The Health Humanities Research Group takes an interdisciplinary approach to topics such as the representation of health and illness in texts, the semiotics of health and illness, the interaction between health, culture and religion, and the language of health and illness. Its members span the fields of linguistics, literature, media studies, and public health.
The group additionally hosts research seminars, talks, and reading groups. Recent events include seminars on communication issues in medical encounters; disfigurement, discrimination, and the media; and applying corpus linguistics to healthcare communication.
The group builds on members’ previous successes in external funding (such as the National Natural Science Foundation project ‘Leveraging behavioral science to augment voluntary blood donation in China’) and publications on health and media (JOMEC: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies), mental health and literature (Modernist Cultures), healthcare and social context (Global Public Health; Ethnicity & Health), and historical perspectives on health and illness (English Studies; Neophilologus; Public Understanding of Science; Journal of Science Communication). The group is currently involved in editing a book titled Health Cultures in the Asian Global South.
Dr Ling Zhang
Ling Zhang is an assistant professor of cinema studies at State University of New York, Purchase College. She received her Ph.D. in cinema and media studies from The University of Chicago. She is completing her book manuscript, Unruly Sounds: Chinese Cinema and Transnational Acoustic Culture, 1929-1949. She is also the coeditor of the volume Medical Culture in East Asian Cinema and Media (to be published in 2024). Zhang specializes in film sound and acoustic media, Chinese-language cinema, documentary, and Third World cultural exchange.
Dr Xiaoqian Ji
Xiaoqian Ji is a historian of China. She got her Ph.D. in History from Johns Hopkins University in 2023 and is currently a visiting research fellow at the Centre for Culture, Communication, and Society. Her research interests lie in the intersection of medicine and technology, material and visual culture, and writing and publishing. She is revising her dissertation, “More than Beauty: Cosmetics, Gender, and Material Life in Early Modern China,” into a book manuscript. It uses a single class of objects – cosmetics – to connect the histories of material culture, medicine, gender, and the senses; and explore the transmission and production of knowledge, and technologies of gender in early modern China.
Virtual/Visiting Fellows 2023-24
Professor Enongene Sone
Enongene Mirabeau Sone is Professor of African Literature and Folklore Studies at Walter Sisulu University in South Africa. He is a C rated scholar and researcher by the South African National Research Foundation (NRF) and a Catalyst Fellow of the Centre for African Studies of the University of Edinburgh in the United Kingdom. Prof. Sone holds a BA, MA and MPhil in African literature from the University of Dschang in Cameroon and completed his PhD in African oral literature studies from the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. He has taught in many universities in Africa including the University of Dschang in Cameroon, University of Burundi, University of Swaziland (Eswatini) and the University of KwaZulu-Natal. He has published extensively on various aspects of African oral literature and folklore in reputable academic journals across the globe. His collaboration with leading world and African folklorists led to the publication of two seminal books in Oral literature and Folklore studies: The Challenge of Folklore to the Humanities(2021) edited by Dan Ben-Amos, and The Palgrave Handbook of African Oral Traditions and Folklore (2021) edited by Akintunde Akinyemi and Toyin Falola. His research interests are in African literature and folklore studies, orality studies, popular culture, medical and environmental humanities, post-colonial discourse, mythology and place symbolism (in oral and written literatures), literary entomology, eco-culture and African (literary) aesthetics and philosophy. His several research efforts and academic experiences have established him as an authority in the above research disciplines.
Dr Chao Fang
Dr Chao Fang is a Lecturer in Sociology at the School of Law and Social Justice at the University of Liverpool. He also serves as the Deputy Director of the Centre for Ageing and the Life Course. He has published widely on ageing, loneliness, end of life, bereavement, chronic illness, and public health policy, in an international context. His current projects include exploring the impact of intergenerational engagements on the wellbeing of older people and children, identity loss in chronic illness, as well as quality of death in China. Chao also holds a 2024 cohort XJTLU Visiting Fellowship to conduct a project exploring the use of AI-facilitated reminiscence on the lived experience of ageing. Alongside his role at Liverpool, he is also a Visiting Research Fellow at the Centre for Death and Society at the University of Bath and the Institute of Education at University College London.
The Health Humanities Research Group takes an interdisciplinary approach to topics such as the representation of health and illness in texts, the semiotics of health and illness, the interaction between health, culture and religion, and the language of health and illness. Its members span the fields of linguistics, literature, media studies, and public health.
The group additionally hosts research seminars, talks, and reading groups. Recent events include seminars on communication issues in medical encounters; disfigurement, discrimination, and the media; and applying corpus linguistics to healthcare communication.
The group builds on members’ previous successes in external funding (such as the National Natural Science Foundation project ‘Leveraging behavioral science to augment voluntary blood donation in China’) and publications on health and media (JOMEC: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies), mental health and literature (Modernist Cultures), healthcare and social context (Global Public Health; Ethnicity & Health), and historical perspectives on health and illness (English Studies; Neophilologus; Public Understanding of Science; Journal of Science Communication). The group is currently involved in editing a book titled Health Cultures in the Asian Global South.
Members
Virtual/Visiting Fellows 2022-23
Dr Ling Zhang
Ling Zhang is an assistant professor of cinema studies at State University of New York, Purchase College. She received her Ph.D. in cinema and media studies from The University of Chicago. She is completing her book manuscript, Unruly Sounds: Chinese Cinema and Transnational Acoustic Culture, 1929-1949. She is also the coeditor of the volume Medical Culture in East Asian Cinema and Media (to be published in 2024). Zhang specializes in film sound and acoustic media, Chinese-language cinema, documentary, and Third World cultural exchange.
Dr Xiaoqian Ji
Xiaoqian Ji is a historian of China. She got her Ph.D. in History from Johns Hopkins University in 2023 and is currently a visiting research fellow at the Centre for Culture, Communication, and Society. Her research interests lie in the intersection of medicine and technology, material and visual culture, and writing and publishing. She is revising her dissertation, “More than Beauty: Cosmetics, Gender, and Material Life in Early Modern China,” into a book manuscript. It uses a single class of objects – cosmetics – to connect the histories of material culture, medicine, gender, and the senses; and explore the transmission and production of knowledge, and technologies of gender in early modern China.
Virtual/Visiting Fellows 2023-24
Professor Enongene Sone
Enongene Mirabeau Sone is Professor of African Literature and Folklore Studies at Walter Sisulu University in South Africa. He is a C rated scholar and researcher by the South African National Research Foundation (NRF) and a Catalyst Fellow of the Centre for African Studies of the University of Edinburgh in the United Kingdom. Prof. Sone holds a BA, MA and MPhil in African literature from the University of Dschang in Cameroon and completed his PhD in African oral literature studies from the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. He has taught in many universities in Africa including the University of Dschang in Cameroon, University of Burundi, University of Swaziland (Eswatini) and the University of KwaZulu-Natal. He has published extensively on various aspects of African oral literature and folklore in reputable academic journals across the globe. His collaboration with leading world and African folklorists led to the publication of two seminal books in Oral literature and Folklore studies: The Challenge of Folklore to the Humanities(2021) edited by Dan Ben-Amos, and The Palgrave Handbook of African Oral Traditions and Folklore (2021) edited by Akintunde Akinyemi and Toyin Falola. His research interests are in African literature and folklore studies, orality studies, popular culture, medical and environmental humanities, post-colonial discourse, mythology and place symbolism (in oral and written literatures), literary entomology, eco-culture and African (literary) aesthetics and philosophy. His several research efforts and academic experiences have established him as an authority in the above research disciplines.
Dr Chao Fang
Dr Chao Fang is a Lecturer in Sociology at the School of Law and Social Justice at the University of Liverpool. He also serves as the Deputy Director of the Centre for Ageing and the Life Course. He has published widely on ageing, loneliness, end of life, bereavement, chronic illness, and public health policy, in an international context. His current projects include exploring the impact of intergenerational engagements on the wellbeing of older people and children, identity loss in chronic illness, as well as quality of death in China. Chao also holds a 2024 cohort XJTLU Visiting Fellowship to conduct a project exploring the use of AI-facilitated reminiscence on the lived experience of ageing. Alongside his role at Liverpool, he is also a Visiting Research Fellow at the Centre for Death and Society at the University of Bath and the Institute of Education at University College London.