Embodied Perspective on Health and Well-Being in a Globalised World

Course description

Medical Humanities is a dynamic and rapidly growing interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary field of study. It seeks to foster a comprehensive and nuanced understanding of health, illness, and well-being taking into account key factors such as environment, embodiment, gender, age, disability, biography, and cultural heritage. In light of the complexity and diversity of contemporary globalized lifeworlds, this course focuses on central concepts including health, illness, well-being, resilience, lived body, epistemic injustice, and social participation.

The aim is to examine how these concepts shape—and are shaped by—social challenges at both individual and institutional levels. Key questions guiding the course include: What does it mean to live a healthy life? Which concepts are essential for a nuanced understanding of well-being? What enables individuals with chronic illness or disability to feel empowered? And how do discriminatory practices manifest, both in general and within medicine and science in particular? To address these questions, we will engage with texts and concepts from a range of disciplines, including (critical and engaged) phenomenology, psychology, and sociology. Through this interdisciplinary dialogue, the course seeks to identify both the possibilities and the limitations that arise in the interaction between the humanities and medicine.