{"id":340,"date":"2010-09-28T08:23:27","date_gmt":"2010-09-28T13:23:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.montclair.edu\/creativeresearch\/?p=54"},"modified":"2019-02-18T13:12:20","modified_gmt":"2019-02-18T18:12:20","slug":"work-in-progress-the-montclair-state-university-international-center-for-the-health-humanities-by-brian-abrams-and-lois-oppenheim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/creative-research-center\/2010\/09\/28\/work-in-progress-the-montclair-state-university-international-center-for-the-health-humanities-by-brian-abrams-and-lois-oppenheim\/","title":{"rendered":"Work in Progress: The Montclair State University International Center for the Health Humanities – by Brian Abrams and Lois Oppenheim"},"content":{"rendered":"

The<\/em> Health Humanities<\/em><\/strong> (conceived as a unified entity) is the application of humanities<\/a> disciplines (arts<\/a>, literature<\/a>, languages<\/a>, law<\/a>, history<\/a>, philosophy<\/a>, religion<\/a>, etc.) to discourse about,\u00a0expression, and\/or promotion of the dimensions of human<\/a> health<\/a> and well-being.<\/p>\n

The<\/em> Health Humanities<\/em>\u00a0may be understood as situated at one end of a\u00a0continuum opposite the health sciences<\/a> (or biomedical<\/a>, behavioral<\/a>, and social sciences<\/a>). While this applied capacity of the humanities is not\u00a0a novel idea, the construct of the Health Humanities as a meta-discipline has only\u00a0begun to emerge over the first decade of the 21st Century.<\/p>\n

In the Health Humanities, health (and the promotion of health) is understood according to the constructivist<\/a> (and other non-positivist<\/a>) principles indigenous to the humanities, as\u00a0distinguished from\u00a0the positivism<\/a> of science<\/a>. The Health Humanities model does not\u00a0in any way refute the value of the health sciences; but aims, rather, to offer a contrasting (and\u00a0collaborative) epistemological<\/a> paradigm, in other words, a pragmatic approach with respect to health (mental and physical\u2014understood as deeply interrelated) and its promotion.\u00a0 Its foundations are grounded historically in the Medical Humanities<\/em><\/a>, but\u00a0transcend the scope of the Medical Humanities\u00a0through humanities-based conceptualizations of health and the applications of the humanities for health promotion. The Health Humanities construct\u00a0is also distinct from complementary and alternative medicine<\/a>, which\u00a0consist of non-conventional interventions applied within\u00a0the conventional health sciences.<\/p>\n

The Health Humanities<\/strong> is a growing international movement. A conference was held October 13-15, 2006, at Green College, University of British Columbia<\/a>. In January 2009, Paul Crawford<\/a> became the world’s first Professor of Health Humanities at The University of Nottingham<\/a> and, with Dr. Victoria Tischler, Charley Baker, Dr. Brian Brown, Dr. Lisa Mooney-Smith and Professor Ronald Carter, created an international Health Humanities initiative that included the establishment of a biennial International Health Humanities Conference (IHHC<\/a>) funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)<\/a> of the United Kingdom.<\/p>\n

The first such conference was held August 6-8, 2010, at The University of Nottingham<\/a>, United Kingdom.\u00a0 It\u00a0opened with Professor Crawford’s address, \u201cHealth Humanities: Literature and Madness\u201d and included keynote lectures by Kay Redfield Jamison and\u00a0Elaine Showalter.\u00a0 Mark A. Radcliffe, who also spoke at the conference, reported on \u201cHealth Humanities\u201d in his weekly column for Nursing Times<\/em>. The conference was also reported in the Bethlem Blog<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The second conference (IHHC) will be hosted at the University of Colorado <\/a>in 2012, with\u00a0the theme\u00a0\u201cFilm, Media and Health.\u201d Planning is underway for the third in 2014, also to be held in the USA. Montclair State University has been invited by IHHC <\/a>representatives potentially to serve as the site for that conference. Plans are also in place to establish an international society and scholarly journal on the Health Humanities.<\/p>\n

Professor Paul Crawford of the University of Nottingham (en route to a meeting at Harvard University) came to Montclair State last month to meet with interested members of the faculty from the College of the Arts and the College of the Humanities and Social Sciences.\u00a0 Following this meeting, Professors Lois Oppenheim of CHSS and Brian Abrams of CART discussed the possibility of creating a Montclair State University Center that would promote scholarship and pedagogy in this new field, distinguishing Montclair State as the first institution in North America to house such a center.<\/p>\n

The proposed (and provisionally-titled)\u00a0International Center for the Health Humanities<\/strong> would be aligned with Montclair State\u2019s current emphases on interdisciplinary and international program development. A task force composed of members of CART and CHSS is leading the charge in establishing the Center with\u00a0the hope that it will eventually\u00a0embrace all\u00a0Montclair State\u00a0colleges,\u00a0so that the combined voices of a diverse constituency will allow the new Center to flourish.<\/p>\n

Montclair State University\u2019s International Center for the Health Humanities would be linked via the forthcoming journal\u00a0and the bi-annual conference to important work already taking place in the UK and elsewhere.\u00a0Our hope is that\u00a0Montclair State would serve as a North American \u201chub\u201d of a new and rapidly developing field, thus becoming the model for program-building\u00a0involving\u00a0cross-curricular\u00a0pedagogy, as well as\u00a0opportunities for community engagement and service learning (including partnerships with health care institutions).\u00a0 We also envision\u00a0new academic programs in the Health Humanities, with concentrations located in specific disciplines.<\/p>\n

SOURCES<\/strong><\/p>\n

http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Health_humanities<\/a> (Retrieved Sept. 18, 2010)<\/p>\n

Squier, S. M. (2007). Beyond nescience: The intersectional insights of health humanities. Perspectives in Biology and Medicine<\/em>, 50 (3), 334-337<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.emua.ac.uk\/downloads\/BBsept09\/healthhumanities.pptx<\/p>\n

“Medical Humanities – BMJ Journals”. Mh.bmj.com. (Retrieved July 5, 2010)<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.healthhum.arts.ubc.ca\/<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.madnessandliterature.org\/Resources\/IHHC-flyer.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.madnessandliterature.org\/Resources\/First-International-Health-Humanities-Conference-Programme.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.nursingtimes.net\/forums-blogs-ideas-debate\/nursing-blogs\/health-humanities-feared-by-the-bad-loved-by-the-good\/5018154.article?referrer=RS<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cMadness and Literature: Report from International Health Humanities Conference,\u201d<\/a> 16th August 2010.<\/p>\n

– Brian Abrams<\/strong>, Ph.D., MT-BC, LPC, LCAT, FAMI, is Associate Professor in the John J. Cali School of Music at Montclair State University<\/a>. He has been a music therapist since 1995, and has published and presented internationally on topics such as music therapy in cancer care, music psychotherapy, and humanistic dimensions of music therapy.<\/p>\n

– Lois Oppenheim<\/strong>, Ph.D., is Professor of French and Chair of the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures at Montclair State University.\u00a0 Of her numerous books, the most recent\u00a0is A Curious Intimacy: Art and Neuro-Psychoanalysis<\/em> (Routledge, 2005).\u00a0 She is a member of the Board of Directors of the Philoctetes Center for the Multidisciplinary Study of the Imagination in New York City.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Health Humanities (conceived as a unified entity) is the application of humanities disciplines (arts, literature, languages, law, history, philosophy, religion, etc.) to discourse about,\u00a0expression, and\/or promotion of the dimensions of human health and well-being. The Health Humanities\u00a0may be understood as situated at one end of a\u00a0continuum opposite the health sciences (or biomedical, behavioral, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-creative-research-center-guest-essay"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/creative-research-center\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/creative-research-center\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/creative-research-center\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/creative-research-center\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/creative-research-center\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=340"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/creative-research-center\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1032,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/creative-research-center\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340\/revisions\/1032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/creative-research-center\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/creative-research-center\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/creative-research-center\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}