
- provide training at masters, PhD, and postdoctoral levels for humanities, medical, nursing and science students.
Personal and cultural meanings are fundamental to the sick and those who care for and nurse them. Yet the meaning of illness to individuals, families and society falls outside the purview of biomedicine, which means that biomedical science alone offers less than a full foundation for understanding human health and wellbeing, which it is the task of the Health Humanities to research.