FUNDED PROJECTS
HHiP
HHiP entails the development of a joint MA in Health Humanities (funded by the Erasmus Mundus Joint Master-scheme). Health Humanities is an interdisciplinary field combining the humanities and health sciences, critically exploring cultural perspectives through narrative inquiry and moral reflection to health practices in and beyond the medical encounter.
Category: Incubator Grant
University:
Comenius University Bratislava, University of Galway, Ghent University, University of Groningen
Period:
2025-2027
HHiP entails the development of a joint MA in Health Humanities (funded by the Erasmus Mundus Joint Master-scheme). Health Humanities is an interdisciplinary field combining the humanities and health sciences, critically exploring cultural perspectives through narrative inquiry and moral reflection to health practices in and beyond the medical encounter (Jones et.al., 2016). To date, the field is strong in Anglo-Saxon contexts, with European educational programmes lagging behind. HHiP will move beyond already existing programmes and develop an MA with a strong focus on the languages and traditions of European cultures of health and on developing transferable skills for practice. The added value of this European collaboration resides in the complementarity of the partners’ expertise (see infra), the pooling of resources and the internationalisation of the disciplines involved.
Personal highlight:
The opportunity to develop, in tandem with the other Enlight-partners, a teaching collaboration that will hopefully lead to the Master program we envision. There is a strong commitment among the partner universities to make this work, and the positive energy this exciting venture brings is in itself already valuable.
Participants and Stakeholders
- Coordinator: Prof. Dr. Jürgen Pieters, Department of Literary Studies / CHARM, Faculty of Arts, Ghent University
- Other Partner Institutions: University of Groningen, Comenius University Bratislava, University of Galway
Team Composition (Include key personnel, their roles)
Ghent University: Zoë Ghyselinck, Tessa Kerre, Kenneth Chambaere, Piet Bracke, Melissa Ceuterick, Alexis Dewaele
University of Groningen: Rina Knoeff, James Kennaway, Mike Huiskes, Nadine Voelkner, Christoph Jedan
Comenius University Bratislava: Michaela Kosticova, Jan Stvrtina, Jan Tomastik, Tibor Baska, Martina Baskova
University of Galway: Michal Molcho, Anna Gasperini, Tony Hall, Dara Canon
Objectives
How people experience, understand, articulate, and express health is important in the field of health and wellbeing. Their personal and collective ‘lived experiences’ determine (1) the success or failure of health interventions, and (2) the ways in which people engage meaningfully with the adversities of ageing, ill health, and death. To deal with key future health challenges, it is crucial to educate a new generation of ‘health humanities practitioners’ (including consultants and mediators), with a specialist expertise in the lived experience of health. Thus:
- We aim at building a programme focused on the exploration of health as a lived experience in the context of European multicultural and multilingual societies. A focus on European ‘health cultures,’ allows us to build a European programme with a strong focus on interdisciplinarity, diversity and intersectionality.
- In line with the philosophy of lifelong learning, we envision a programme that combines the MA with continuing education courses for health professionals and caregivers. Espousing creative methods of collaborative learning, HHiP will enhance the learning curve of both academically minded MA students ánd lifelong learners with experience in the field.
- HHiP is built on our institutions’ research and teaching strengths in the fields of medicine, art, demography, sociology of health, biomedicine, social medicine, public health, philosophy and medical ethics, literary studies, and political sciences. This strong research and teaching basis will strengthen the health humanities network more broadly and feed into the teaching programme.
Contact
Prof. Dr. Jürgen Pieters,