Dr Stella Bolaki is Reader in American Literature and Medical Humanities in the School of English and Co-Director of the Centre for Health and Medical Humanities at the University of Kent. She is the author of Illness as Many Narratives: Arts, Medicine and Culture(Edinburgh University Press, 2016), and articles on the lived experience of illness and disability across different art forms. Stella’s research has a collaborative and public engagement dimension and has received funding from the Wellcome Trust and the British Academy. Her interdisciplinary project “Artists’ Books and the Medical Humanities” (2016-2019) established the “Prescriptions: Artists’ Books” special collection that has informed exhibitions, creative workshops, and teaching provision in the medical humanities.
The Arts, Creative Expression and Wellbeing
Chaired by Dr Dieter Declercq, with Dr Ruth Herbert, Caroline Eastwood and Allyson Trostle
Roundtable and Discussion
How does creative involvement with the Arts support health and wellbeing in daily life? What are the ways in which the Humanities (languages, literature, the arts, history and philosophy) help us to understand aspects of what it is to be human, from emotional expression and empathy to historical understandings of illness and health?
This session introduces the work of the University of Kent’s Centre for Health and Medical Humanities. Launched in 2022 the CHMH brings together scholars who investigate the relationship of the arts and humanities to health, healthcare, medicine and medical education. It features four brief case studies, before opening up an informal discussion with panel members and the audience.
Case study contributions:
- Emotion becomes book: Artists’ books in participatory arts and health contexts. Dr Stella Bolaki (Co-Director Centre for Health and Medical Humanities, Reader in American literature and Medical Humanities).
- Health musicking in everyday life and participatory arts contexts. Dr Ruth Herbert (Senior Lecturer, Music psychologist, School of Arts, Dept of Music & Audio Technology)
- Film sound and empathy. Caroline Eastwood (Film Studies)
- Representations of female mental illness in fiction and the use of self-writing to manage emotional wellbeing. Allyson Trostle (School of English)
Roundtable Chair: Dr Dieter Declercq, Co-Director Centre for Health and Medical Humanities, Senior Lecturer in Film and Media.