2023 International
Health Humanities Consortium Conference

Knock: Or the Triumph of Medicine

John P. Murphy Foundation

The 100-year-old satire Knock: Or the Triumph of Medicine, the greatest commercial success of French writer and philosopher Jules Romains (1885-1972), was written at a time of rapid epistemological, scientific, and technological changes in French medicine. Since its debut it has been staged around the world, and has had multiple film renditions. The plot centers on the title character of Knock, an autodidact doctor who comes to a rural French town to buy the medical practice of the retiring Doctor Parpalaid. Knock had expected that the practice would be financially lucrative, but quickly comes to understand that Parpalaid had not run the business well. Knock senses an opportunity and concocts a plan, using modern technology, jargon, and the medical gaze to bring the town into “the Age of Medicine,” and enrich himself.

This staged reading will be followed by a brief discussion of the conference theme, “Mobilizing Selves, Transforming Structures.” How do the themes in the play reflect on the individual actions and structural inequities of today’s health care system? How can we use this conference as an opportunity to envision more just, equitable, and inclusive health and health care?

The Lion's Side: The Utilization of Storytelling for Transformation in Arts, Culture & Health

David Olawuyi Fakunle, Ph.D.

David Olawuyi Fakunle, Ph.D. is a “mercenary for change,” employing any skill and occupying any space to help elevate everyone divested from their truest self, especially those who are Black, Indigenous and People of Color. David serves as Assistant Professor of Public Health at the Morgan State University School of Community Health & Policy, Adjunct Assistant Professor at the University of Florida Center for Arts in Medicine, and Associate Faculty in the Mental Health department of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. David’s interests include stressors within the built environment, societal manifestations of racism, and the use of arts and culture to strengthen health, equity and ultimately, liberation.

Additionally, David has applied artistic and cultural practices such as Black storytelling, African drumming, singing and theater in the proclamation of truth for over 25 years, collaborating primarily with organizations in the Baltimore/Washington, D.C. region. Among many affiliations, David is co-founder and CEO of DiscoverME/RecoverME, an organization that utilizes the African oral tradition to empower use of storytelling for healing and growth, serves as Executive Director of WombWork Productions, a Baltimore-based social change performing arts company, and serves as Chair of the Maryland Lynching Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the first state-level commission in the U.S. dedicated to chronicling and bringing justice to racial terror lynchings.

William Carlos Williams Poetry Competition Awards Ceremony

Amy Haddad, PhD, MSN, MFA, FAAN

Amy Haddad is a poet, nurse, and educator who taught at Creighton University in Omaha, NE for 30+ years. Her poetry and short stories have been published in the American Journal of Nursing, Janus Head, Journal of Medical Humanities, Touch, Bellevue Literary Review, Aji, Oberon Literary Journal, Abandoned Mine, Intima, and several anthologies. Her chapbook, The Geography of Kitchens, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2021 and her first poetry collection, An Otherwise Healthy Woman, was published by Backwaters Press, an imprint of the University of Nebraska Press, in 2022. An Otherwise Healthy Woman won first place in the Creative Works category of the American Journal of Nursing Book Awards 2022. Read more about her poetry at www.amyhaddadpoetry.com.