Reflections on “Tongues: Medical Humanities across Linguistic and Cultural Frontiers”.
The 7th annual international Northern Network for Medical Humanities Research (NNMHR) Congress took place from May 21st – 23rd, which was an event jointly hosted by Lancaster University’s FASS Health Hub, and Durham University’s Institute for Medical Humanities. With over 200 attendees, 23 panel sessions, and three keynote speaker sessions over three days, the conference was packed with interdisciplinary, cutting-edge research surrounding the themes of linguistic and cultural diversity within the medical and health humanities across the world.
The Medical and Health Humanities are an interdisciplinary field which underlines the importance of humanities perspectives in health and medicine. The particular theme for the congress was Tongues: Medical Humanities across Linguistic and Cultural Frontiers, which examined the importance of linguistic and cultural diversity within the medical humanities, demonstrating that we must look beyond western and largely Anglophone medical perspectives, and canonical western works of art and literature. This theme allowed participants to take a truly global view of the medical humanities, which was explored throughout the congress thanks to a wide range of panellists with a diverse perspectives.
Reflecting on this framing, one of our attendees said:
‘If medicine can’t communicate with us (or if we can’t communicate with medicine) there is no hope at all. We urgently need to find, and keep finding, clear channels to each other’s understanding.’
Two of the keynote speakers, Professor Steven Wilson and Professor Nandini Wilson, examined different aspects of how medical humanities are communicated and transferred. For Professor Wilson, the focus was on the ‘language worlds’ that exist around health and illness, and how such modes of communication affect bodily experiences. These language worlds examine the ways in which language and space interact in communication surrounding the medical humanities. In Professor Bhattacharya’s keynote, the focus was on medicine and its alternatives in the Global South, where we were encouraged to consider the ways in which these medical alternatives have been seen and categorised, with attendees being invited to reconsider what they consider ‘alternative medicine’. We also hosted a workshop, hosted by Sophie Guingouain from Manchester Metropolitan University, who invited the congress to examine the challenges within medical translation, and how these challenges can come in forms obvious and not-so-obvious. These included issues such as the use of acronyms in medical contexts, and the different cultural assumptions that can exist in relation to medication.
The panels throughout the conference explored themes including how the medical humanities intersect with areas such as queerness, decolonisation and translation between different languages. Not only this, but the congress focused on different aspects of health and healthcare, such as mental health, chronic illness and communication between patients and healthcare practitioners. Each panel allowed for in-depth and thought-provoking discussions between panellists and attendees.
This year also saw the first NNMHR conference panel compromised entirely of undergraduates. This panel was composed of Grace Cooke, Rory Hankins, and Lorenzo Meira Gobel, all final year students in Lancaster University’s School of Global Affairs. These undergraduates drew on a workshop presentation format to discuss trauma-informed teaching English as a Second Language (ESL) strategies for refugees with PTSD, showing great facilitation skills. Another panel which highlighted the experiences of researchers in the Medical Humanities at different career stages was organised by the Neurodivergent Humanities Network, which not only showcased its research, but also discussed their role in providing mutual support to members through mentor-mentee relationships.
Overall, the 7th annual NNMHR congress was an opportunity to explore themes surrounding translation, communication and the medical humanities, through panels, workshops and keynote speakers. This research presented and discussions surrounding the core topics shows a bright future for this field, and gives a good indication of the directions research in this field can go in.