Critical medical humanities: embracing entanglement, taking risks

Abstract

What can the medical humanities achieve? This paper does not seek to define what is meant by the medical humanities, nor to adjudicate the exact disciplinary or interdisciplinary knowledges it should offer, but rather to consider what it might be capable of doing. Exploring the many valences of the word ‘critical’, we argue here for a critical medical humanities characterised by: (i) a widening of the sites and scales of ‘the medical’ beyond the primal scene of the clinical encounter; (ii) greater attention not simply to the context and experience of health and illness, but to their constitution at multiple levels; (iii) closer engagement with critical theory, queer and disability studies, activist politics and other allied fields; (iv) recognition that the arts, humanities and social sciences are best viewed not as in service or in opposition to the clinical and life sciences, but as productively entangled with a ‘biomedical culture’; and, following on from this, (v) robust commitment to new forms of interdisciplinary and cross-sector collaboration. We go on to introduce the five other articles published in this special issue of the journal, reflecting on the ways in which collaboration and critique are articulated in their analyses of immunology, critical neuroscience, toxicity, global clinical labour, and psychological coercion and workfare. As these articles demonstrate, embracing the complex role of critical collaborator—one based on notions of entanglement, rather than servility or antagonism—will, we suggest, develop the imaginative and creative heterodox qualities and practices which have long been recognised as core strengths of the medical humanities.

Reflections on a field across time and space: the emergent medical and health humanities in South Africa

“…Beyond agreeing on the name, however, the network’s ongoing discussions suggest that no member of this loose and widening group has a definitive idea of what MHH might be . The network has thus far shied away from the kind of humanist ‘mission statement’ that Hooker and Noonan identify6 and which might be equated with the ‘service model’ Viney et al 14 seek to move past. MHH conjures up a huge range of ideas in the members of the MHHA (ideas which evolve each time we meet).…”

Gut thinking: the gut microbiome and mental health beyond the head

“…In this paper, I argue that an interdisciplinary critical medical humanities framework [22] can attend to such ‘ontological questions’ [23] raised by this idea of the gut as an active part of the mind. I take a feminist new materialist approach to argue that – as feminist theorist Karen Barad writes – ‘matter matters’ and that human subjectivity is always ‘entangled’ in the world [24], in opposition to models that theorise the power of ‘mind over body’ [25].…”

Pregnancy as protest in interwar British women's writing: an antecedent alternative to Aldous Huxley'sBrave New World

“…i In 1999, Martyn Evans and David Greaves described this as the ‘additive view’: the humanities are seen as merely helping medicine do better what medicine already does 8. In a recent article in this publication, William Viney, Felicity Callard and Angela Woods bemoaned the persistence of this view, marked by ‘a dogged focus on … how the humanities might bring empathy to clinical practice’ 9. SF, with its interest both in technological change and its impact on individuals (despite endless intra-genre debate about ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ forms)10 challenges the medical humanities to realise that literature is not just about feelings: literature props up, engages with, and challenges ideas of power, justice and difference.…”

“…Work in this vein ‘expands views of human health, well-being and illness through subjective testimony’ (p. 3) 9. However, the humanities are still being mined for the subjective.…”

“…However, the humanities are still being mined for the subjective. Furthermore, this ‘hostile’ view has limitations: for example, reading works of feminist science fiction as merely critical of scientific discourses positions them as narrowly reactive instead of acknowledging their contradictory relationship to these discourses, one better acknowledged by the ‘critical medical humanities’ Viney, Callard and Woods propose: a ‘recognition that the arts, humanities and social sciences are best viewed not as in service or in opposition to the clinical and life sciences, but as productively entangled with a “biomedical culture”’ (p. 2) 9. Applying this insight to literature means moving away from a tendency to reduce fictional works to plot summaries and read them instrumentally (as inaccurate, as evidence of the dissemination of medical ideas) and instead take fiction as sites where such ideas can be negotiated while calling attention to form as well as content.…”