The Medical Humanities Research Centre (University of Glasgow) hosted an end of year networking and drinks reception for the Glasgow Medical Humanities Network on 12th June this year. The GMHN brings together and enhances medical humanities across universities and collections in the city of Glasgow and was established with the support of a Wellcome Trust grant in 2019. At the reception everyone enjoyed nine 5-minute lightning talks from network members on current or recently completed medical humanities research projects. The drinks reception that followed took place in the Anatomy Museum, and we were treated with a short talk from Dr Ourania Varsou (Lecturer in Anatomy) on the history of the museum and its collections. We hope to make this an annual event!
New co-director, Manon Mathias, delivers her lightning talk.
To coincide with the 2023/24 round of our NNMHR New Networks scheme, we invite you to this online discussion and advice event about the ins and outs of running a medical humanities research network. The event will offer advice on the application process and reflections for those applying for this grant, and will also be of general interest to all scholars and practitioners engaged in critical medical humanities research anywhere in the world.
We will be joined by three sets of speakers:
Camille Bellet (Manchester University)
Camille will discuss the recent launch of the Nonhuman Animals in the Medical Humanities Network (https://namhnetwork.wordpress.com/). Based at University of Manchester’s Centre for the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine and funded by NNMHR, the NAMHN brings together scholars from diverse disciplines, artists, writers, practitioners, and activists to rethink and revive the role of non-human animals within the medical humanities. She will outline the network’s planned use of an ‘exchange platform’ to support dialogue between scholars, artists, writers, practitioners and activists interested in post-humanist and multispecies approaches as well as how the project’s partners are coordinating their network’s objectives and rationales with its day-to-day practices.
Arya Thampuran (Durham University)
Arya will discuss her roles across a set of research network activities in the medical humanities: her leadership of the Black Health and Humanities network (https://www.blackhealthandhumanities.org/) as it moves from one institution to another, the imminent launch of the Neurodivergent Humanities network, and the research seminars conducted through the Cultures of Madness project. She will focus particularly on how to build a sense of community beyond old models of ‘academic networking’, thinking through how networks can reframe the “research output” in ways that speak instead to collective interests, values, and learning needs from researchers who sit at the intersection of arts, academia, and activism/across different disciplines and fields. She will connect these discussions to the practicalities of care: how to maintain connections across hybrid work-spaces, how to develop non-extractive and collaborative methodologies in the medical humanities, how to engage with material that intersects with researchers’ lived experiences, and how to develop mentorship models for researchers.
Jemma Walton and Kate Errington (Birkbeck)
Jemma and Kate will discuss their ongoing project Broadly Conceived (https://broadlyconceived.wordpress.com/), a growing research network project that began life as a reading group and continues to expand in exciting new directions and opportunities. They will outline how they set out to create a supportive, interdisciplinary space for postgraduate and early career researchers interested in reproductive health knowledge and activism. Their discussion will focus on the importance of social media and creating online presence, as well as how the Broadly Conceived project focuses on collaboration and networking to build insight and connections with academics, as well as activists and other kinds of practitioners.
The event will be chaired by James Rákóczi (Durham/Northumbria), project lead of the Ends of Knowledge network (https://www.endsofknowledge.com/), on behalf of the Northern Network for Medical Humanities Research.
