Research Themes 2023-2024
We support established and emerging areas of research with particular strategic value.
Supporting engaged and challenge-led research
Each year, the Humanities Research Institute highlights key research themes for the coming academic year. These are overarching themes that are addressed collaboratively by teams or networks of researchers and their partners. These themes are often supported by external funding streams. These areas demand engaged and challenge-led research that draws on inter- or multi-disciplinary methods and expertise.
Decisive Decade
Decisive Decade is a humanities-led research theme that addresses the unprecedented environmental crisis that the world is currently experiencing. It recognises that the humanities have a vital role to play in fostering wider understandings of the implications of the current crisis and to mediate between cultural theory and practice.
The humanities have access to vast resources for conceptualizing and envisaging the relationships between the human and the non-human. The past two decades have seen major efforts in unearthing these resources and putting them to good practice. We aim to contribute to this urgent task of re-imagining the future to counter the climate emergency. We also seek to address the pressing ethical issue of intergenerational justice. Through its Decisive Decade theme, the Humanities Research Institute offers spaces for collective reflection, engagement and action—locally, nationally and transnationally. As we do this, we aim to rethink the role of the humanities within academia and beyond.
On behalf of the humanities at Newcastle, Decisive Decade pledges a commitment to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
To find out more about Decisive Decade, please click here.
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Medical Humanities
About Us
The Medical Humanities Network is an interdisciplinary group of over 160 researchers from across Newcastle University. Our members work in the disciplines of literature, history, fine art, architecture, creative writing, business studies, archaeology, linguistics, museum studies, sociology, medical ethics, culture and media studies, and beyond.
We work on a diverse range of questions relating to medicine, health, and wellbeing. Our methodological approaches to these questions are historical, critical, and creative.
The Network facilitates cross-disciplinary collaborations, connecting researchers across the university. We share research in progress, host workshops to explore ideas and methodologies, organize training events for early-stage researchers, and develop relationships with local partners.
The Network profiles the range and vibrancy of medical humanities research at Newcastle. We bring people together with the aim of making a difference in relation to the key medical and healthcare challenges of today.
News and Events
This year we are running a series of work-in-progress sessions which invite researchers to share their ideas at an early stage. We offer feedback in a supportive environment and enable connections with researchers from other disciplines. Some of the topics we will be exploring include: the role of metaphor in public health data, the artist’s book as methodology, interpreting social distress in mental health research, thinking with and through the body, and the experiences of terminally ill children.
We are hosting two collaborative workshops in partnership with Newcastle University’s Centre for Cancer Research. These will explore four cross-cutting themes: children and cancer, cancer and spatiality, the cancerous body, and the diagnostic pathway.
We are organizing a training event for postgraduate taught students who are researching a dissertation on any aspect of medicine, health, or wellbeing. We will focus on developing an awareness of transdisciplinary approaches and methodologies.
People
The Medical Humanities Network is directed by a steering group that includes representation from the disciplines of literature, history, archaeology, fine art, medical ethics, sociology, and museum studies.
The main co-ordinators are:
Please do get in touch with one of us if you would like to join the Network or know more about what we do.
For information, please follow this link to our website:
Performance
The Performance Research Network aims to both conduct research through performance and carry out research to create performance. 'Performance' is a subject, a methodology, and an outcome. This network enables colleagues to share their research, learn from each other's methodologies and approaches, share teaching materials and exercises and develop relationships with local practitioners, companies, and arts organisations. The network also aims to increase the visibility of both performance research at Newcastle (within the University, nationally and internationally) and the vibrancy of the North East performance sector. The Performance Research Network draws together thinkers and doers from across Newcastle University spanning literature, theatre studies, human geography, creative writing, urban planning, music, business studies, architecture, fine art, culture and media studies, digital cultures and beyond.
You can learn more about the Performance Network here.
For more information or to get involved please contact Emma Whipday or Ruth Raynor.
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