Medical Humanities
Medical Humanities at the Denbo Center
Medical Humanities at the Denbo Center is led by the idea that health is inseparable from the human experience. Our faculty and graduate students collaborate with professionals a the UT Medical Center, UT One Health Initiative, UT School of Nursing, Knoxville’s Black Maternal Health groups, and beyond to foster an interdisciplinary understanding of the inseparable links between physical, emotional, personal, and community wellbeing.
Scholars Collective on Mortality
Scholars Collectives are active research groups of scholars whose work coalesces around particular humanistic and artistic themes of inquiry.
The Scholars Collective on Mortality is a multidisciplinary pilot program of the DCHA, comprised of scholars interested in human life and death, especially as related to environmental concerns, issues in medicine and health-care policy, caregiving, the arts, the provision of services related to mental health, and the ethics and politics surrounding human remains in many contexts, among other topics.
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Some Examples of Medical Humanities at the DCHA
One Health + Humanities Days (2023)
One Health + Humanities Days was a three-day series of events on October 25-27, 2023, showcasing the critical role that arts and humanities play in understanding and exploring sustainability and global wellbeing, including human, animal, plant, and environmental health.
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Rita Charon: Clinical Arts & Literary Sciences (2023)
Rita Charon is a general internist and literary scholar who originated the field of narrative medicine. She is the Bernard Schoenberg Professor of Social Medicine, the founding chair of the Department of Medical Humanities and Ethics, and Professor of Medicine at the Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians & Surgeons. Charon visited campus in 2023, during which time she spoke during a special luncheon reception and gave a public talk as part of the DCHA’s Distinguished Lecture Series.
Pandemic Resiliences Podcast (2022)
“Pandemic Resiliencies: Creating Communities in the Time of Covid,” looks at three stories of people, families, and communities that found ways to thrive in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic. We interview London Hardin and Martha Morrisson, co-owners of a local salon in Jacksonville, FL and discuss with them ways that their small business built empathy and community in a scary time. Next, Katie Hodges-Kluck recounts her journey to motherhood, which she shared with Ty Roberts, a doula and reproductive rights activist in Knoxville, TN. Finally, we hear the story of Shauntae Brown White’s family of cousins, originally from the Midwest, but currently spread across the United States and spanning three generations, who reconnected virtually during the pandemic.
This podcast was recorded as part of the National Humanities Center’s 2022 Podcasting the Humanities: Creating Digital Stories for the Public virtual podcasting institute.