International Health Humanities Network Membership

My primary research interests are in nineteenth-century opera (French, Italian), melodrama, ballet, and musical culture more generally in nineteenth-century Paris and London. I am also interested in the interface between music and other spheres (art, literature, politics).

I have worked on representations of madness in opera, and have more recently become interested in the perceived therapeutic powers of music, and its resonance with the nerves, in early nineteenth-century writing.

Helen Hickey completed a PhD at the University of Melbourne, Australia, on representations of the Everyday in the medieval poetry and bureaucratic writing of Thomas Hoccleve. Her work focussed on medieval English and French literature and history of the late fourteenth and early fifteenth century.

She has conducted research on madness in medieval literature, which has been complemented by historical work on lunacy and idiocy inquisitions extant in the English Rolls. A forthcoming article on 'Thomas Hoccleve and the Inquisitions of Insanity' will appear in the edited collection, Theorizing Legal Personhood (edited by A. Boboc and K. Kennedy; Brill).

Her approach to transhistorical health is literary / historical and language-based. She is interested in the intersection (and disjunction) between authoritative medical science and the discursive resources available to individuals and societies in a specific time-place to frame and understand the spectrum of ill-health. 

Research Associate

University of Melbourne, Australia

Medieval Literature

Medieval and Early Modern History of Emotional Impairment

Sensory History

Olfaction

Climate Change

Currently a Staff Nurse within the Royal Navy. I have been in health or social care for nearly twenty years. The last 15 have been as a paramedic and Operating Department Practitioner within the Royal Navy and latterly recently qualifying as a Registered Adult Nurse.

I have a passion for the process of philosophy and am also an active Humanist who is passionate about demonstrating how personal ethics within the area of health can be adopted by both patients and colleagues (mainly by talking to each other honestly and openly).

I am an obssissive guitarist, singer, blogger and ukuleleist. I blog about a wide variety of issues on my site called The Wooden Duck which you can find at: http://woodyduck.wordpress.com

C. Austin (Chris) Hill is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Theatre at Lycoming College. Before coming to Lycoming, Chris was an Assistant Professor of Theatre History at Youngstown State University, and was previously the Director of the Theatre Program at Tennessee Wesleyan University. Chris holds a PhD in Theatre History, Dramatic Literature, and Criticism from The Ohio State University, specializing in Irish theatre. Chris is a cultural studies historian, specializing in Irish drama. He recently published a chapter in Autumnal Faces: Old Age in British and Irish Dramatic Narratives. (Ed. Katarzyna Bronk), a review in Theatre Journal, a chapter in The Supernatural Revamped (Barbara Brodman and James Doan, eds.), an article in Irish Studies South, and has presented at conferences across the US, in London, and in Ireland. His first book, entitled Cultural History of Film in the United States, was published by Kendall Hunt Publishing in 2018.

Chris is also an active theatre artist and has directed professionally and at the university level throughout the USA. Recently, Chris directed The Importance of Being Earnest, Twelfth Night, As You Like It, Urinetown: The Musical, Sarah Ruhl's Eurydice, Our Town by Thornton Wilder, The Crucible by Arthur Miller, and the World Premiere of A Night of Blacker Darkness by Allison Hill and Dan Wells, based on the book by Dan Wells (At Tennessee Wesleyan University). In Columbus, he directed the Ohio premiere of Frank McCourt’s musical The Irish…And How They Got That Way (for Solstice Theatre Company) the world premiere of Elysium Interrupted by Jill Summerville (for OSU), the Ohio premier of The Illusion by Tony Kushner (for Evolution Theatre Company), and the world premiere of King Arthur and the Sword of Britain by Philip J. Hickman (for Actor's Theatre of Columbus). In Youngstown, Chris directed Youngstown State University Department of Theater and Dance’s production of Ernst Toller’s No More Peace, followed by Hairspray at the Youngstown Playhouse in May 2017. In Fall 2017, Chris directed Spring Awakening at YSU, in 2018, Caroline, or Change by Tony Kushner and Jeanine Tesori at the Youngstown Playhouse. Chris is delighted to be working with the talented students and faculty at Lycoming College, and to be directing both Songs For a New World in the fall and The Drowning Girls in the spring.

As Associate Professor and Deputy Director for the Institute of Health, Health Policy and Social Care at DMU my primary role is that of developing research activity and collaboration.

My own areas of research are on older people, domestic violence and abuse (DVA) and healthcare education. I have conducted studies on older people living in care homes (the PEACH study), transitions from acute settings to home or community hospitals and the involvement of family carers for those with a cognitive impairment. During 2020 I am leading a UK wide COVID study working with family of residents living in care homes in addition to a rapid review on communication tools used as best practice in care homes between relatives and care homes.

Most of my work is collaborative around older people and/or care homes.  I work nationally and have international collaborations with colleagues at USP, UNESP in Brazil as well as links to South African research institutions. 

In 2022 I co Edited a Springer Edition book on Arts Based Research in Healthcare.

In addition, a second strand of my research relates to gender based violence. I have published widely on aspects of domestic violence and abuse (DVA) including published literature reviews and empirical studies on older women who experience DVA and DVA survivor experiences of accessing emergency departments(ED). 

I am Editor for Nurse Education in Practice (NEP) (impact factor 1.314). I also conduct peer reviews for Nurse Education Today, Nurse Education in Practice and Joanna Briggs institute (JBI) systematic review international journal. 

Abigail Hirsch is a visual artist, curator and educator specialising in access to museums and heritage site, and creativity. Since completing her studies with distinction in Art Studio and Contemporary Critical Theory at Goldsmiths, University of London, 2001 (with a thesis entitled Sound in Relation to Image which was published in NOISEGATE NO 12, 2004), she has followed the path of participatory and socially engaged practice. She has gained a track record in creating work in collaboration with diverse marginalized communities, and supported artists with disabilities (Action Space), providing access to fully enable participation in the arts. She has curated several exhibitions promoting inclusive art practice.

Abigail works as a freelance. She has been a key person in the development and delivery of the SEN access program at the Royal Academy of Arts, London. She has completed several commissions creating multi-sensory access resources for museums and heritage, notably Victoria and Albert Museum’s first sensory backpack, Curious Ceramics, for visitors with sensory impairments and their families. In addition, she consults for museums in the area of education and accessibility, and is regularly invited internationally to give talks and workshops at museums, conferences, and higher educational institutions.

abihirsch@yahoo.co.uk

Dr. Rainbow Ho is the Director of the Centre On Behavioral Health; Associate Professor of the Department of Social Work and Social Administration, The University of Hong Kong. Dr. Ho holds degrees in Biology, Anatomy, and Social Work and Social Administration, professional diplomas in performing arts (dance) and movement analysis, and pedagogy of dance and somatic movement therapy. She is a registered and board-certified dance movement therapist, a certified movement analyst, a registered medical technologist, a registered dance teacher and a licensed international adjudicator in dancesport competition. She has been practicing creative arts therapy in Hong Kong with diverse populations for all age groups in both clinical and educational settings since 2001. She has extensive experiences in working with children with issues like autism, learning disabilities, ADHD, emotional disturbance and also trauma experiences including violence, sexual and physical abuse, and natural disasters. Dr. Ho is one of the important pioneers in dance movement therapy in Hong Kong and Asian area and she is frequently invited for teaching and lecture in the region as well as in North America. Besides creative arts, Dr. Ho also works on medical humanities. She has projects on introducing mindfulness meditation in medical education. Dr. Ho is a competent researcher. She has worked in the fields of cancer biology and cancer immunology and now she works on interdisciplinary areas that integrate biomedical sciences, social sciences and arts. Her current research interests include psycho-oncology, psychoneuroimmunology, mind-body medicine, spirituality, dance movement therapy, creative and expressive arts therapy, physical activity and non-verbal communications in psychotherapy in disease populations, aging population and healthy populations. Apart from teaching and research, Dr. Ho is also active in community services of promoting physical exercises, recreational activities, and healthy life style in clinical and healthy populations in Hong Kong.

I am a dance movement therapist, a researcher and a faculty member of the University of Hong Kong. I am also the Director of the Center on Behavioral Health, HKU.

Professor Susan Hogan has research interests in the history of medicine. She has written extensively on the relationship between the arts, insanity, and the role of the arts in rehabilitation. She is also very interested in the treatment of women within psychiatry and maternity care. Her most recent work is ESRC funded work, in collaboration with the University of Sheffield, Department of Sociological Studies, which is looking at representions of older women. The aim of this study is to use the creative arts to negotiate and challenge images of ageing and explore their contribution to participatory approaches to research in social gerontology.

Susan Hogan has a BA Degree in fine art, a post-graduate diploma in art therapy, a Master’s Degree in Arts Administration (Arts Policy & Management), and a further Master’s Degree in Social Science Research Methods (Social Policy & Sociology). Her Ph.D. was in Cultural History (looking at the history of ideas around madness and the use of the arts) from Aberdeen University, Scotland. Susan has also undertaken further training in group-analytic psychotherapy.

She served for six years as a Health Professions Council (U.K.) ‘visitor’. She is a former Vice-President of ANATA (Australian National Art Therapy Association, now ANZATA), and has twice served as a regional co-ordinator for the British Association of Art Therapists (BAAT). She has been instrumental in setting up several art therapy training courses.

Professor Hogan qualified as an art therapist in 1985. She has a particular interest in group-work and experiential learning, following early employment with Peter Edwards M.D., an exceptional psychiatrist who had worked with Maxwell Jones, a psychiatrist who is associated with the ‘therapeutic community movement’ in Britain. She is currently Professor in Cultural Studies & Art Therapy at the University of Derby, where she, for many years, facilitated experiential workshops and the closed-group component of the art therapy training. This training is based on the group-interactive approach described by Professor Diane Waller). Now most of her time is spent supervising research at MA & PhD levels, and conducting research.

Susan has also undertaken work with pregnant women and women who have recently given birth, offering art therapy groups to give support to women, and an opportunity for them to explore their changed sense of self-identity and sexuality as a result of pregnancy and motherhood. She has published extensively on this subject.

Susan Hogan has worked in academia since 1990 for a number of institutions, including The University of New South Wales, The University of Technology, Sydney, Macquarie University and the National Art School, Sydney.

Professor Hogan’s major intellectual work is Healing Arts: The History of Art Therapy (2001), described by the late Professor of Psychiatry, Roy Porter, as: ‘sure to be the definitive monograph on this subject for the foreseeable future’. Her other books comprise, Feminist Approaches to Art Therapy (as editor, 1997); Gender Issues in Art Therapy (as editor, 2003); Conception Diary: Thinking About Pregnancy & Motherhood (2006), and Revisiting Feminist Approaches to Art Therapy (as editor, 2012). She is currently co-writing on women’s experience of ageing with sociologists from the University of Sheffield. Additional to all the above, she has also published a number of both scholarly and polemical papers on women and theories of insanity.

Particularly influenced by the anthropological work of her late mother-in-law, Dame Professor Mary Douglas, Hogan’s work has been innovative in its application of social anthropological and sociological ideas to art therapy and her unwavering challenge to reductive psychological theorising.