Centrum för medicinsk humaniora

27/08/2026

Konstnärer utforskar första MS-patienten

Konstnärsduon Goldin+Senneby blir residenskonstnärer vid Centrum för medicinsk humaniora vid Uppsala universitet under läsåret 2026–27.

Goldin+Senneby kommer arbeta med projektet Lucs darrningar. Marie-Elisabeth Luc, var personlig betjänt åt neurologen Jean-Martin Charcot. När Charcot studerade och dokumenterade hennes darrningar bidrog det till grunden för diagnosen multipel skleros (MS). I efterhand har Luc kallats den första MS-patienten.

Konstnärsduon kommer att samarbeta med Johan Sundströms forskargrupp, som bland annat byggt en AI-modell som kan avläsa och tolka EKG-kurvor. De ska också jobba tillsammans med Sara Riggare, vars forskning både innefattat att registrera egna darrningar, samt att stärka patientens roll i medicinsk forskning.

Konstnärsresidenset anordnas i samarbete mellan Centrum för medicinsk humaniora vid Uppsala universitet, Statens konstråd och Akademiska Hus. Tidigare residenskonstnär var Anna Odell.

I bild syns lonstnärsduon Goldin+Senneby, bestående av Simon Goldin och Jakob Senneby. Foto: Stillbild från filmen Swallow Image, med tillstånd av MIT List Visual Arts Center.

25/03/2026

Saknar du information om vad vi gör på Centrum för medicinsk humaniora? Vi har sedan en tid börjat dela information om våra aktiviteter, evenemang och pågående forskning på Linkedin istället för här på Facebook. Följ oss där!

Centre for Medical Humanities (CMH) | 1,380 followers on LinkedIn. Department of History of Science and Ideas at Uppsala University | The Centre for Medical Humanities (CMH) is an interdisciplinary unit that promotes and conducts research and educational development at Uppsala University in the fiel...

10/03/2026

📢 Call for Abstracts: Young Scholars in Medical Humanities Conference 2026

Join us at the Humanities Theatre in Uppsala on 5–6 November 2026 for an international conference exploring current research shaping the future of medical humanities.

Hosted by the Centre for Medical Humanities (CMH) and our PhD programme Medical Humanities at Uppsala University, this conference brings together emerging and established scholars to engage with the critical, interdisciplinary developments transforming the field. We are also delighted to announce that Professor Angela Woods will deliver the keynote lecture!

🔍 We welcome abstracts from all disciplines engaging critically with health, illness, medicine, and care.
🗓 Submission deadline: 23 April 2026
We look forward to your contributions—and to vibrant discussions in Uppsala this autumn! More information and submission form: https://www.uu.se/centrum/medicinsk-humaniora/kalendarium/arkiv/2026-11-05-young-scholars-in-medical-humanities-conference

26/11/2025

Glada nyheter igen! Vid sitt sammanträde igår beslutade rektor att befordra Ylva Söderfeldt till professor i idéhistoria från och med 1 december 2025. Eftersom årets installationshögtid redan ägt rum kommer Ylva att hålla sin installationsföreläsning nästa höst.

Stort grattis från hela institutionen, Ylva!

20/11/2025

En mycket glädjande nyhet från Institutionen för idéhistoria: Institutionens Centrum för medicinsk humaniora har genom Ylva Söderfeldts försorg ingått som del i två ansökningar från Uppsala universitet om anslag från Forte för inrättande av forskningscentrum. Nu har vi just blivit underrättade om att bägge dessa ansökningar är beviljade. Det rör sig om medel till en satsning som kallas WHOLE (Interdisciplinary Centre for Women’s Health, förlagd till Institutionen för kvinnors och barns hälsa) samt en satsning som kallas Uppsala Centre for Preventive Psychiatry (förlagd till Institutionen för Medicinska vetenskaper). Finansieringen av centrumen är på sammanlagt 119 miljoner kronor över s*x år, med möjlighet till ytterligare finansiering för ytterligare fyra år. Inom WHOLE kommer CMH ägna sig åt konstnärlig samverkan och samarbeten med patientföreningar, och inom Centre for Preventive Psychiatry bidrar CMH med forskning om psykiatriska klassifikationssystem och sjukdomsmodeller. De forskare från CMH som deltar i projekten är Ylva Söderfeldt, Erika Sigvardsdotter och Josephine Selander. Dessutom medverkar de CMH-anknutna forskarna Matts Olovsson, Sigrid Schottenius Cullhed, Mia Phillipson, Maria Hägglund och Anna Sarkadi.

Stort grattis från hela institutionen till Ylva och CMH!

23/10/2025

🟡 Introducing Mirko Pasquini

Mirko is an Assistant Professor of Medical Anthropology at the School of Global Studies, University of Gothenburg, and an affiliated researcher at the Centre for Medical Humanities, Uppsala University. His research bridges hospital ethnography and primary care in Italy and Sweden, focusing on health inequalities, healthcare governance, the social dynamics of attention, violence, and trust and mistrust in care interactions. He is currently leading the project Mistrust in Practice: An Ethnography of Suspicion in General Medical Practice in the Aftermath of COVID-19, and his new book, The Negotiation of Urgency: Economies of Attention in an Italian Emergency Room, was published this year.
He is also actively involved in training health workers in “Structural Competency” in Sweden, Denmark, and Italy, promoting the integration of critical social science perspectives into medical practice.

Mirko held a VR International postdoctoral researcher at the Centre from 2022 to 2024. He recalls:
"The CMH has been an especially fertile ground for interdisciplinary development and experimentation during my postdoctoral research. This environment has been invaluable in navigating the challenges of mistrust in primary and emergency care settings. It has allowed me to reach diverse audiences through publications aimed at both clinicians and social scientists, such as the Lancet Global Social Medicine Case Series, released at the end of 2025. It has also enabled me to develop my original PhD and master’s-level course for specialists in the medical humanities, titled ‘Vulnerable Evidence: Trust and Trustworthiness in Medical Knowledge within and Beyond the Pandemic.’"

More information about Mirko: https://www.gu.se/en/about/find-staff/mirkopasquini

✨ To mark our fifth anniversary, over the coming weeks we'll highlight five researchers we have worked with in recent years, to celebrate these collaborations and to showcase the diverse field of medical humanities.

20/10/2025

Artist-in-residence – Anna Odell’s "Rekonstruktion – Psyket" 🎥
In the fall of 2023, acclaimed artist Anna Odell joined our Center as artist-in-residence. During her time at CMH, she created Rekonstruktion – Psyket, a powerful video work that examines the dynamics between patients and caregivers in psychiatric institutional care. It also highlights the ethical dilemmas that arise when personal and professional boundaries blur.

Based on Odell’s own experiences in psychiatric care in the 1990s, the work weaves together interviews with former hospital staff, excerpts from medical records, and re-enacted conversations with today’s professionals. The result is both deeply personal and profoundly universal: an artistic exploration of empathy, responsibility, and the structures of care.

In May 2025, the work was inaugurated at Uppsala Biomedical Centre (BMC) following its acquisition by the Public Art Agency Sweden. It is now on permanent display, accessible to staff, students, and the public. The setting feels especially fitting, as Anna Odell herself reflected:
“It feels great fun and honorable that Rekonstruktion – Psyket ends up at BMC among medical and nursing students.”

Medical humanities, as an interdisciplinary field, brings together insights from medical sciences and the humanities. Artist-in-residence programs enrich this dialogue by introducing artistic perspectives on care, health, and medical practice. We look forward to future opportunities to collaborate with artists through our residency program, continuing to explore medicine, health, and care from creative perspectives.

Read more about the exhibition: https://www.uu.se/en/centre/medical-humanities/news/archive/2025-05-21-anna-odells-work-inaugurated-at-bmc

✨ To mark our fifth anniversary, over the coming weeks we’ll revisit five memories from our journey so far.

Statens konstråd

16/10/2025

🟡 Introducing Luis De Miranda

Luis is a philosophical practitioner and researcher specializing in philosophical health and existential creativity. He is currently affiliated with, among other institutions, the Center for Research Ethics and Bioethics at the Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences, Uppsala University. He is also the creator of the Crealectic Method, a five-step approach to fostering existential creativity and reflective thinking.

Luis worked with us as a postdoctoral researcher from 2021 to 2022. He reflected on his time at our Centre as follows: "My time at the Center was absolutely fundamental as I was able to initiate the new field of Philosophical Health which is now an international network with several publications and both theoretical and practical success."

Here you can read more about Philosophical Health: https://www.philosophical.health/

✨ To mark our fifth anniversary, over the coming weeks we'll highlight five researchers we have worked with in recent years, to celebrate these collaborations and to showcase the diverse field of medical humanities.

14/10/2025

⚪ Who is Nursing? Literary, Historical and Practical Perspectives on Breastfeeding.

In November 2022, CMH hosted an open lecture evening at the Humanistiska teatern in Uppsala, exploring breastfeeding from multiple disciplinary angles. The event, titled “Who is Nursing?”, was organized in collaboration with the research network MotherNet and brought together literary, historical, and clinical perspectives on diverse nursing practices throughout history and today. The presenters were Berit Åström, Associate Professor of English Literature, Umeå University, Anna Williams, Professor of Literary Studies, Uppsala University, and Elisa Corubolo, practicing midwife, each contributing unique insights from their respective fields.

The event was co-organised together with MotherNet Project and Sigrid Schottenius Cullhed.

Thanks to everyone who participated and helped make the event a success!

✨ To mark our fifth anniversary, over the coming weeks we’ll revisit five memories from our journey so far.



Artwork: Johanna Hästö

10/10/2025

🟡 Introducing Maja Bodin

Maja worked with us between 2021 and 2023 as a Beijer-postdoc researcher, focusing on experiences of parental regret. We asked her to reflect on her time with us: 'I definitely became more interested in the historical aspects of my field of research (reproduction and family making), how ideas and norms related to parenthood have changed over time. It has given me a better understanding of our current issues related to family making and parenthood. Medical humanities has also spurred my interest in studying other power hierarchies than gender, and the intersection of various combinations of discrimination and privilege.'

Today she is working as associate senior lecturer at the National Centre for Knowledge on Men's Violence Against Women (NCK), Uppsala university.
Her current research is focuing on men’s experiences of being subjected to intimate partner violence, their help seeking behaviour and needs of support. She is also part of a research project on racism in maternal care.

✨ To mark our fifth anniversary, over the coming weeks we'll highlight five researchers we have worked with in recent years, to celebrate these collaborations and to showcase the diverse field of medical humanities.