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A blurred collection of figures dancing

A six-part takeover on The Polyphony bringing Sport and Exercise Sciences into conversation with the Medical Humanities.

The Discovery Research Platform for Medical Humanities has a new home. You can find the The Platform website here.

We are pleased to announce the publication of a six-part takeover series on The Polyphony entitled ‘Medical Humanities and Sport and Exercise Sciences: An Invitation to Dialogue’ guest edited by Cassandra Phoenix and Rebecca Olive.

The articles are an outcome from an online workshop hosted by the Moving Bodies Lab in September 2023, which included participants from the Australasian Health and Medical Humanities Network, the Black Health and Humanities Network, the Women’s Marginalised Health Network (WoMaHN), and the International Society of Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health


The workshop was an international collaboration with the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences for Health (HASH) network in Australia.  

The takeover series includes:

Moving Bodies Across Sport and Exercise Sciences
Guest editors Cassandra Phoenix and Rebecca Olive introduce emergent perspectives on bringing medical humanities and sport and exercise sciences into conversation.

Reframing Menopause Beyond Biomedicine
Cassandra Phoenix and Marjolein de Boer use an interdisciplinary approach to discuss the relationship between menopausal women’s experiences of movement and sexuality.

Performing Sport
Véronique Chance and Claire Warden explore the border crossing between sport and art practice.

Through an Open Window: Sport and the Medical Humanities
Rebecca Olive and Clare Hickman unpack the entangled histories of sports and exercise sciences and the medical humanities.

Dancing Bodies
Megan Girdwood considers how dance has been interpreted in both pathological and therapeutic terms across medical narratives

Performing Dialogues between Sport and Exercise Sciences and Medical Humanities
Emily Tupper applies the concept of “performance” to the intersection of sport and exercise sciences and medical humanities. 

Mapping the Moving Body: Diasporic and Disciplinary Crossings
Arya Thampuran explores the role of embodied movement, cultural memory, and mental health through a decolonial prism.


It is a pleasure to be able to share published versions of the conversations that took place at the first workshop from the Moving Bodies Lab and to promote the work of these interesting scholars. Thank you to everyone who contributed to the series and the workshop, and to Chase Ledin, Editor in Chief at The Polyphony, for his editorial guidance and support.

Find out more about the Moving Bodies Lab
Explore more articles on The Polyphony