This virtual (online) session explores the way the disciplines of the humanities unlock the human experience behind disease for patients, healthcare providers, and public health officials alike. Discussion may include close readings of selected cultural texts that explore specific disease events, investigations into cultural responses to broader healthcare issues, or even considerations about the challenges of teaching students during a pandemic.
Medical Humanities as a field has much to offer the world in 2021, given
its role in humanizing and historicizing disease, illuminating the
multifaceted nature of public health challenges, and narrating the
experiences of patients and healthcare providers alike. This virtual (online) session
invites papers that explore the intersections of medicine, science, art,
and history, for how they can unpack the current global pandemic, past
disease events, or even future predicted events in any number of genres
nestled under the humanities umbrella. Papers that suggest ways these
intersections can inform our teaching of students currently living
through the COVID-19 pandemic are welcomed, as are papers that address
the conference theme of "City of God, City of Destruction."