Lecture Series: Introduction to the Health Humanities

In spring 2026, CHARM will present an evening lecture series titled Introduction to the Field of the Health Humanities, hosted at De Krook Library in Ghent. The series is designed to provide an accessible introduction to the rapidly expanding interdisciplinary fields of the Medical and Health Humanities. Each lecture will feature two guest experts from different disciplines within the Health humanities, encouraging a fruitful dialogue on a specific care and health-related topic. Through five thematic double sessions, the series will explore how diverse fields shed light on issues such as health, care, illness, ageing, disability, suffering and dying.  All lectures will be delivered in English and recorded for wider dissemination.

 Confirmed speaker duos will reflect on topics such as:

* the intersection of Geriatrics and the Humanities in reimagining person-centred care for the elderly;
 * Palliative care and Literary Studies in conversations on sense-making practices at the end of life;
 * the History of Medicine as a lens for understanding contemporary practices in Medicine;
 * the fruitful intersection of Graphic Medicine and Medical Sociology in narrating and analysing lived experiences of health and illness;
 * co-creative and participatory and arts-based methods in bridging Public Health and Cultural Community work.

By bringing together practitioners and scholars from medicine, the social sciences and the arts, this series highlights the Health Humanities’ richness, complexity and social urgency. It invites audiences to witness and participate in interdisciplinary thinking that broadens our understanding of illness, care, and humanity.