History: Medical and Health Humanities 

The specialisation in Medical and Health Humanities is a unique interdisciplinary specialisation that is taught in English. The specialisation is jointly offered by the Faculties of Humanities of VU Amsterdam and the University of Amsterdam, as well as by the Faculties of Medicine of the universities of Maastricht, Amsterdam and Rotterdam. Your courses will be taught by top scholars from universities across the country, as well as by professionals who are involved in medical history in other contexts, including museums and websites.

The programme combines the history of health and medicine with a wide array of arts and humanities approaches. Classes explore the different ways that bodies and minds have been investigated and understood, and how these various ways of knowing shape everyday life, medical practice, and public health policy. Participants learn to contextualise medical ideas in the time and culture, and to analyse a diverse range of sources, including historical artefacts, comics and films, medical texts and health journalism. Drawing on methods from across the disciplines, students will broaden their tools of investigation beyond the written word to also consider the sounds, smells, and the look and feel of the past and its lessons and legacies in the present day.