We tend to see medicine as a strictly scientific sector, but the arts and humanities are essential when it comes to educating our doctors and caring for patients and the planet. Doctor and Professor of Medical Education Ian Fussell joins me to talk about:

• What is medical humanities
• How and why we can use arts and humanities in medical education
• The links between planetary health, medical health, and social justice
• Why medical and scientific researchers need artists and humanities specialists
• How the humanities helped the medical field during the Covid-19 pandemic
• Medicine as an enabler of the arts and humanities

Find Bryony @BF_Armstrong
Find the pod @wtppod_
Find Ian at the University of Exeter Medical School

Artwork: Riduwan Molla https://www.canva.com/p/riduwanmolla/
Music: Madaan Mansij https://www.pond5.com/artist/mansij_tubescreamer

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Although there has been scientific consensus on the climate crisis for decades, humans have been slow to respond to its urgency. Environmental humanities researcher Conor Brennan joins me to talk about: 

• What is environmental humanities?
• How can evironmental humanities help to solve the climate crisis?
• The role of popular culture in communicating the climate crisis
• The problems that arise when we take arts and humanities out of the equations 
• How art convinces people to change their behaviour about the climate crisis
• How has the climate crisis affected literature and aesthetic experiments?
• Why climate activism should include humanities teaching in schools/universities

Read "The Humanities in the UK Today" report by the Higher Education Policy Institute
Other sources discussed:

• Edward Said, "Jane Austen and Empire", Culture and Imperialism (1993)
• Richard Powers, The Overstory (2018)
• Kim Stanley Robinson, The Ministry for the Future (2020)
• Olga Tokarczuk, Drive Your Plough Over the Bones of the Dead (2009)

Find Bryony @BF_Armstrong
Find the pod @wtppod_
Find Conor

Artwork: Riduwan Molla https://www.canva.com/p/riduwanmolla/
Music: Madaan Mansij https://www.pond5.com/artist/mansij_tubescreamer

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

In this time when "fake news" and "alternative facts" have become buzzwords, arts and humanities are more important than ever. Professional fact checker Sarah Turnnidge from Full Fact joins Bryony Armstrong to discuss:

• How her humanities background prepared her for being a professional fact checker
• Academic English as a lens to look at different topics
• Humanities as a natural place for the study of misinformation
• The role of AI in misinformation and how humanities can analyse that
• How humanities teaches us to use evidence
• The role of narratives in (mis)information
• The fact checking that happens within the humanities

Find Bryony @BF_Armstrong
Find Sarah @sarah_turnnidge

Artwork: Riduwan Molla https://www.canva.com/p/riduwanmolla/
Music: Madaan Mansij https://www.pond5.com/artist/mansij_tubescreamer

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.