ISoS News

On 6 March 2026, the workshop “Med Methods – Experimental Research and Teaching Methods in the Medical Humanities and the Philosophy of Medicine” brought together an interdisciplinary group of scholars to reflect on how innovative methodologies can foster research and teaching in the humanities on medicine, health, and the human experience of illness.

Participants included philosophers and historians of medicine, as well as medical educators and artists coming from the UK, Norway, Canada, and Germany.

Hosted by the ISoS-affiliated Research Group in the History and Philosophy of Medicine at Bielefeld University and organized by Michele Luchetti and Lara Keuck, the workshop explored how experiential, participatory, and art-based methods can open up new ways of teaching and researching topics such as assisted dying, medical measurement, and the experience of disability.

Many contributions included hands-on activities that engaged participants’ senses and creativity, stimulating reflection while enacting in practice the methodological approaches under discussion. Other contributions addressed the transferability of medical humanities teaching across different contexts, the use of visual art prompts and art-theoretical approaches in teaching philosophy of medicine, and the importance of material encounters for preventing philosophy from reducing the complexity of lived experience.

A final roundtable discussion, prompted by short inputs from Research Group members Alfred Freeborn and Nele Röttger, addressed several overarching questions raised during the workshop: What is the role of research and teaching in the medical humanities? How do shared learning experiences, creative spaces, and even moments of awkwardness shape us as learners and researchers?

To learn more about the activities of the History and Philosophy of Medicine group, click here.

Impressions from the workshop: