Storytelling as Pharmakon in Premodernity and Beyond: Training the New Generation of Researchers in Health Humanities

StoryPharm will deliver an international, interdisciplinary, and intersectoral programme of doctoral training recruiting 15 fellows, who will become highly skilled cultural historians specialising in premodern intellectual and healthcare worlds (Greco-Roman, Sasanian, Byzantine, Western Medieval, and Islamic).

Acquiring interdisciplinary knowledge in Classics, Medieval Studies, Narrative Medicine, Health Humanities, and Medievalism, along with transferable skills, the fellows will be able to use, develop, and deploy cutting-edge approaches to storytelling and its ethical ramifications for scientific, professional, business, healthcare, and social purposes.

The consortium of StoryPharm will comprise 5 universities across Europe (UCY, UNI BA, LU, CU, & UNI SA).

It will also have 7 associated partners including non-academic and non-profit institutions, businesses, and health and pharmaceutical actors.StoryPharm’s research objectives and training programme, including secondments in both academic and non-academic environments, will expose the fellows to a variety of research, training, and work settings.

By integrating interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary methodologies and engaging leading experts from various fields, StoryPharm will deliver an innovative PhD programme that will go beyond the standard PhD curriculum in the Humanities.

The combination of academic and hands-on training associated with exposure to diverse settings will produce a critical mass of young specialists with exceptional career prospects in academia, industry, and the healthcare sector.

These specialists will be ideally positioned to (1) achieve ground-breaking research results; (2) meet current trends and needs in the job market; (3) work towards establishing a human-centred medical system; and (4) create better and more resilient societies.

StoryPharm will establish the field of premodern Health Humanities and address the need for a dialogic and empathetic approach in the healthcare sector.