University of Kent and Winston Churchill Memorial Trust
Conversations about Arts, Humanities and Health
In Conversation with Dr. Michelle Chiang (Listen here)
Co-hosts Prof Ian Sabroe (Sheffield) and Dr Dieter Declercq (Kent) talk with Dr. Michelle Chiang about her work on the value of illness stories, and how they could potentially inform or challenge our existing understanding of health, illness and dying. Michelle discusses her experience as a literary scholar and a medical humanities researcher in the Singapore research landscape, which is still trying to wrap its head around medical humanities as an interdisciplinary and collaborative field of inquiry.”
This event occurred on June 26, 2023
National Library Board
Think Lit Series
The Illness Memoirs’ Challenge to Medicine
In medical humanities research and practice, illness narratives occupy a prominent position, arguably because of its potential to build empathy in healthcare workers. However, literature is not an additive to medicine. This talk illuminates how narratives in the form of illness memoirs are more than tools to build better healthcare workers; their transformative potential lies in their stories’ capacities to expose and challenge prejudices embedded within healthcare systems. Key texts examined include Jean-Dominique Bauby’s The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (1997), Paul Kalanithi’s When Breath Becomes Air (2016), and Kate Bowler’s Everything Happens for a Reason (2018).
TEDxNTU
Theme: A World Reimagined
What is a personally meaningful life to you in the face of a debilitating illness?