Public evening lecture by Professor Dr. Dr. Mariacarla Gadebusch Bondio (University Hospital Bonn)

The (medical) humanities are booming at an international level, including in German-speaking countries. Aware of the critical knowledge worth protecting as the intellectual capital of the humanities, UNESCO commissioned a group of experts in 2017 to compile the "World Humanities Report". One of the resulting objectives is to establish the humanities as an independent academic field and to strengthen its sovereign role. This means that the humanities, as a hub where transversal disciplinary connections and experimental thinking are possible, redefine their relationship to the related disciplines. Based on these dynamics, the keynote lecture will explore the question of whether and how the boom in the medical humanities is affecting its theoretical, institutional and social positioning. The focus will be on biocultural practices in which the medical humanities can assert themselves and possibly reinvent themselves.

Mariacarla Gadebusch Bondio heads the Institute for Medical Humanities at the Medical Faculty of the University of Bonn. With a background in philosophy, history of science and Romance studies, she researches the ethics and cultural history of medicine. Her fields of research include practices of evidence generation and dealing with uncertain knowledge. She also focuses on concepts of health and illness, gender and shame, hope and care, which she examines using illness narratives, among other things. She is a full member of the North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences, Humanities and the Arts and co-editor of the Medical Humanities series (Schwabe Verlag) and the Medizinhistorisches Journal, among others.

Moderation: Professor Dr. Giovanni Rubeis