PKU-UCL inter-university module in the Cross-Cultural Health Humanities

The new module brings together the partner universities in a dialogue that will expose graduate students at the Yenching Academy to cross-cultural approaches to some of the most pressing issues facing health and healthcare in China from a humanities point of view. The module will be taught in the form of ten seminars. It will begin with an introduction to the nature of cross-cultural Health Humanities, and will then focus on the key disciplines of Medical History, Medical Anthropology, Philosophy and Ethics of Healthcare, Ecocities, and Global Health. Each of the seminars will survey the overarching issues that arise in each discipline, and then concentrate on one critical theme such as 'the historical transmission of medical ideas along the Silk Road', 'cross-cultural narratives of madness and disability', 'reproductive health', 'health systems', 'food and medicine, and food safety', 'health and the environment', etc. An existing strength of our joint teaching has been the use of the visual arts as a way of facilitating discussion with students, and in particular the use of film in teaching the Health Humanities, which has already proved very successful and popular in the centres of Medical and Health Humanities in both universities. The overall aim of this module is to cultivate global outlooks and to model a co-creating of wise solutions to enduring and emerging global problems in health, providing students with the best possible preparation for global lives and careers.

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Set in the beautiful Peking University campus, Yenching Academy is the jewel in the crown of the university's international teaching programme and attracts graduate students from all around the world. Its aim is to train tomorrow's leaders in the historical and contemporary cultures of China. Generous bursaries are provided for the best applicants worldwide, with guaranteed places for key universities. UCL graduates have already received four of those bursaries.

Further information on the Yenching Academy programme and details of how to apply are available on the Academy website: http://yenchingacademy.org/.

Hear what UCL History graduate - and 2015-2016 Yenching Scholar - James Ashcroft has to say about the programme: