Art and the Critical Medical Humanities

Abstract

This agenda-setting edited volume, published open access, makes a forceful case for the contribution that art – its practices and its histories – can make to debates and developments in critical medical humanities today. Whilst medical humanities previously emphasised an instrumental attitude towards art and art-making, recent work has opened up a dynamic space in which art can critically and imaginatively operate. With urgent attention paid to constructions of race, gender, class, sexuality and disability, the artists, art historians, and scholars in related fields represented within this volume address new and pressing questions about structures and experiences of health, medical knowledge, care, therapy, and clinical research and education. With more than 40 contributors from a range of countries including the UK, Canada, the United States, Australia, Norway, Spain, and Germany, this landmark and multi-format collection addresses artworks from the sixteenth century to the present day, serving as a key reference point for researchers, practitioners, and educators working in medical humanities and art-aligned fields alike. The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Wellcome Trust.