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Our Labs

The Discovery Research Platform for Medical Humanities hosts six Labs for catalysing new ways to research health and human experience.

Our Labs will use creative and experimental approaches to generate new research questions on topics such as chronic pain, addiction, mental health, movement, neurodiversity and disability, as well as exploring the links between reading, narrative and well-being.
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Neon coloured test tubes

Our Labs

Our methods Labs bring together expertise around measurement, movement, affect, cognition, narrative, and visual arts.

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Narrative Practices

Developing new and critical approaches to the use of narrative and story-telling in conversations about health. Led by Laura Mazzoli Smith and Veronica Heney.
Silhouettes of three people sat talking in front of a lake

Visual and Material

Exploring the new questions and perspectives on health that are generated when visual & material culture is taken as a starting point. Led by Fiona Johnstone.
Vintage pharmacy bottles

Moving Bodies

Rethinking dominant approaches to moving bodies in public health and wellbeing contexts. Led by Cassandra Phoenix.
A wooden man with shadow

Narrative and Cognition

Bringing together narrative theorists, cognitive scientists, and narrative creators across media and technologies to explore and co-model cognition. Led by Marco Bernini.
Narrative Cognition

Measurement

Exploring the political, historical and philosophical meanings of measurement and its function in medicine and health. Led by Coreen McGuire and Alex Broadbent.
Spoons_Measurement Lab

Affective Experience

Using the humanities and social sciences to generate new insights into the relationship between emotion and health. Led by Corinne Saunders and Fraser Riddell.
A grid of faces showing different emotions. The faces belong to a white girl with long blond hair.
Time lapse photography of square containers at night

Our Sites

Our work spans three physical sites: The DeepEnd (St Anthony's Health Centre), The WellSpring (Recovery College Collective) and The Festival (Edinburgh International Book Festival).

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Get In Touch

For general enquiries, please contact us by email.

Discovery Research Platform for Medical Humanities

Institute for Medical Humanities
Durham University

Confluence Building
Lower Mountjoy
Stockton Road
Durham
DH1 3LE

T. +44(0)191 334 8277