Scholars working in the field of medical humanities and narrative medicine have long worked under the assumption that illness narratives help to foreground patients’ perspectives in medical training and practice. What happens when the special medium of comics, as opposed to text alone, is taken into account with its unique way of depicting bodily experiences related to illness, disability, therapy, and care? How can comics be included in medical school curricula, training for health care professionals, and communication with patients and their family members? What examples of experiences from Germany, other European countries, and the USA might prove helpful? Participants will focus on these questions during the workshop.

Experts from various fields and professional backgrounds will give talks and contribute to discussions at the workshop, including medical professionals, historians of medicine, medical ethics specialists, literary scholars, comic scholars, science education and communication experts, and comic artists and authors. Speakers from Denmark, Germany, England, and the USA will be there to present.

The workshop is organized by the PathoGraphics research team at Freie Universität Berlin, Friedrich Schlegel Graduate School of Literary Studies, a project funded by the Einstein Foundation Berlin. Professor Irmela Marei Krüger-Fürhoff leads the project, which also put together the 2017 exhibit “SICK! Kranksein im Comic | Reclaiming Illness through Comics” at the Berlin Museum of Medical History at the Charité. The exhibit has since traveled around Germany and Austria where it has been on display in museums and hospitals.