This interdisciplinary research group organizes various types of research activities that investigate how media and narrative matter for (disturbed) health.

The group’s work is situated in a tension between 1) a 'medical humanities'-approach that focuses on how the humanities can collaborate with health educations and the health care sector in general and 2) a 'health humanities’-approach that explores health-related issues through theories and methods developed within the humanities. The research group is interdisciplinary and open to researchers across departments, schools and faculties and will serve as a forum for sharing and developing research concerned with topics such as:

• patient and/or professional communication about health across media
• narrative medicine
• health and digital/social media
• health and cultural analysis
• uses of literature (writing and reading) and narrative in health care
• (disturbed) health in literature
• illness narratives
• health communication
• digital health technologies
• the quantified self and health
• digitized patient communities

Activities related to the unit and its members

• August 12, 2022: Culture and Health, Research seminar 
• March 2021: Publication of the edited collection Skrivning og sundhed (eds. Lasse Gammelgaard, Marianne Raakilde and Signe Uldbjerg Mortensen).
• 2020: A selection of the unit's members focus on editing and contributing to an edited collection on health and creative writing with Aarhus University Press (eds. Lasse Gammelgaard, Marianne Raakilde and Signe Uldbjerg Mortensen)
• 7/11-8/11 2019: Conference organised by Mette Bøgh Jensen: "Sick girls in European visual art, literature, medical science and popular culture in the 19th century"
• 6/5 2019 (1pm-3pm) - Meeting on digital health organised by Loni Ledderer and Antoinette Fage-Butler
• 11/4 2019 (9am-11am) - Lecture by Professor Brian Brown: "Health Humanities and Creative Assets". Co-organised by Carsten Stage (as part of the Take Part DFF-network) 
• 7/2 2019 (10am-3pm) - Seminar on health and creative writing organised by Marianne Raakilde and Lasse Gammelgaard
• 4/12 2018 - Keynote co-organised by Carsten Stage: Professor Havi Carel at the Health and Culture conference, Aarhus University
• 9/10 2018 - Seminar organised by Mette Bøgh Jensen: "Det er sygt! Sygdom i kunsten, litteraturen og videnskaben i 1800-tallets Norden"
• 8-9/8 2018 - Conference organised by Lasse Raaby Gammelgaard: Madness and Literature
• 6/4 2018 - First meeting: Launching the research unit

Members of the unit

Carsten Stage (CC, Scandinavian Studies), Lasse Raaby Gammelgaard (CC, Scandinavian Studies), Dorthe Refslund Christensen (CC, Experience Economy), Marianne Raakilde Jespersen, Marie Louise Tørring (CAS, Anthropology), Mette Steenberg (CAS, Interacting Minds), Rikke Sand Andersen (CAS, Anthropology), Karin Christiansen (Health, Clinical Medicine), Mette Terp Høybye (Health, Clinical Medicine), Lea Muldtofte Olsen (CC, Aesthetics and Culture), Jane Ege Møller (Health, Centre for Health Sciences Education), Tobias Skiveren (CC, Scandinavian Studies), Ane Kathrine Lolholm Gammelby (CC, Media Studies), Ann-Katrine Schmidt Nielsen (CC, Scandinavian Studies), Erik Roj Larsen (Health, Clinical Medicine), Signe Uldbjerg Mortensen (CC, Scandinavian Studies), Riccardo Fusaroli (CC, Semiotics), Pia Riis Olsen (Health, Clinical Medicine), Kamilla Pedersen (Health, Centre for Health Sciences Education), Line Dalsgård (CAS, Anthropology), Loni Ledderer (Health, Department of Health Services Research), Antoinette Mary Fage-Butler (CC, English), Mathilde Nisbeth Brøgger (CC, English), Amanda Karlsson (CC, Media Studies), Camilla Blach Rossen (Department of Clinical Medicine - Center for Planlagt Kirurgi, Silkeborg), Mette Bøgh Jensen (CC, Art History), Kirsten Beedholm (Department of Public Health - Department of Science in Nursing)­­­­, Sune Dueholm Müller (BSS, Department of Management), Kathrine Stampe (BSS, Department of Management), Hanne Bess Boelsbjerg (Clinical Medicine, Interacting Minds), Stefan Kjerkegaard (CC, Scandinavian Studies), Sofie Kragh-Müller (Forfatterskolen PS!), Rasmus Dyring (CAS, Philosophy).

Collaboration

The unit collaborates with:

• The research group Health, Society and Art (HAS) at UiT.
• Professor Helle Plough Hansen, Research Unit of General Practice at SDU.
• The Division of Narrative Medicine at Columbia University.
• International Health Humanities Network.
• The research project Uses of Art and Literature at SDU.
• The research group Cultural analysis of Health, Reproduction, Gender and the Body (SUKK) at SDU.
• Foreningen Kunst og Mental Sundhed