Everything that Makes Us Human: The Potential of the Medical Humanities
Online Interdisciplinary International Symposium
7th May 2024
Call for Papers
When he was asked what was missing from medical training, K. Danner Clouser, the first philosopher to teach ethics at a U.S. medical school, answered “everything that makes us human.” In the 1980s, Clouser called attention to the “belief that something vital and fundamental was missing in health professions education and that the humanities could fill in those gaps and omissions.” In the years since, this provocative idea of the humanities providing something “missing” in the way we think about, study, and teach medicine and health has flourished.
This online interdisciplinary symposium on medical humanities aims to explore the study of the human aspects of medicine from within traditional arts disciplines. It is an interdisciplinary field that intersects the humanities (literature, philosophy, ethics, history and theology), social sciences (anthropology, psychology and sociology), arts (theatre, film, music and visual arts) and medicine.
Possible topics include but are not limited to:
- Representations of pandemics and disease: Covid-19, influenza, Cholera, Tuberculosis, Malaria, the plague
- Histories/representations of the intertwining of medicine, scientific knowledge, healing, and therapy,
- Representations of health, illness, and death in wars and natural disasters
- Representations of disability, dementia, aging, and neurodiversity
- Curricular opportunities for integrating the Humanities into Medical Education
- Historical perspectives on and representations of medicine in the East, West, and the Arab region
- Translation and interpretation in the medical humanities,
- Social justice and health equity,
- Bioethics
Deadline for submission: 20th March 2024.
Submissions should be sent to rcis@bue.edu.eg. Please include a proposed title, a 250 word abstract or 500-word abstracts for pre-formed panels outlining your paper, a short bio of 200 words (name, title, academic field, affiliation and contact email). Presentations should not exceed 15 minutes.
Questions to be sent to: rania.khalil@bue.edu.eg
Notification of acceptance: 30th March 2024
Keynote Speakers
Prof. Matthew Reznicek, University of Minnesota Medical School
Dr. Lucy Burke, Manchester Metropolitan University
Registration includes a certificate of participation or attendance and support for possible publication in a journal.
Registration for presenters closes 6th May 2024
Registration for Attendees closes 7th May 2024 18:00pm Cairo Local Time
Download here Book of Abstracts
Pre-recorded Presentations
Keynote Speech -Prof Matthew L. Reznicek,
Interrogating the Intersection between Disability and Gender Discourse in the Context of Medical Humanities: A Reading of Mahesh Dattani’s Tara
Shortened version
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ENw0F-NZh01skB27UWRx48_wYF240k9Z/view
Full version of the pre-recorded presentation
Habib Subhan Diamond Harbour Womens University India.mp4
Presentation- pre-recorded
Melvin Mathew Thomas Presentation.pptx
Rare: Stories of Dis-Ease”
Sonja Kuftinec, James Cloyd, Paul Ranelli, Luverne Seifert (University of Minnesota, USA)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/16pUoCqNiDT0koIA1qadbYjaQiL-B3MRt/view
TRAILER – RARE: Documentations of Hope and Dis-Ease
“Mad Women: Representations of Madness in Contemporary Latin American Women’s Literature”
Dra. Velebita Koričančić
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WqAkpCKlH5ytrkRvYsSgKFoCFhEbUsyB/view
Publication of Papers presented at the symposium:
Presenters after the symposium will be invited to submit their interdisciplinary research for double blind peer review and consideration for possible publication in a special issue of The Journal of Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine.
Indexing: Scopus
Springer Nature publication.
No publication fee (fee has been waived)
Submission of completed manuscripts: 30th September 2025.
Please consult the journal page for author guidelines.
Manuscripts should be sent to: rcis@bue.edu.eg.
Inquiries email: rania.khalil@bue.edu.eg
Expected publication date: June 2026
Symposium Organising Committee
Rania M Rafik Khalil, Walaa Hassan, Noha Hanafy.
Symposium Convener : Associate Prof Rania M Rafik Khalil – Acting Vice Dean for Research and Postgraduate Studies, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, The British University in Egypt
Thank you to all those who volunteered to support the making of the online symposium on medical humanities on behalf of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at the British University in Egypt:
Programme: Associate Prof Walaa Hassan with support as needed from Dr Noha Hanafy, Department of English Language and Literature, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, The British University in Egypt
Abstracts / Book of Abstracts cm Committee: Dr Noha Hanafy with support as needed from Dr May Serag El Din, Dr Nohayer Lotfy, Dr Rania Salem, and Dr Wessam Morsi, Department of English Language and Literature, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, The British University in Egypt
Abstracts reviewers: Scientific Committee.
Flyer Design: Dr Rania Salem, Department of English Language and Literature, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, The British University in Egypt
Certificates Design: Ms Salma El Saadi, Department of English Language and Literature, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, The British University in Egypt
Special Thank You to:
IT Department at the British University in Egypt
Contact Us
Symposium Organising Committee are available for any inquiries or concerns you might have. You can reach the Programme Committee (Dr Walaa Hassan) or the Abstracts Facilitator Committee (Dr Noha Hanafy) on the email below
medhum.symp@bue.edu.eg
You can reach out to the symposium convener (Dr Rania M Rafik Khalil) on this email: rcis@bue.edu.eg
Note: We kindly request that you address any concerns or frustrations you have constructively and politely taking into consideration that due to the high number of successful abstracts it has been challenging to accommodate all requests in the programme. We have also tried very hard to take into consideration the huge time difference for some presenters.
Thank you.