Phenomenology and Health: An Interdisciplinary Symposium. (360G-Wellcome-107429_Z_15_Z)

'Phenomenology and Health: An Interdisciplinary Symposium' will take place 27-28 March 2015 at The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities (TORCH). This meeting will explore and assess the role of phenomenology in health-related research and practice. We aim to stimulate cross-disciplinary discussions between scholars of science and humanities and those engaged in phenomenological practice outside of academia. Phenomenology's concept of bodily consciousness is informing research into the li ved experience of health conditions, enabling explorations of the subjective aspects of illness not always accounted for by more naturalistic approaches. Its emphasis on the social dimensions of selfhood is proving valuable for psychotherapists, nurses, GPs, and others who work closely with clients and patients. Humanities researchers are using phenomenology to think through representations of health, illness, and disability in literature, art, film, and other forms of historical and contemporar y media, and to consider the experience of ill people from ethical and ontological perspectives. From Merleau-Ponty's body-subject and Sartre's thoughts on pain to important works such as Fredrik Svenaeus' The Hermeneutics of Medicine and the Phenomenology of Health (2000) and Havi Carel's Illness: The Cry of the Flesh (2008), phenomenology provides multiple frameworks for the study and practice of healthcare.