2026 Health Humanities Consortium Conference

 All HHC Conference Attendees are invited to our opening reception at the Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library ( 543 Indiana Ave, Indianapolis, IN ) from 6-8pm. Join us for complimentary hors d’oeuvres and drinks while you enjoy all things Vonnegut throughout the museum. Following brief remarks from our conference hosts, we’ll spend a few minutes with Vonnegut expert and museum curator Chris Lafave. 

(1A) Moving Parts: Global Economies of the Human Body

1. Samin Rashidbeigi: Independent Cinema and Promoting Voluntary Blood Donation in Iran 
2. Puneet Bansal: Buying Miracles, Selling Bodies: Narrative Asymmetry and Health Justice in Transplant Tourism 
3. Deepsikha Dasgupta: Heart of the Matter: Bioethical Issues of Cardiac Pacemaker Reuse in the Global South from the US
4. Kristin LaFollette: Advocating for the Dead: Rehumanizing Language in the Human Remains Trade

(1B) Activism and Self-Efficacy: Costs, Benefits, and Risks in Accessing Care 

1. Peter Schwartz: Diabetes and Hope: Cost and a Con Game at the Core of Contemporary Care
2. Rupinder (Rupi) Legha: Clinical Activism as Ethical Practice: A Humanistic Framework for Justice in Child and Adolescent Mental Health 
3. Brianna Schoenfelder: Interpersonal and Organizational Drivers of Health Self-Efficacy: A Meta-Analytic Approach to Health Equity 
4. Margaret Tharp: ICE-d Out: A Case Illustrating the Impact of the Political Determinants of Health in Pediatric Ophthalmology

 (1C) Spirituality and Community Health Literacy

1. Ahona Shirin: Building Community Health Literacy Evaluating the Brain Health Workshop Series
2. Ingrid Cobos Lopez: How Can I Help You? Humanizing Cancer. A Powerful Initiative that changes lives!
3. Madeline Reyes: “Call the Chaplain!”: The Results of a Course on Bioethics and Spiritual Care
4. Kendra Hotz: Exploring Religious Healthworlds: Equity-Oriented Religious Literacy for Health Care Providers

(1D) (In)Visible Illness: Diagnosis, Legibility, and Ethics

1. Gabby Bunko: Making Pain Legible: Diagnostic Language and the Rhetoric of Health Justice
2. Bailey Miller: Psychogenic Misdiagnoses, Diagnostic Haunting, and Self-Doubt in the Ehlers-Danlos Syndromes
3. Reece Carter: “Long Covid Brushstrokes”: Feminist Megethos as a Response to Hermeneutical Injustice
4. Malika Rakhmonova: Sight Unseen: A History of the Ethical Divide Between Child and Adult Anonymity in Clinical Photography in The Lancet (1914-1966)

(1E) So it goes? Using Theatre in Health Professions Training to Humanize Reproductive Loss 

 Maria Brann, Krista Longtin, Kelsey Binion

Maria Brann

×

Maria Brann

Krista Longtin

×

Krista Longtin

Kalsey Binion

×

Kalsey Binion

Samin Rashidbeigi

×

Samin Rashidbeigi

Puneet Bansal

×

Puneet Bansal

Deepsikha Dasgupta

×

Deepsikha Dasgupta

Kristin LaFollette

×

Kristin LaFollette

Peter Schwartz

×

Peter Schwartz

Kristin LaFollette

×

Kristin LaFollette

Peter Schwartz

×

Peter Schwartz

Rupinder Legha

×

Rupinder Legha

Brianna Schoenfelder

×

Brianna Schoenfelder

Margaret Tharp

×

Margaret Tharp

Ahona Shirin

×

Ahona Shirin

Ingrid Cobos Lopez

×

Ingrid Cobos Lopez

Madeline Reyes

×

Madeline Reyes

Kendra Hotz

×

Kendra Hotz

Gabby Bunko

×

Gabby Bunko

Reece Carter

×

Reece Carter

Malika Rakhmonova

×

Malika Rakhmonova

Emily Carnes

×

Emily Carnes

Nanette Elster

×

Nanette Elster

Kayhan Parsi

×

Kayhan Parsi

Richard Gunderman

×

Richard Gunderman

Antoinette Polito

×

Antoinette Polito

Steven Schlozman

×

Steven Schlozman

Nagasriya Ramisetty

×

Nagasriya Ramisetty

After Dobbs

×

After Dobbs

Anita Wohlmann

×

Anita Wohlmann

Liz Bowen

×

Liz Bowen

(2A) Critical Histories of the Medical Sciences

1. Dominic Robin: "Pushing Back the Frontier”: Role of the Frontier Metaphor in Biomedical Discourse
2. Elizabeth Apple: “Praying in the Lab!”: Influenza, Literature, and Original Sin
3. Sydney Halpern: Infected for Science: A Graphic History and Ethics of Human Research
4. Nora Grand, Lauren Olsen, Claire Clark: The Behavioral Sciences in Medical Education from the Cold War to the Trump Era: So it goes? 

 (2B) Critical Approaches to Teaching Health Justice

1. Christine Marks, Justin T Brown: Teaching toward Health Justice: Cultivating Critical Reflexivity and Cultural Responsiveness in Health Pedagogy
2. Julia Knopes: The Mad Classroom: Teaching Critical Approaches to Psychiatric Ethics
3. Melody Waring: Teaching Gender, Justice, and the Helping Professions
4. Roberta Chardulo: Power, Politics, and Paradigms in Global Health: Lessons from a 4th-Year Humanities Course at Penn State College of Medicine

(2C) So It Goes, and Goes, and Goes: Centering Health Justice in Addiction-Related Spaces

1. Caine Jordan: The Berry Plan: Addiction, Public Health, and the Law in 1950s Chicago
2. David Korostyshevsky: Guardianship Reform as Health Justice: Addiction, Medical Incarceration, and the Law 
3. Amy Sullivan: Narcan in the History Classroom?

(2D) Designing the Elements of Justice in Health Practices

1. Sorana Stanescu: Bad Roads, Bad Health: The Systems That Influence Romania’s Rates of Dying from Preventable Disease
2. Anna Ulrikke Andersen: The Right to a Hospital Bed: When a Hospital Reform Had Unexpected Consequences
3. Merve Sen,Victoria Lupascu: Hospitals and the (Un)attainability of Care
4. Ruth Bernatek: And So It Goes in Prison? 

(2E) “Then as Now”: Historicist Health Humanities Approaches to Contemporary Healthcare Challenges

Rachel Conrad Bracken, Kelly L Bezio, Kirsten Ostherr, Phillip Barrish, Lorenzo Servitje, Priscilla Wald

Rachel Conrad Bracken

×

Rachel Conrad Bracken

Kelly L Bezio

×

Kelly L Bezio

Kirsten Ostherr

×

Kirsten Ostherr

Phillip Barrish

×

Phillip Barrish

Lorenzo Servitje

×

Lorenzo Servitje

Priscilla Wald

×

Priscilla Wald

Dominic Robin

×

Dominic Robin

Elizabeth Apple

×

Elizabeth Apple

Sydney Halpern

×

Sydney Halpern

Nora Grand

×

Nora Grand

Lauren Olsen

×

Lauren Olsen

Claire Clark

×

Claire Clark

Christine Marks

×

Christine Marks

Justin T Brown

×

Justin T Brown

Julia Knopes

×

Julia Knopes

Melody Waring

×

Melody Waring

Roberta Chardulo

×

Roberta Chardulo

Caine Jordan

×

Caine Jordan

David Korostyshevsky

×

David Korostyshevsky

Amy Sullivan

×

Amy Sullivan

Sorana Stanescu

×

Sorana Stanescu

Anna Ulrikke Andersen

×

Anna Ulrikke Andersen

Merve Sen

×

Merve Sen

Victoria Lupascu

×

Victoria Lupascu

Ruth Bernatek

×

Ruth Bernatek

Kelly L Bezio

×

Kelly L Bezio

Phillip Barrish

×

Phillip Barrish

Lorenzo Servitje

×

Lorenzo Servitje

Priscilla Wald

×

Priscilla Wald

(3A) New Directions in Health Humanities Research and Education

1. Erin Lamb, Rachel Bracken, Craig Klugman, Sara Kosbia: What’s in a Health Humanities Education? An Alumni Survey of Student Outcomes
2. Rebecca Volpe: Faculty Development as Health Justice: The Humanistic Practice Program
3. Layne Craig: Catalyzing Interdisciplinary Health Justice Research: The Health, Humanities, and Society Research Cluster at TCU
4. Liz Bowen, Rebecca Garden: You’ve Got One Week: The Generative Constraints of a Health Humanities “Intensive” Course

(3B) Health Justice “From Below”: Grassroots Approaches from Around the Globe

1. Nicholas L. Johnson: Or the Human Discards: Community Care as Foil to Political Economies of Healthcare’s Caprice in Aminata Sow Fall’s La grève des bàttu 
2. Akalework Babanto: Health Justice Amid Systemic Fragility: Street-level Ethics and Social Systems in Southern Ethiopia
3. Laurie Green: A Crisis in Food, Hunger, and Health: Excavating Poor People’s Movements as a Pathway to a Different Future

(3C) Disinformation, Risk, and the Rhetoric of Public Health

1. Katherine Shwetz: MAHA’s Narrative Estrangement
2. Ana Laguna, Eveling Hondros: Disinformation and Health Justice: Cultural Literacy as Ethical resistance
3. Martha Gardner: The “Right to Choose”: Women’s Health and Smoking in the United States, 1970s-1990s
4. Lora Fitzsimmons: Game Transfer Phenomena and Copy-Cat Crime: Health Humanities Pedagogy to Reduce Public Health Risks and Community Injustice

(3D) Empathy and Humanization Revisited

1. Emily Waples: Always Humanize? Notes Against “Humanization”
2. Matty Hemming: Medicine’s Literature, Literature’s Medicine: Towards Structural and Historical Reading
3. Daniel George: Integrating the Shadow Side of Social Justice: Archetypal Dynamics in the Health Humanities  
4. Melanie Steiner: Narration without Appropriation: Trauma Literature, Empathic Unsettlement, and the Ethics of Witnessing in Healthcare

(3E) “You want me to write what?” Exploring Conflict through Simulation Scripts 

Stefanie Johnson, Cory Edgar, Yvette Saliba

Stefanie Johnson

×

Stefanie Johnson

Cory Edgar

×

Cory Edgar

Yvette Saliba

×

Yvette Saliba

Craig Klugman

×

Craig Klugman

Erin Lamb

×

Erin Lamb

Rachel Bracken

×

Rachel Bracken

Sara Kosbia

×

Sara Kosbia

Rebecca Volpe

×

Rebecca Volpe

Layne Craig

×

Layne Craig

Liz Bowen

×

Liz Bowen

Rebecca Garden

×

Rebecca Garden

Nicholas L. Johnson

×

Nicholas L. Johnson

Akalework Babanto

×

Akalework Babanto

Laurie Green

×

Laurie Green

Katherine Shwetz

×

Katherine Shwetz

Ana Laguna

×

Ana Laguna

Martha Gardner

×

Martha Gardner

Lora Fitzsimmons

×

Lora Fitzsimmons

Emily Waples

×

Emily Waples

Matty Hemming

×

Matty Hemming

Daniel George

×

Daniel George

Melanie Steiner

×

Melanie Steiner

(4A) Processing, Community Building and Becoming: National Efforts Toward Flourishing in Health in and through the Humanities

 Joëlle Worm, Lamya Augusthy, Deepthiman Gowda

(4B) Theater, Textiles, and the Empathic Encounter

1. Kathleen Van Buren, Kathryn W. Zavaleta, Sarah Mensink: Exploring the Promise of Improvisational Theatre Applications in Healthcare: A Scoping Review
2. Eric Jorgensen: The Trouble With Normal: Witnessing and Survival in the American AIDS Play
3. Taine Duncan: Memorializing with Pride: Incorporating the AIDS Memorial Quilt into a First Year Seminar for Health and Behavioral Science Students
4. Sara Press: The Empathy Exams Revisited

(4C) Care Under Fire: Vulnerability, Justice, and Gender Affirming Care

1. Etta Mathews: Justice in Gender-Affirming Care: Applying Ethics of Care to Transgender Health
2. Laura Stamm: Threats to Advocacy: Experiences of Gender-Affirming Care Providers Navigating Safety, Institutions, and Visibility
3. Richard A. Brandon-Friedman: The Costs of Stigmatizing Gender Diversity and Gender-Affirming Care on Gender-Diverse Youth and Their Families

   
   

(4D) Health Literacy and Justice: Building Trust as the Foundation of Ethical Care

Maria Rankin-Brown, Scott Calhoun, Duane Covrig, Laura Miller, T. David Price, Augusto Silvitzke, Cory Wetterlin

(4E) So it Goes: Values Based Discussions Focusing on Medical Care

 Robyn Axel-Adams

Joëlle Worm

×

Joëlle Worm

Lamya Augusthy

×

Lamya Augusthy

Deepthiman Gowda

×

Deepthiman Gowda

Kathleen Van Buren

×

Kathleen Van Buren

Kathryn W. Zavaleta

×

Kathryn W. Zavaleta

Sarah Mensink

×

Sarah Mensink

Eric Jorgensen

×

Eric Jorgensen

Taine Duncan

×

Taine Duncan

Sara Press

×

Sara Press

Etta Mathews

×

Etta Mathews

Laura Stamm

×

Laura Stamm

Maria Rankin-Brown

×

Maria Rankin-Brown

Scott Calhoun

×

Scott Calhoun

Duane Covrig

×

Duane Covrig

Laura Miller

×

Laura Miller

T. David Price

×

T. David Price

Augusto Silvitzke

×

Augusto Silvitzke

Cory Wetterlin

×

Cory Wetterlin

Robyn Axel-Adams

×

Robyn Axel-Adams

FLASH 1 (5A)

Humanities in Medical Education

DEAFMed: Integrating Deaf Culture into Medical Education 

 Dominic Finan

Embedding Community Engagement in Medical Education: Field Experiences for Health Justice 

 Amara Breanne Ajon, Sambridhi Khanal

Critical Disability Studies as a Lever for Framing Health Justice in a Comprehensive Health Humanities Medical School Curriculum

 Annika Mann, Cora Fox

Teaching Empathy: Using Representations of Addiction in Popular Culture in the Classroom

 Ashlee Simon

A Space for Moral Dialogue: Integrating Ethics Debriefs into Medical Student Clinical Clerkships 

 Daniyal Nadeem

FLASH 2 (5B)

Beyond Technical Training

Educating for Health Justice: Cultivating Epistemic Humility, Reflection, and Moral Formation in Medical Education 

 Elizabeth Rizk

Health Humanities in Practice: Assessing Attitudes Toward Implicit Bias in First-Time Volunteers of an Ophthalmology Free Clinic

 Betsy Benitez

The Trials of a Trainee

Margaret Tharp

Beyond the White Coat: Empowering Frontline Caregivers in Long-Term Care Through Narrative Competence 

 Katherine Shiells

FLASH 3 (5C)

Structural Vulnerabilities

Empire Abroad, Carcerality at Home: Refusing Psychiatry’s Colonial Inheritance

 Rupinder Legha

A Seat on the Bus: Witnessing Food Insecurity in Indianapolis

 Salil Gupta 

Collaborative Efforts to Address Toxicity in Museum and Personal Collections

 Kylie Barkley, Thomas Crain, Holly Cusack-McVeigh

Rehabilitation and the Right to Maim: Debility, Capacity, and Colonial Violence

 Eduan Breedt, Erin Tichenor, Tim Barlott, April Gamble

Selective Vulnerabilities: Stigma and Solutions in Antimicrobial Resistance News Narratives

 Sophia Isabella Vona

Domini Finan

×

Domini Finan

Amara Breanne Ajon

×

Amara Breanne Ajon

Sambridhi Khanal

×

Sambridhi Khanal

Annika Mann

×

Annika Mann

Cora Fox

×

Cora Fox

Ashlee Simon

×

Ashlee Simon

Daniyal Nadeem

×

Daniyal Nadeem

Elizabeth Rizk

×

Elizabeth Rizk

Betsy Benitez

×

Betsy Benitez

Margaret Tharp

×

Margaret Tharp

Katherine Shiells

×

Katherine Shiells

Rupi Legha

×

Rupi Legha

Salil Gupta

×

Salil Gupta

Kylie Barkley

×

Kylie Barkley

Thomas Crain

×

Thomas Crain

Holly Cusack-McVeigh

×

Holly Cusack-McVeigh

Eduan Breedt

×

Eduan Breedt

Erin Tichenor

×

Erin Tichenor

Tim Barlott

×

Tim Barlott

April Gamble

×

April Gamble

Sophia Isabella Vona

×

Sophia Isabella Vona

Maggie Morris

×

Maggie Morris

Sofia Lemberg

×

Sofia Lemberg

Valeria Galan

×

Valeria Galan

A STAGED READING : LASTING

Full-length play by Angeline Larimer and Abdul-Khaliq Murtadha

Brian Payne Theatre

7:30 PM

FREE to HHC Attendees

Seating is limited! Reserve by March 26: https://indydistricttheatre.org/

Use code HEALTHJUSTICE for comped ticket

$10

Based on the oral histories of Donald Fuller, and writings by Sidney Fuller

Produced by Propel New Works, Indiana University Indianapolis Medical Humanities & Health Studies Program, and the IU Conscience Project

Set within the shifting terrain of Donald Ray’s deeply personal and interwoven thoughts, the story follows his return to the memories of his older brothers Michael and Bubby who appear to him exactly as they were the last time he saw them. To find his way back to peace, Donald Ray must navigate a minefield of recollections where the ache of loss and joys of brotherhood collide.

Drawn from personal history and lived experience, the story of Lasting traces the emotional complexity of growing up Black in a small Midwestern town in late 20th‑century America. At its heart, this is the story of three brothers: Donald Ray, Michael, and Bubby, who learn to transform a landscape marked by painful memories into one of healing, connection, and enduring love.

Inspired by real events.

(6A) Reifying Race and Inequality through Technology

1. Wade Catt: Personalized Depersonalization
2. Relicious Eboh: Tracing Racialized Narratives in Pulmonary Function Research: Methods For An Interdisciplinary Historical Review
3. Tara Callahan: Digital Redlining Artificial Intelligence Data Centers and Environmental Injustices for Historically Disenfranchised Communities

(6B) Empowerment through Visual Pedagogies

1. Alicia Kachmar, Jessica Martucci, Wendy Elliott-Vandivier: The Intersection of Disability and Art in Nursing Education
2. Patricia Luck: Observation and the Physical Exam: Using Photography to Introduce Clinically Applicable Close-Looking Skills
3. Maia Cole: Playing Doctor: How Interactive Art Teaches Medical Professionals to Reflect
4. Nicole Burt: Informal Learning in Gallery Experiences for Visitor Health Empowerment

(6C) Justice for All? Locating Harm, Assigning Responsibility 

1. Pritha Bhattacharyya: Fictionalizing Clinical Research Injustice: A Creative Reading from Novel-in-Progress, Coercion
2. Michael Madson: Just(ice) Rhetoric in the National Opioid Crisis: How Character Evidence Helped Three OxyContin Executives to Walk Free
3. Colin Halverson: Justice for Roaches, or Aspirations for a Truly Universal Research Ethics
4. M.L.N. “Key” Kirby: Procedural Meaning in Knowledge Production: How Harm Perpetuates via Process and Product

(6D) Narrative Justice: Disrupting Health Inequities 

1. Emilie Cunningham: Guidance from Leaders in Disrupting Maternal Health Inequities
2. Bhumika Devkota, Rebecca Garden, Guerline Guerrier, Shekher Pokhrel (presenting), Monu Chhetri, Shamati Suhang: Narrative Justice, Language Justice: Community-Engaged Healthcare Education and Advocacy in Collaboration with Deaf Immigrants
3. Monica Ross: Narrative Self-Guidance: Reclaiming Interpretation Between English and Health 
4. Gabri Warren, Lyndsey Blair, and Michele Abee-Biskis: Advocating Beyond the Hospital: Environmental Justice in Nursing Education

   
   

(6E) Holding Space for Caregivers through Poetry: A Workshop to Foster Compassionate Deep Listening

 Yvette Perry, Kevin Dieter

Wade Catt

×

Wade Catt

Relicious Eboh

×

Relicious Eboh

Tara Callahan

×

Tara Callahan

Alicia Kachmar

×

Alicia Kachmar

Patricia Luck

×

Patricia Luck

Maia Cole

×

Maia Cole

Nicole Burt

×

Nicole Burt

Pritha Bhattacharyya

×

Pritha Bhattacharyya

Michael Madson

×

Michael Madson

Colin Halverson

×

Colin Halverson

M.L.N. “Key” Kirby

×

M.L.N. “Key” Kirby

Emilie Cunningham

×

Emilie Cunningham

Bhumika Devkota

×

Bhumika Devkota

Monica Ross

×

Monica Ross

Gabri Warren

×

Gabri Warren

(7A) Afterlives of Medical Racism: Oral Histories and Memorialization Projects

 Christine Cynn, Michael Dickinson, Victoria Tucker

(7B) Making Monsters: Transgression, Stigma, and Excess 

1. Valerie Anne Burgess Sundararaj: Biting Back at Pathology: Nightbitch, the Monstrous-Feminine, and Epistemic Justice
2. Maggie Kelly: Veins of Division: Blood, Monstrosity, and Miscegenation in Coogler’s Sinners 
3. Jessica Olivares: Monstrous Excess and Ghostly Pains: Reckoning with the Opioid Crisis in the Gulf Coast
4. Christiania Mullis: “Never, I know, but half your child!”: Morality, Myth, and the Monsterization of Autism and Autistic People 

(7C) Feminist Approaches to Women’s Health: Community and Presence 

1. A.B. Sheridan: A Seat at The (e)Table: How Online Health Communities Challenge Gendered Biomedical Authority and Facilitate the Co-Production of Biomedical Knowledge
2. Kristin Trainor, Natalie Rowland, Emma Miller, Stephanie Dixon, Oscar Beltran: Health Information in the Digital Age: TikTok as a Platform for Women’s Health Communication
3. Sarah Hagaman: Reclaimed Hysteria in Feminist Standup Comedy
4. Isabel Spencer Doss: Bertha Van Hoosen’s Practice of Presence as Feminist Health Justice

 (7D) Graphic Methods in Medical Education

1. Chloe Hough: Assessing, Expanding and Promoting a Graphic Medicine Collection at an Academic Health Sciences Library
2. A. David Lewis: The Ethical and Environmental Costs of AI for Graphic Medicine
3. Maria Jose Mompean-Mejias: Making the Invisible Visible: The Pedagogical Value of Graphic Pathographies in Medical Education
4. Brian Callender, Maria Jose Mompean-Mejias: The Creation of a Comic to Teach Clinical Communication

(7E) Narrative Medicine Methods and Tools: A Case Study of Health Disparities Affecting Black Women 

 Derek McCracken, M. Anne Cunney, Olga Lucia Torres

Christiania Mullis

×

Christiania Mullis

Valerie Anne Burgess Sundararaj

×

Valerie Anne Burgess Sundararaj

Jessica Olivares

×

Jessica Olivares

Maggie Kelly

×

Maggie Kelly

Christine Cynn

×

Christine Cynn

Michael Dickinson

×

Michael Dickinson

Victoria Tucker

×

Victoria Tucker

A.B. Sheridan

×

A.B. Sheridan

Kristin Trainor

×

Kristin Trainor

Sarah Hagaman

×

Sarah Hagaman

Natalie Rowland

×

Natalie Rowland

Emma Miller

×

Emma Miller

Stephanie Dixon

×

Stephanie Dixon

Oscar Beltran

×

Oscar Beltran

Isabel Spencer Doss

×

Isabel Spencer Doss

Chloe Hough

×

Chloe Hough

A. David Lewis

×

A. David Lewis

Maria Jose Mompean-Mejias

×

Maria Jose Mompean-Mejias

Brian Callender

×

Brian Callender

Derek McCracken

×

Derek McCracken

M. Anne Cunney

×

M. Anne Cunney

Olga Lucia Torres

×

Olga Lucia Torres

(8A) AI For Health Justice

1. Kirsten Ostherr: Partnering with Patients on Trustworthy Health AI
2. Kim Gallon: Transforming Silence into Knowledge: AI, Black Women, and Breast Cancer Research
3. Bernice Hausman: Humanities at the Forefront: Developing an AI Curriculum for UME

(8B) The Body: Ethical, Aesthetical, and Technological Perspectives 

1. Naya Weems: The Evolution of Dental Aesthetics: An Artistic and Cultural Journey Through History and Race
2. Heather Glenny: Narrative Protocols: Pedagogy, Cruel Optimism, and Making Live-Broadcast Injuries “Meaningful” in the NFL
3. Eduan Breedt (presenter), Erin Tichenor, Tim Barlott: Diagnosing the Body in Physiotherapy: From Discipline to Control
4. Sabin Karki: The Physician Founder: Reengineering Empathy into Biomedical Technology Innovation

(8C) Teaching Health Justice with Science Fiction

1. Lindsey Grubbs: Predicting the Future, Critiquing the Present: Science Fiction in the Health Humanities Classroom
2. Jess Libow: Research at the End of the World: Teaching Ted Chiang’s ‘Exhalation’ in 2025
3. Rebecca Rosen: Countering Acquisitive Medicine in the Novels of Louise Erdrich and Cherie Dimaline

(8D) Narrative, Power, and Representation in Health Education 

1. Ariel Boswell, Sarah Mensink, Eric Zimmerman Zuckerman: Literature is Good Medicine: Retrospective Reflections on a Multi-disciplinary Narrative Medicine-style Workshop
2. Laura Miller: The Rhetoric of the White Coat: Power, Representation, and Health Justice in a Course on Medicine in Media
3. Chloe Hough: Stories Matter to Health Sciences Students: How they Describe the Role and Impact of Leisure Reading in their Lives

(8E) The Choreography of Care: An Embodied Ring Theory Intervention for Patient Agency and Health Justice

 Katherine Burke

Kirsten Ostherr

×

Kirsten Ostherr

Kim Gallon

×

Kim Gallon

Bernice Hausman

×

Bernice Hausman

Naya Weems

×

Naya Weems

Heather Glenny

×

Heather Glenny

Eduan Breedt

×

Eduan Breedt

Erin Tichenor

×

Erin Tichenor

Tim Barlott

×

Tim Barlott

Sabin Karki

×

Sabin Karki

Lindsey Grubbs

×

Lindsey Grubbs

Jess Libow

×

Jess Libow

Rebecca Rosen

×

Rebecca Rosen

Ariel Boswell

×

Ariel Boswell

Sarah Mensink

×

Sarah Mensink

Eric Zimmerman Zuckerman

×

Eric Zimmerman Zuckerman

Laura Miller

×

Laura Miller

Chloe Hough

×

Chloe Hough

Katherine Burke

×

Katherine Burke

(9A) Building a Health Humanities Lab

Christine Cynn, Maryam Shaw, Victoria Vidal, Olivia Washington

(9B) Disability Justice At Work

1. Christiania Mullis: Rearticulating Disability Justice within the Neurodiversity Paradigm for Individuals with Complex Medical Needs 
2. Lucile Duperron: Neurodiversity and the French Republic of Letters
3. M. Ariel Cascio: Autistic Rights and Workplace Rights: Anthropology at the Intersection of Disability, Work, and Health 
4. Evelyn Lamb: Flying Under the Weather: Inequities in Health Care Access in Aviation

 (9C) Exploring Racism and Health Justice through Literature and Media

1. Kerri Slatus: An Immortal Text? Interrogating Health Justice in Rebecca Skloot’s The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
2. Catherine Chung: “Can’t heal nothing without pain”: Reading Toni Morrison’s Beloved as a Champion for Recognition, Healing, and Justice
3. Phillip Barrish:
4. White Supremacy, White Bodies, and Medical Apartheid in Walter F. White’s The Fire in the Flint 
5. Susanna Scott: Teaching Health Justice Through The Pitt: A Case-Based Approach to Health Communication

(9D) Humanistic Practice in the Age of AI

1. Rebecca Volpe: Humanistic Practice as Resistance in an Industrialized Healthcare System
2. Joshua Park: Bidirectional Listening: Reimagining Ambient Clinical Scribes as Tools for Justice, Rhetorical Accountability, and Relational Repair
3. Jane Hartsock: Artificial Intelligence and the Physician Patient Relationship: An Applied Ethics Analysis
4. Dominic Robin: Beyond Cost and Effect: The Role of the Humanities in Interrogating Emerging Biomedical Technologies

(9E) Beyond Words: Creating Drawing Prompts for Health Humanities Education

 Michael Green

Maryam Shaw

×

Maryam Shaw

Victoria Vidal

×

Victoria Vidal

Olivia Washington

×

Olivia Washington

Christiania Mullis

×

Christiania Mullis

Lucile Duperron

×

Lucile Duperron

M. Ariel Cascio

×

M. Ariel Cascio

Evelyn Lamb

×

Evelyn Lamb

Kerri Slatus

×

Kerri Slatus

Catherine Chung

×

Catherine Chung

Phillip Barrish

×

Phillip Barrish

Susanna Scott

×

Susanna Scott

Rebecca Volpe

×

Rebecca Volpe

Joshua Park

×

Joshua Park

Jane Hartsock

×

Jane Hartsock

Dominic Robin

×

Dominic Robin

Michael Green

×

Michael Green

FLASH 4 (10A)

Collective Care

Invisible Caregivers: The Ethics of Parentification in Parental Cancer

 Arya Shah

Queering Surrogacy Ethics: Rights Expansion, Exploitation Concerns, and Politics of Taiwan’s Assisted Reproduction Act

 Jason Lee

Temoignage: Forward Motion, Perspectives, and the Lives I Carry

 Eric Jorgensen

The Crisis We Share: Narrative Frameworks, Temporality, and Future Imaginaries of the Climate “Apocalypse” 

 Catherine Pabalate

Relationships between Advance Care Planning Engagement, Patients’ Religious Practices, and Spirituality

 Robyn Axel-Adams

FLASH 5 (10B)

Technologies/ Texts

Reimagining the Antibiogram through Narrative

 Arjun Gupta

Kurt Vonnegut is Nauseated by AI Slop for Public Health Content 

 A David Lewis

Five Minutes of Freedom: How a Story Learns to Guide Itself of “So It Rewrites” 

 Monica Ross

The Intersection of AI and IVF

 Isabelle Toler, Lauren Kenst

The Bureaucracy of Care: Paperwork as a Mirror of Medical Values

 Kithmy Wickramasinghe

FLASH 6 (10C)

The Humanities in the Clinic

Marital Status is Associated with Treatment Attainment and Completion in Pancreatic Adenocarcinoma

Pamela Chopra Beniwal, Mohammad Saad Farooq, Gracia Maria Vargas, Russell A Simons, Mark S Etherington, John T Miura, Giorgos C Karakousis

Investigating Palliative Care as an Alternative Treatment Option for Patients with Severe and Enduring Anorexia Nervosa 

 Vaishnavi Khandelwal

Rethinking Regenerative Medicine

 Maggie Morris

Narrative Perspectives on Providing Gender Affirming Care in Primary Care Settings

 Sofia Lemberg

Reframing Aging: Toward a More Just and Thoughtful Understanding of Anti-Aging Aesthetic Medicine 

 Valeria Galan

Eric Jorgensen

×

Eric Jorgensen

Arya Shah

×

Arya Shah

Jason Lee

×

Jason Lee

Catherine Pabalate

×

Catherine Pabalate

Robyn Axel-Adams

×

Robyn Axel-Adams

Arjun Gupta

×

Arjun Gupta

A. David Lewis

×

A. David Lewis

Monica Ross

×

Monica Ross

Isabelle Toler

×

Isabelle Toler

Lauren Kenst

×

Lauren Kenst

Kithmy Wickramasinghe

×

Kithmy Wickramasinghe

Pamela Chopra Beniwal

×

Pamela Chopra Beniwal

Mohammad Saad Farooq

×

Mohammad Saad Farooq

Gracia Maria Vargas

×

Gracia Maria Vargas

Russell A Simons

×

Russell A Simons

Mark S Etherington

×

Mark S Etherington

John T Miura

×

John T Miura

Giorgos C Karakousis

×

Giorgos C Karakousis

Vaishnavi Khandelwal

×

Vaishnavi Khandelwal

Sofia Lemberg

×

Sofia Lemberg

Valeria Galan

×

Valeria Galan

Global Health, Storytelling, and the Ethics of Care 

Documentary Screening: Bending the Arc with Panel Discussion 

Kan-Kan Cinema 

Free to HHC Attendees 

Register here: https://www.goelevent.com/Kan-KanCinemaandBrasserie/e/BENDINGTHEARCPARTNERSHIPHEALTHHUMANITIESCONSORTIUM 

Join us for an evening of film and discussion exploring the human stories behind global health innovation, medical care in resource-limited settings, and the ethical questions that shape how healthcare is delivered around the world. 

The program will begin with a screening of the short documentary Creative Resolve: The Future of Global Health, followed by a panel discussion with leading voices in global health, medicine, and philosophy. Panelists will reflect on the realities of delivering care in underserved settings, the moral challenges of global health systems, and how storytelling and scholarship can shape more just healthcare futures. 

Following the panel, attendees are invited to stay for a full screening of the acclaimed documentary Bending the Arc, which tells the remarkable story of a group of doctors and activists whose work transformed global access to treatments for diseases such as HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis and reshaped the landscape of international health. 

Panelists 

Dr. Nicole Hassoun Professor of International Studies at Indiana University specializing in global health justice, political philosophy, and philosophy of economics. She leads the Global Health Impact Project, an initiative designed to evaluate and improve access to essential medicines for the global poor. Dr. Hassoun also advised the documentary Creative Resolve: The Future of Global Health. 

Dr. Ellen Einterz Physician and global health practitioner with more than three decades of medical leadership in West and Central Africa. Dr. Einterz directed hospitals in Nigeria and Cameroon and served as medical coordinator of an Ebola Treatment Unit in Liberia during the 2014–2015 epidemic. She currently serves as clinic physician for the Marion County Public Health Department’s refugee program and maintains affiliations with the Indiana University School of Medicine and the Fairbanks School of Public Health. She is the author of Life and Death in Kolofata: An American Doctor in Africa. 

Event Schedule 

Kan-Kan Cinema 1258 Windsor St., Indianapolis, IN 46201 Free parking available in the lot. 

5:00 PM – King Dough opens for dinner (vegan and gluten-free options available)

5:45 PM – Doors open

6:15–6:35 PM – Screening: Creative Resolve: The Future of Global Health (20 min)

6:45–7:30 PM – Panel Discussion with Dr. Ellen Einterz and Dr. Nicole Hassoun

7:40–9:20 PM – Screening: Bending the Arc 

(11A) A Social Justice Framework for Neurodivergent Adults: Greater Inclusion and Supported Engagement

 Emily Carnes, Nanette Elster, Kayhan Parsi

(11B) Mental Health: Cultural Scripts and Artistic Representations 

1. Richard Gunderman: Loneliness: Lessons from Vincent Van Gogh’s Correspondence 
2. Antoinette Polito: Global Voices, Local Minds: Cultural Scripts in the Auditory Hallucinations of Schizophrenia 
3. Steven Schlozman: Using the Post-Modern Horror film to Increase Empathy and Decrease Othering for Individuals with Severe Mental Illness and Decrease Othering in Psychiatry and Psychology
4. Nagasriya Ramisetty: bit-ter-sweet: Reflections on Asian American Mental Health Stigma through Research-Based Reflective Poetry

(11C) After Dobbs: Navigating Polarity through Narrative

1. Anita Wohlmann: Reading Abortion: Health Care Education and Research in polarized times
2. Brian Callender, Michael Green, Lisa Harris: From the Frontlines of Abortion Care
3. Liz Bowen: Disability Ethics after Dobbs: Reckoning with Reproductive Ambivalence in Patricia Lockwood’s No One is Talking about This 
4. Hailey Haffey: Post-Colonial Divergence in LGBTQIA+ Health-Related Policy: Predictions and Pathways in Irish and American Modernist Literature 

(11D) A “Good Death”: Culture, Narrative, and End-of-Life Care

1. Kimberly Adams: “Freddie’s Dead”: Examining the Cultural Nuances of Race and Ethics in Emergency Medicine End-of-Life Care
2. Angelyn Loh: Insights from The Farewell: Navigating Chinese Cultural Perspectives Toward Truth Telling and End-of-Life Care 
3. Emily Beckman: From Stories to Solutions: How Medical Humanities Informs Palliative Care Education in Uganda
4. Chad Childers: Can Narrative Save the Advance Directive?

(11E) Advancing Black Women’s Knowledge of Nontraditional Wellness Practices Objectives

 Crystal Thompson, Valerie McConnell

Emily Carnes

×

Emily Carnes

Nanette Elster

×

Nanette Elster

Kayhan Parsi

×

Kayhan Parsi

Richard Gunderman

×

Richard Gunderman

Antoinette Polito

×

Antoinette Polito

Steven Schlozman

×

Steven Schlozman

Nagasriya Ramisetty

×

Nagasriya Ramisetty

After Dobbs

×

After Dobbs

Anita Wohlmann

×

Anita Wohlmann

Brian Callender

×

Brian Callender

Liz Bowen

×

Liz Bowen

Hailey Haffey

×

Hailey Haffey

Kimberly Adams

×

Kimberly Adams

Angelyn Loh

×

Angelyn Loh

Emily Beckman

×

Emily Beckman

Chad Childers

×

Chad Childers

Crystal Thompson

×

Crystal Thompson

Valerie McConnell

×

Valerie McConnell

(12A) Empathy and Affective Justice in Health Education 

1. Mishaal Omer: What Remains After Loss: Keats, Death, and Reimagining Personhood in Health Care 
2. Scott Calhoun: “I Gotta do Something”: Poetic Justice in the Songs of U2 for Healthcare Education
3. Ryan Weber: Toward a Socio-Developmental Model of Affective Justice: Reframing Professional Identity Formation in the Face of Uncertainty
4. Katherine Burke: Humanizing Medical Education: The Role of the Medical Humanities in Fostering Emotional Intelligence and Health Justice

(12B) From Humility to Justice: Reimagining Listening, Authorship, and Care

1. Sayantani DasGupta: The Limits of Narrative Humility: Opacity as Resistance
2. Amanda Caleb: The Socioecological Model of Humility as a Framework for Narrative Justice
3. Caroline Hensley: Cripping the Chart: Veteran Patient Storytelling as Disability Justice for Medicine
4. Melanie E. Gregg: Patient-Authored Notes (PANs): Reimagining the Medical Record through Narrative Humility and Gertrude Stein’s Poetics of Refusal

(12C) Here Our Stories Get Told: Creative Writing’s Role in Health Humanities

 Jonathan C. Chou, Rachel Kowalsky, Renée Nicholson, Rachel Weaver

(12D) Collective Healing through Co-Creation

1. Mallory Minerson: Indigenous Canadian considerations for the ACE Questionnaire with Female Inmates in the Northwest Territories Aesthetic Possibilities for Holistic Rehabilitation Praxis
2. Rose Jean-Baptiste: Give Voice and Create Safe Space Black Birthing Heals
3. Andrea Charise and Shanice Chin (presenting), Vijay Saravanamuthu, Esi Aya, Esther-Joelle Asare, Pruthuvie Chandradhas, Gloria Umogbai: Digital Kuumba: Community-Engaged Digital Storytelling to Address Structural Racism and Ageism in Health Research
4. Emily D Tisdale: Lived Experience as Health Justice: Reclaiming Narrative Power in Aging and Care

(12E) Beginning Digital Health Humanities Research: Low Code Approaches to Historical Data 

 Sean Purcell

Ryan Weber

×

Ryan Weber

Scott Calhoun

×

Scott Calhoun

Mishaal Omer

×

Mishaal Omer

Katherine Burke

×

Katherine Burke

Sayantani DasGupta

×

Sayantani DasGupta

Amanda Caleb

×

Amanda Caleb

Caroline Hensley

×

Caroline Hensley

Melanie E. Gregg

×

Melanie E. Gregg

Jonathan C. Chou

×

Jonathan C. Chou

Rachel Kowalsky

×

Rachel Kowalsky

Renée Nicholson

×

Renée Nicholson

Rachel Weaver

×

Rachel Weaver

Mallory Minerson

×

Mallory Minerson

Rose Jean-Baptiste

×

Rose Jean-Baptiste

Andrea Charise

×

Andrea Charise

Vijay Saravanamuthu

×

Vijay Saravanamuthu

Esi Aya

×

Esi Aya

Shanice Chin

×

Shanice Chin

Esther- Joelle

×

Esther- Joelle

Pruthuvie Chandradhas

×

Pruthuvie Chandradhas

Gloria Umogbai

×

Gloria Umogbai

Digital Kuumba

×

Digital Kuumba

Emily D Tisdale

×

Emily D Tisdale

Sean Purcell

×

Sean Purcell

(13A) The Scholar as Patient: A Panel Discussion 

 Amanda Miller, Sarah Pfohl, Laura Santurri, Sarah Wareham

(13B) Infertility Justice & The Role of the Reproductive Arts 

 Jacqueline Huddle, Elizabeth Horn, and Maria T Novotny

(13C) Conscience and Its Double: Pedagogical Uses of Performative Readings from the Conscience Project 

 Matthew R Galvin, Margaret Gaffney

Amanda Miller

×

Amanda Miller

Sarah Pfohl

×

Sarah Pfohl

Laura Santurri

×

Laura Santurri

Sarah Wareham

×

Sarah Wareham

Jacqueline Huddle

×

Jacqueline Huddle

Elizabeth Horn

×

Elizabeth Horn

Maria T Novotny

×

Maria T Novotny

Matthew R Galvin

×

Matthew R Galvin

Margaret Gaffney

×

Margaret Gaffney