Medicine, Science, and Humanities

The Program in Medicine, Science, and Humanities represents a growing movement in medical education that draws attention to the vital interplay between humanities on the one hand and medical and allied health fields on the other.  Drawing from fields ranging from philosophy to visual arts, history to literary analysis, theater to music, the field of medical humanities has demonstrated intrinsic pedagogic value in the education and self-care of a variety of medical professionals and the enhancement of patient experience.  So too has engagement with medical and public health been a generative site for artistic exploration and humanities scholarship in its own right.

One part of this program focus includes the MSH major at the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences.  This is an interdisciplinary, humanities-based major using a cultural and historical context to explore scientific inquiry and the roots of medicine. The medicine, science, and the humanities major is ideal for students who plan to pursue careers in the health professions as well as those interested in issues of importance to science and medicine, and students who plan to pursue graduate work in a range of humanities, social science, or professional disciplines.

NIH- NIAID Division of Infectious Diseases

Researchers

William Egginton

Director, Alexander Grass Humanities Institute; Professor, German and Romance Languages & Literatures, KSAS

Iro Filippaki

Graduate Fellow

Catherine Freddo

Graduate Fellow

Lindsey Grubbs

Graduate Fellow

Talia Katz

Graduate Fellow

Kirsten Moore-Sheeley

Alumni - Post Graduate Fellow 2018-19

Jacob Moses, CMHSM Postdoctoral Fellow

Postdoctoral Fellow (2020-22)

Rebecca Wilbanks

Postdoctoral Fellow

Roy Ziegelstein

Vice Dean for Education at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine

Upcoming Events

Arts, Humanities, & Health / Medicine, Science, & Humanities / Race, Racism, & Health
8:00pm
April 23

This is a hybrid event presented both in person and via zoom, to get tickets to either form of attendance, click here.

A REFUTATION presents dramatic readings by acclaimed actors of excerpts from two conflicting historic accounts of Philadelphia’s 1793 yellow fever epidemic as a catalyst for guided audience discussions about health inequities in America today, grounded in the perspectives of nurses, caregivers, and first responders. Featuring pamphlets, letters, and rebuttals by Absalom Jones, Richard Allen, Matthew Carey, and Benjamin Rush, performed by Chad Coleman (The Wire, The Orville, The Walking Dead), Seth Gilliam (The Wire, The Walking Dead, Oz), Bill Camp (Presumed Innocent, 12 Years a Slave, The Queen’s Gambit), and Peter Marks (former Chief Theater Critic of the Washington Post). A REFUTATION was developed with generous support from The Greenwall Foundation in celebration of its 75th anniversary. Presented by Theater of War Productions, Union Memorial United Methodist ChurchEbenezer United Methodist Church - Capitol Hill, the Johns Hopkins Center for Medical Humanities and Social Medicine, the Johns Hopkins Program in Arts, Humanities, & Health, the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics, and R3 – Renewal, Resilience and Retention of Maryland Nurses Initiative. Directed, adapted, and facilitated by Bryan Doerries. This free, public, live, hybrid event will take place on Zoom Webinar, broadcast from Union Memorial United Methodist Church. In person registration does not guarantee you a seat. Please arrive by 7:30pm. If you choose to join us online, this event can be accessed on personal devices. The event Zoom link will be distributed via email and available to registered attendees starting two days prior to the event. This event will be Captioned in English on Zoom. All of Theater of War Productions' events follow the same format:
  • The performers will read the texts.
  • Community panelists will kick off the discussion with their gut responses to what resonated with them across time.
  • We will open the discussion to the audience, facilitated by Bryan Doerries. To participate in the discussion online, please raise your hand using the button at the bottom center of the screen. If called upon, please accept the invitation to be promoted to speak and you will be visible and heard by the entire audience for the duration of your comments. If you would prefer not to be seen, please disable your video.
THE TEXTS A letter from Benjamin Rush to Absalom Jones and Richard Allen, written on September 2, 1793, asking them to rally Philadelphia’s Black community to offer their services and care for white citizens afflicted with the yellow fever. An advertisement placed by Absalom Jones and Richard Allen in Philadelphia's General Advertiser on September 11, 1793, asking members of the Black community to serve as nurses for the sick and help bury the dead. A Short Account of the Malignant Fever, Lately Prevalent in Philadelphia, With a Statement of the Proceedings That Took Place on the Subject in Different Parts of the United States - Philadelphia, September 11, 1793, by Matthew Carey, an Irish immigrant and the nation’s most preeminent publisher at the time, was a runaway success. Roughly 10,000 copies of the pamphlet were sold in four editions over the span of two months. The pamphlet made distorted, racist claims about Black nurses, caregivers, and first responders during the height of the epidemic, prompting Absalom Jones and Richard Allen to publish a rebuttal seven weeks after its first print run. A Narrative of the Proceedings of the Black People, During the Late Awful Calamity in Philadelphia, in the Year 1793, and A REFUTATION of Some Censures, Thrown upon Them in Some Late Publicationsby Absalom Jones and Richard Allen, distinguished civic and religious leaders from Philadelphia’s free Black community, was the first publication by Black authors to receive a federal copyright in the United States. Both men were born into slavery, purchased their freedom, and rose to become the important leaders in the nation’s largest free Black community. Jones was the nation’s first Black Episcopal priest, and Allen founded Bethel Church, the oldest African Methodist Episcopal congregation in the nation. Their pamphlet is the only depiction of the 1793 yellow fever epidemic that foregrounds the perspectives and experiences of Black people and the first known text to express Black community anger and directly challenge accusations and libelous statements by a white author. It had a print run of 250 - 500 copies. An address of Matthew Carey to the public on April 4, 1794, in which he responded to Jones and Allen’s accusations.
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Past Events

April 1, 2025
Critical Global Health Studies / Medicine, Science, & Humanities / Race, Racism, & Health
All Day

New “For the Medical Record” Mini-Episode with Bharat Venkat

In this mini episode, Richard and Mia talk to Bharat Venkat, a professor of anthropology at UCLA, about the research he presented at the Johns Hopkins Program in the History of Science, Medicine & Technology's colloquium series and his upcoming book project, "Swelter: A History of Our Bodies in a Warming World." Related links for Bharat's work: --- For the Medical Record is a Podcast from Johns Hopkins University's Center for Medical Humanities and Social Medicine, hosted by Research Associated Richard Del Rio and Postdoctoral Fellow Mia Levenson. New episodes are released biweekly. In these episodes, we talk to people affiliated with the Center to discuss their research within the history of medicine and the medical humanities. We ask them why their work matters, and how history and the humanities can help us to better understand debates and practices within medicine and care today. Subscribe to our podcast “For the Medical Record” to be alerted when new episodes drop – you can do this on Apple Podcasts or on Spotify.
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March 4, 2025
5:30pm – 7:00pm

Medicine and Society EB Reading Group – First Meeting

Medicine and Society Reading Group
The Medicine and Society Reading Group is an interdisciplinary group based at the East Baltimore campus that was created to provide a space for students interested in exploring the social, cultural, political, and historical dimensions of health and medicine. Meetings, held monthly, are led by students and cover topics like gender identity, vaccination, climate and the environment, race and ethnicity, and many, many others. We welcome all students looking for fruitful discussion and engagement with humanistic material beyond the clinical and scientific curriculums.
 
Join the Medicine and Society Reading Group for the kick-off meeting!
  Time and Date: Tuesday, March 4th, from 5:30 PM – 7:00 PM.
Location: East Baltimore campus, Armstrong Medical Education Building (AMEB) Room 270* * AMEB requires SOM ID Badge swipe to access. We will have students available to let people in for the first ten minutes of each meeting. After that, please email Jonathan Kuo if you are unable to access the building (jkuo17@jh.edu).
Food: Dinner and non-alcoholic beverages will be served!
RSVP: Sign up at the following link to join our listserv and hear about future events: https://forms.gle/LnggqsL59dcHUAPD6 . More Information: Check out our website!
Agenda: In addition to introducing everyone to the group, we will be discussing readings on the theme of "Identity, The Mind, and The Body." Please email Jon Kuo for full reading list.
 
If you'd like to receive email notifications about our meetings and events, please sign up to our listserv by filling out this form!
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February 24, 2025
Medicine, Science, & Humanities
6:00pm – 7:30pm

STS+MH Hub: Sofia Grant

The STS+Medical Humanities Hub will meet next on Monday, 2/24 from 6-7:30pm in Mergenthaler 266 on the Homewood campus. Dinner and drinks will be served.

At the meeting, Sofia Grant, a PhD student in History of Medicine, will workshop her second-year paper.

Please contact Hub organizer Gabrielle Robbins (grobbin4@jhu.edu) for a Zoom link and paper materials.

The STS+MH Hub is a collegial biweekly gathering for emerging scholars (graduate students, postdocs, early-career faculty, etc) to share their work and research. Our aim is to encourage institutional community around scholarship in Science and Technology Studies (STS) and Medical/Health Humanities (MH), as well as allied disciplines. The Hub is co-sponsored by the Center for Medical Humanities and Social Medicine and the Program in Medicine, Science, and the Humanities.
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February 10, 2025
6:00pm – 7:30pm

STS + MH Hub: Leigh Alon

 

The STS + MH Hub will meet on Monday 2/10 from 6-7:30pm in Mergenthaler 266 on the Homewood campus. Dinner and drinks will be served.

MD/PhD student Leigh Alon will workshop a talk for the Colloquium on the History of Psychiatry and Medicine, to be held at Harvard University on 2/20.

Please email Hub organizer Gabrielle Robbins (grobbin4@jhu.edu) for talk audio and slides, as well as a link for Zoom participation.
The STS+MH Hub is a collegial biweekly gathering for emerging scholars (graduate students, postdocs, early-career faculty, etc) to share their work and research. Our aim is to encourage institutional community around scholarship in Science and Technology Studies (STS) and Medical/Health Humanities (MH), as well as allied disciplines. The Hub is co-sponsored by the Center for Medical Humanities and Social Medicine and the Program in Medicine, Science, and the Humanities.
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January 27, 2025
Medicine, Science, & Humanities
6:00pm – 7:30pm

STS+MH Hub Kick-Off

The spring semester kick-off meeting for the STS+MH Hub (formerly Collective Scholarship Working Group) will be Monday 1/27 from 6-7:30pm in Mergenthaler 266 on the Homewood campus. Dinner and drinks will be served. Please join us to celebrate a return to campus and plan for the semester ahead!

The STS+MH Hub is a collegial biweekly gathering for emerging scholars (graduate students, postdocs, early-career faculty, etc) to share their work and research. Our aim is to encourage institutional community around scholarship in Science and Technology Studies (STS) and Medical/Health Humanities (MH), as well as allied disciplines. The Hub is co-sponsored by the Center for Medical Humanities and Social Medicine and the Program in Medicine, Science, and the Humanities.
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November 12, 2024
4:00pm

Levi Symposium on The Value(s) of Disposability in Health Care

Roughly 80 percent of healthcare’s oversized carbon footprint derives from the production, transportation, use, and disposal of a single-use medical supply chain. Yet as health care organizations try to practice ‘resource stewardship’ – that is, to move away from single-use disposable items toward sustainable use of durable items – they encounter widespread perceptions that disposability is a necessary virtue in modern health care. Caregivers, patients, and health-system managers fear that any move from disposability to sustainability must lead to trade-offs in safety (from infectious threats), efficacy (in pharmaceutical delivery) or efficiency (in cost-effectiveness).

This year’s Levi Symposium will question these perceived trade-offs, disentangling legitimate evidential and moral reasoning from the inertia of convenience. Convening scholars and practitioners in bioethics, clinical practice, environmental justice, practice innovation, and health policy, we aim to host a multi-disciplinary exploration of how we can elucidate policy pathways that harmonize clinical safety, efficacy, and efficiency with sustainability. For more information and to register: https://bioethics.jhu.edu/disposability
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April 9, 2024
Critical Global Health Studies / Reproduction, Health, & Society
12:00pm – 5:00pm

Find the Midwife Project Launch

Join us as we use documentary film to connect midwifery's past and today's maternal health crisis. You are invited to join us for project launch events on Tuesday, April 9th across two Baltimore campuses. 12pm - Homewood Campus - Clipper Room, Shriver Hall 3pm - East Baltimore Campus - Room N431, School of Nursing, with reception to follow. The events will be offered in a limited hybrid format via zoom webinar - Click here to join the events! No registration is necessary, just click on the link at the time of the events and you'll be able to join us online. You can submit a question via the Q&A function on the zoom webinar. Your questions will be read aloud for the project team to answer as time allows.   Sponsored by The Johns Hopkins Center for Advanced Media Studies, Department of the History of Medicine, and the Center for Medical Humanities & Social Medicine.
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December 3, 2023
Critical Global Health Studies / Critical Pedagogies of Health and Society / Medicine, Science, & Humanities / Race, Racism, & Health
All Day

CFP: New Perspectives in the History of Child Health

**2024 Workshop and Special Issue: Call for Proposals**

Call for paper proposals for an international workshop on child health history hosted at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland, on June 21-22, 2024. There is support available for travel and lodging. The workshop is sponsored by: The Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) and the University of Fribourg

In bringing together junior and senior scholars working on issues surrounding children’s health and healthcare, the workshop aims at developing a series of articles for a special issue journal focusing on child health and children’s experiences of health and illness from a historical perspective. Though the field of children’s history has grown over the past thirty years, it deserves more attention from historians of medicine and public health. Therefore, the workshop aims to underscore the importance of child health as a field of research and point to its potential for historical and historiographical interventions in the history of medicine and public health. In addition to historians, we encourage paper proposals from scholars working at the intersections of histories of children’s health, disability studies, non-western areas of study, healthcare disparities, health policy, sociology, anthropology, or other related fields.  We especially encourage submissions from scholars whose work focuses on child health in low- and middle-income non-Western countries. Applicants must be prepared to submit a full working draft of their paper prior to the meeting. The workshop will be led by Jason Chernesky (Johns Hopkins University; jcherne2@jhmi.edu),  Janet Golden (Rutgers University; jgolden@camden.rutgers.edu), and Felix Rietmann (University of Fribourg; felix.rietmann@unifr.ch).

Please submit an abstract (max. 300 words) and a brief CV here. The deadline for submission is Friday, December 1, 2023. All questions can be addressed to Jason M. Chernesky: jcherne2@jhmi.edu

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September 6, 2023
Arts, Humanities, & Health / Medicine, Science, & Humanities
8:00am – 2:00pm

Visual Histories of Humor and Health: A Virtual Symposium

Register here for this virtual event! Join us for this virtual symposium exploring visual histories of humor and health, organized by Christine Slobogin, Katie Snow, and Laura Cowley in collaboration with Johns Hopkins's Center for Medical Humanities and Social Medicine. These discussions of medically adjacent art will examine the role that visual humor has had and continues to play in healing and healthcare, as well as in experiences of illness, injury, and death. This event aims to enrich interdisciplinary approaches to the medical humanities, humor studies, and histories of visual culture and art. This event will feature ten-minute short-form talks exploring vibrant intersections of humor, visual culture, and the health humanities, each followed by ample time for discussion, questions, and feedback involving all attendees. The speakers showcased are contributors to an upcoming edited volume, but the event is open to all, and we encourage people who are not contributors to join us and get involved. We will schedule regular breaks and aim to accommodate participation across multiple time zones. You are welcome to join late or leave early. Please reach out with any access needs at cslobog1@jh.edu.
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July 14, 2023

New “For the Medical Record” Mini Episode with Zubin Mistry

A new episode of “For the Medical Record” will be published July 14! In one of our mini episodes based on colloquium talks given here at Hopkins, we speak to Zubin Mistry about the paper that he presented at the Johns Hopkins Program in the History of Science, Medicine & Technology’s colloquium series titled “The Problem of Monastic Gynecology: Reproduction, Religion and Medicine in Western Europe before 1100.” Subscribe to our podcast “For the Medical Record” to be alerted when new episodes drop – you can do this on Apple Podcasts or on Spotify.
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