Programme of Research

Research Clusters 

Imagination and Creativity

The Centre for Medical Humanities has a strong interest in the role of imagination and creativity in health, medicine and human flourishing; indeed, these topics have been central to the activities of the Centre since its establishment in 2000 (as the Centre for Arts and Humanities in Health and Medicine). Work in this research cluster encompasses arts in health practice and research, as well as the cultural and philosophical exploration of the role of imagination, literature, art and narrative in making sense of human experience.

Practice and the Practitioner

In the Practice and the Practitioner cluster, CMH researchers explore the dynamic nature of ‘medical’ practice and the role of the practitioner within health, wellbeing and human flourishing. This involves addressing core questions about embodiment, medicalisation, responsibilisation, care, professionalism and identity.

Mind/Body/Affect

Researchers in the Mind/Body/Affect cluster endeavour to improve our understanding of the complex interrelationship between cognitive, psychological, corporeal, spiritual and emotional aspects of human life. Within medicine, the idea that the body and affect are ruled by a controlling mind is only now in the process of changing, thanks in part to advances in neuroscience that have uncovered ways in which the mind is embodied. Philosophy and social theory have a much longer history of challenging the mind-body-affect divides and the recent developments in neuroscience are opening up new and interesting connections between medicine, social science and the humanities.

Transfigurings

What are the sources of human flourishing? Positing a clear distinction between flourishing and wellbeing, researchers in this cluster seek answers to this deceptively simple question in three key areas: beauty and aesthetic experience, wonder, and forms of collective and community experience.

Policy, Politics and the collective

This cluster draws together research in the Centre which attends to the politics of health, wellbeing and human flourishing. Central to this work is a concern with the ways in which rights and responsibilities are understood in relation to health and this, in turn, involves questioning the relationship between the individual and the collective (family, community, population) in conceptual, policy and practical work on wellbeing and human flourishing.