PULSE Network: Medical and Health Humanities
Coordinator
Research description
An interdisciplinary group connecting the history of health and illness with the broader field of medical and health humanities, and including the history of sexuality, the body, the emotions, food and environmental history, mental health humanities, disability studies, arts for health, behavioural and cultural insights in health, and public health humanities. Researchers come from a wide range of disciplinary backgrounds and often work collaboratively to integrate methods and approaches for interdisciplinary analysis of ideas about normal and abnormal bodies and minds, and notions of wellness and sickness, examining how they change in different historical and cultural contexts. Projects address the history and legacies of medical ideas and practices, and the development of publichealth systems and policies, as well as the connections between the arts, culture, health and wellbeing. The research goes beyond medical perspectives to consider embodiment over the life cycle, patient perspectives, and the broader array of factors that undermine or promote health, from climate change and violence to transportation, housing, and global food systems. Output includes collaborative activities with nursing and medical professionals, community groups, and the heritage sector, and engagement in medical education and health policymaking.
Activities
PULSE seminar series, interdisciplinary conferences and workshops, hosting visiting researchers, collaborative funding applications, and developing/expanding theme-specific networks including Mental Health Humanities (Institute for Mental Health, University of Birmingham, Wynter); Stimulus Network for Arts and Health (NL, Parry/Roei); Music, Medicine and History (Hoegaerts) and Public Health Humanities Network (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Parry)
Publications:
Kruizinga, S. (2025). War of Want: The Impact of the First World War on the Global Food Economy. In M. E. Cox, & C. Morelon (Eds.), Hunger Redraws the Map: Food, State, and Society in the Era of the First World War (pp. 18-43). (Studies in the Social and Cultural History of Modern Warfare). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009441278.002
Kruizinga, S. F., & De Schaepdrijver, S. (2025). Brussel. Beschermheren van de bezette hoofdstad, 1914-1918. In N. Bouras, J. H. Furnée, H. Greefs, J. Haemers, M. van der Heijden, & A.-L. Van Bruaene (Eds.), Wereldsteden van de Lage Landen. Stadsgeschiedenis van Nederland en België (pp. 321-327). Atlas Contact.
Hoegaerts, J. A. I. (2025). Reading Medical and Musical Manuals as Recordings of 19th century Vocality. In R. Grotjahn, M. Kob, & K. Martensen (Eds.), Technologien des Singens: Ergebnisse des Forschungsprojekts und Beiträge zum Detmolder Symposion 2018 (Vol. 3, pp. 199-209). Allitera Verlag.
Hoegaerts, J. A. I. (2026). Feeling human: Emotion, experience and disability in cultural history. In W. Ruberg, & J. Hung (Eds.), Cultural History for a Changing World (pp. 131). Bloomsbury.
Presentations:
Jesse van Amelsvoort & Bram Mellink, ‘“NO MORE SEX!!!!!”. Dutch AIDS pioneers and the burden of responsibility (1982-1987)’, Conference ‘Queer Pasts’, Copenhagen, 23 May 2025.
Bram Mellink, ‘Risk, Uncertainty and Loss. The early AIDS epidemic in a “responsible society” (1981-1987)’, workshop ‘Workshop: Archives, Memory, and the Cultural Politics of HIV/AIDS’, 2-4 February 2026, St. Gallen and Zürich, Switzerland.
Bram Mellink, ‘Aids: langzaam stijgend water?’ Toespraak bij het afscheid van Adrie Heijnen als huisarts, 19 september 2025.
Manon S. Parry, “The New Normal: Fragmented Histories of Mental Health Care in The Netherlands,” Museums and Mental health: Mapping Connections in Europe,” online conference, December 2025.
Manon S. Parry, (Keynote), “Interdisciplinary Exchange: Cancer and the Medical Humanities,” Oncology Graduate School Amsterdam Retreat, Zeeland, October 2025
Manon S. Parry, “Iconic Objects and Image Problems: Nursing Heritage and the Recruitment and Retention Crisis,” ARTEFACTS, Oslo, Norway, October 2025 (presented by Hugo
Schalkwijk)
Manon S. Parry, “Collecting and Interpreting the Invisible and Undervalued: Nursing Heritage,” International Association of Medical Museums and Collections, Ingolstadt, Germany, September 2025
Manon S. Parry, (Invited), Panelist, Workshop, “Research Network on European Histories of HIV/AIDS,” University of Amsterdam, June 2025
Arjan Nuijten, “Dutch Courage: Drugs & Alcohol en het Nederlandse Leger,” University of Amsterdam, November 25, 2025.
Grants:
Bram Mellink: main applicant, “A caring society? A social history of HIV and AIDS in the Netherlands since the 1980s”, NWO Open Competition (granted June 2025): €400.000.
Manon Parry: Co-applicant, “Rethinking RECIST: The Origins, Impact, and Future of Modern Response Criteria in Cancer Trials,” with Vera Keil, PhD MD, Department of Neuroradiology,
Amsterdam University Medical Center (AUMC); Stefano Trebeschi PhD, Department of Radiology, Netherlands Cancer Institute; GROW School of Oncology and Reproduction, Maastricht University; Illaa Smesseim MD, Department of Thoracic Oncology, Netherlands Cancer Institute (NKI). Healthy Future Seed Grant, University of Amsterdam: €35,000.
Activities
Event Organisation
Manon S. Parry, Arjan Nuijten, Rebecca Wynter, co-organizers: History, Health and Healing Summer School for PhD and ResMA students, “Sensing the History of Medicine,” Summer
2025
Manon S. Parry and Rebecca Wynter, co-organizers: COST workshop, “Valuable and Healing: Heritage Collections for and with Healthcare,” Rijksmuseum Boerhaave, Leiden, NL,
September 2025
Manon S. Parry, Hosting visiting researchers: Edward Fischer, Vanderbilt University/Cultural Contexts of Health and Anna Woodham, Kings College London
Ongoing:
-Development of funding applications for national and European funding streams.
-Organizing conferences and workshops including regular PULSE seminars.
-Developing/expanding theme-specific networks including Mental Health Humanities
(Institute for Mental Health, University of Birmingham, Rebecca Wynter); Stimulus Network
for Arts and Health (NL, Parry/Roei); Music, Medicine and History (Hoegaerts) and Public
Health Humanities Network (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Parry)
Parry: DisPLACE digital disability history: https://www.displace.nl/
Hoegaerts: Music, Medicine and History Network
Rebecca Wynter: Twentieth-Century Psy-Disciplines and LGBTQIA+ Communities Network
(Birkbeck, University of London, Universities of Central Lancashire, Edinburgh, and Surrey),
supported by Society for the Social History of Medicine and Wellcome
Rebecca Wynter: Mental Health Humanities ECR Network, with funding from the British
Academy
Rebecca Wynter: Advisory work for Wellcome with colleagues at the Birkbeck and Queen
Mary, University of London, and the Royal College of Nursing
Lisa Haushofer: Skin Ecologies Network, Applied Medical History Working Group,
Consortium for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine.
Related Educational activities
-PULSE Network members collaborating with IIS on IP theme “Healthy Future” to develop
interdisciplinary education across faculties
Arjan Nuijten, BA History, Verdiepingsvak II: De Geschiedenis van Volksgezondheid.
Semester 2, Blok 4 & 5. Academic year 2024/2025.
Media appearances
Arjan Nuijten
'Allesverwoestende drug' crack in opmars: 'Het is een vlucht uit de realiteit', Spraakmakers, KRO-NCRV, 8 oktober 2025.
‘Zijn er nog vragen over ons wietbeleid’, Spraakmakers, KRO-NCRV, 1 september 2025.
Podcast: ‘Via de voordeur: de verborgen wereld achter de Nederlandse wiet’, Matthijs Schraver, Omroep Brabant, maart 2025.
Societal Impact
Concrete plans for 2026:
-PULSE Network Seminar Series
-Parry and van der Meij co-organizing hybrid workshop on Health Humanities with the
European University Institute, Florence.
Societal impact
PULSE seminar series, interdisciplinary conferences and workshops, hosting visiting researchers, collaborative funding applications, and developing/expanding theme-specific networks including Mental Health Humanities (Institute for Mental Health, University of Birmingham, Wynter); Stimulus Network for Arts and Health (NL, Parry/Roei); Music, Medicine and History (Hoegaerts) and Public Health Humanities Network (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Parry)
Members
Prof. Josephine Hoegaerts
Dr Samuël Kruizinga
Dr Bram Mellink
Arjan Nuijten
Dr Manon Perry
Annelies van der Meij
Hugo Schalkwijk
Affiliate Members
Dr Gaston Franssen (ASCA)
Dr Noa Roei (ASCA)
Laurens de Rooy (curator Vrolik Museum AMC)
Dr Hein van den Berg (ILLC)
Dr. Jesse van Amelsvoort (ARTES)
Dr Rebecca Wynter
Gulzaar Barn
Balázs Boross
Mark Deuze
Slava Greenberg
Katy Hull
Kristine Johanson
Geertje Mak
Esther Miedema
Hanna Muehlenhoff
Esther Miedema
Anja Novak
Diego Semerene
Leni van Goidsenhoven
Marie van Haaster
Tamara van Kessel