philosophy of medicine

I’m preparing a grant application for the Danish Humanities Research Council, which if successful will include a PhD position in science communication/media studies. The project investigates ontologies of mind/brain in neuroscientific studies of hunger and obesity, via philosophical analysis, media studies, and exhibit making. The specific direction of the science communication/media studies PhD will be developed by the candidate within this framework. The project is […]

The Nordic Research Network for Medical History (in which we play a minor role) is organising a workshop on ‘Categories and Concepts in Health, Medicine and Society’ to take place in Umeå in northern Sweden, 15–17 March 2012 (very chilly place at that time of year, but also a charming academic town with birchs tree all over and […]

Many of the most essential things in recent biomedicine are too small or too fast for the naked eye to see. At the session The biomedical invisibles, at the conference in September, Henrik Treimo and Victoria Höög addressed the issue of how to represent such invisibles. How can we make objects, which escape an immediate […]

At last month’s conference, Jan-Eric Olsén talked about the tendency in contemporary medicine and society in general to constantly monitor our own health. Jan-Eric pointed to the fact that there is a fine line between monitoring and surveillance, and that patients should be aware of that before uncritically embracing these new technologies. Read Jan-Eric’s full […]

In October, I’m participating in ‘an interdisciplinary workshop for young scholars‘ at the University of Lübeck, organized by the Institute for the History of Medicine and Science Studies at the University of Lübeck, in cooperation with the Institut für Mensch, Ethik und Wissenschaft in Berlin. The workshop title is “Good life better – anthropological, sociological […]

As mentioned in a previous blogpost, I’m currently doing a ph.d.-project here at Medical Museion concerning the history of the concept of successful aging in neuroscience and its relation to ideas about cognitive enhancement. Part of my work, therefore, is going to conferences like this one, held in Copenhagen last week: The conference was arranged […]

This is the last part of my project description for the Ph.D.-project called “A genealogical study of the concept of ’successful aging’ and its relation to the idea of ‘human enhancement”. See the first two parts here and here.  ’Successful aging’ in the neurosciences and the link to ‘cognitive enhancement’ In order to narrow the […]

This is the second part of my project description for the Ph.D.-project called ‘A genealogical study of the concept of ’successful aging’ and its relation to the idea of ‘human enhancement’. See the first part here. The relation between ’successful aging’ and ‘human enhancement’ The project will particularly focus on an analysis of the possible connection between […]

I’ve just begun my ph.d.-project here at Medical Museion. Titled “A genealogical study of the concept of successful aging and its relation to the idea of human enhancement”, the project is financed by the new Center for Healthy Aging at the Faculty of Health Sciences. Below is the first part of the project description concerning the notion of […]

Historians of medicine have largely eschewed notions like ‘progress’ and ‘advance’ in medical science and medical practice in favour of more historicist and relativistic understandings. But for medical practitioners and patients alike, the notions of ‘progress’ and ‘advance’ usually make more sense. Some philosophers too think it is time to refocus on the idea of […]