“A properly critical medical humanities is also a historically grounded medical humanities.”*

What potential relevance does the experience of Graeco-Roman antiquity have to the emerging field of the critical medical humanities and their mission to ‘humanise’ today’s medical and healthcare practice, education and research? This two-day workshop brings together specialists from around the world to engage in an interdisciplinary dialogue about healthcare and the conceptualization of well-being and illness, with a specific emphasis on what role Graeco-Roman antiquity can play for healthcare providers and users today.

By turning to, and drawing inspiration from, ancient Greek and Roman sources (medical or otherwise), the workshop is intended to yield fresh insights into issues such as the ideology of health, narratives of illness, the confrontation with mortality, the importance of professional ethics, and so on. What does it mean to be a (healthy) human being? What is the value of ‘making sense’ of trauma and loss? What are the role, value and requirements of human qualities in the context of healthcare? What useful strategies do ancient sources propose for living ‘well’ with chronic pain, disability, illness? Central to our endeavour will be to explore (but also debate) the continuing creativity and vitality inherent in the classical tradition, hence our specific interest in the use of classical themes and motifs in/for creative and expressive arts therapy.

The event will take place via Zoom, 9-10 September 2021, and is open to students and teachers of classics/medicine and adjacent fields as well as to the general public. If you are interested to participate, please send a message to healingclassics2021@gmail.com and we will send you the link to the Zoom meeting and booklet of abstracts.

Organising committee at King’s College London: Prof. Michael Trapp, Prof. Brian Hurwitz, Dr. Michiel Meeusen

• C. Saunders, “Voices and Visions: Mind, Body and Affect in Medieval Writing”, in J. Richards, S. Atkinson, J. Macnaughton, A. Woods & A. Whitehead (eds.), The Edinburgh Companion to the Critical Medical Humanities, Edinburgh, 2016: 411-427, at 411.

 

For further information please visit our website https://thehealingclassics.blogspot.com/