Our goal is to create a single hub of resources focusing on the intersections between cultural arts and medicine. Our interns, Maymunah Ahmed and Rubab Raza, are curating and developing this database, adding in changemakers, local ideas, podcasts, videos, and articles on this growing field. We hope this hub serves as a foundation for asking and answering questions on how to decolonize and reimagine the voices of color and their arts in medical settings. This is a constant work in progress.
If you have any ideas or recommendations, please email our curators at contact@aseemkala.org.
Culture and Religion in Medicine
Religion and Mental Health: The Case of American Muslims on JSTOR: discusses leading causes of stressors/mental health amongst American Muslims which include an identity crisis and a sense of alienation because of how Muslim Americans face challenging aspects from food to clothes and how children especially are fixed into the mainstream culture and are distanced from their culture.
Mindfulness in Salah Prayer and its Association with Mental Health on JSTOR: This article actually did a study to see how it would help Muslims. And the results were very intriguing, indicating that those who offer prayer regularly and with mindfulness have better mental health as compared with those who don’t offer it regularly and with the mind.
Religion, spirituality and medicine in Australia: research and clinical practice
Religion and Disparities: Considering the Influences of Islam on the Health of American Muslims on JSTOR: This article goes into their idea of researching different ways to deal with health in our religion by still abiding by religious values.
Surgery issue: Altar and Table: A phenomenology of the surgeon-priest (nih.gov)
“It’s Medically Proven!”: Assessing the Dissemination of Religion and Health Research on JSTOR
The impact of religion and culture on diabetes care in Nigeria
Bioethics for clinicians: 19. Hinduism and Sikhism (nih.gov): This research article focuses on how important it is for physicians to have an understanding of Hinduism and Sikhism when helping a patient who is Hindu or Sikh.
Bioethics for clinicians: 21. Islamic bioethics – PubMed (nih.gov): This article focuses on Islamic Bioethics and provides an understanding for physicians who are not familiar with Islam.
How culture connects to healing and recovery | Fayth Parks | TEDxAugusta – YouTube
Perspectives: An Open Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, 2nd Edition (americananthro.org)
(PDF) Medicine and Culture: Transcultural Needs in Modern Western Societies (researchgate.net)
Health and Culture on Apple Podcasts
Advancing our understanding of religion and spirituality in the context of behavioral medicine
Racism and Resistance in Cultural Dance and Arts
AMWA Dance Medicine Panel 2021
Decolonizing Dance Discourses PDF
Racism and Social Space in Canadian Dance: Actants, Structures, and Dancing Differently
First Nations, Metis and Inuit Music and Dance Article
RECOGNIZING SYSTEMIC RACISM IN DANCE – Seattle Dances
Race, Bioethics, and Public Health Project | Yale Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics
Stories of Black Womanhood Negotiated in the Dance Studio Thesis Paper
Social justice and queer activism in India – Daraja Press
Danielle Torley: I stepped out of grief — by dancing with fire | TED Talk
Melissa Walker: Art can heal PTSD’s invisible wounds | TED Talk
Laurel Braitman: The mental health benefits of storytelling for health care workers | TED Talk
The Mindful Muslim Podcast on Apple Podcasts: A podcast about people talking about experiences of mental health struggles as well as professionals working within the field. Also, delving into mental health, psychology, Islam and spirituality.
Racism and Medical Education: Telling the Full Story | Beyond the White Coat (simplecast.com)
Tackling ethnic health disparities: Lisa Cooper at TEDxBaltimore 2014 – YouTube
What Islam really says about women | Alaa Murabit – YouTube: This is an amazing Ted Talk done by Alaa Murabit who discusses what Islam actually says about Muslim Women
The flight that changed my life | Samah Safi Bayazid | TEDxTysons – YouTube
Does resistance through classical dance mean questioning its origins and form? In Conversation With Ranjana Dave by The Swaddle (soundcloud.com)
Looking at mental illness through dance, Arts News & Top Stories – The Straits Times
Indigenous Healing Dances, Cultures, and Arts
Indigenous Native American Healing Traditions (nih.gov): This article focuses on the healing traditions of Native Americans. It mentions how music, dance, and community plays a huge role in the healing energy of the patient. The article also speaks about the importance of integrating indigenous medical practices into modern medicine.
Malombo Musical Art in VhaVenda Indigenous Healing Practice
From the Areíto to the Cordon: indigenous healing dances
The Wisdom of and Science behind Indigenous Cultural Practices (mdpi.com)
Shamanism, Music, and Healing in Two Contrasting South American Cultural Areas – Oxford Handbooks: This research paper focuses on the diversity of South American culture. The author shows how important shamans and musical healing practices are between two different tribes. The article also shows how spirituality and cultural arts like music plays a big role in medicine
Art and wellness: The importance of art for Aboriginal Peoples’ health and healing (nccah-ccnsa.ca)
Innovation and Healing in Contemporary Yup’ik Mask Making | Anthropologica (uvic.ca)
Culture and biomedical care in Africa: The influence of culture on biomedical care in a traditional African society, Nigeria, West Africa (researchgate.net): This article focuses on how traditional methods for treating diseases are big in Nigeria. The researchers bring to light how important it is for health-care systems to understand the socio-cultural construct of the places they are in and integrating that into medicine
Vimbuza or Mashawe: Mystic Therapy: This journal focuses on the Malawi dance healers who cure an illness Malawians call mashawe. To cure it, they do a traditional dance called Vimbuza. The article gives a nice background on the dance and how it is used as traditional medicine.
Description: Bodied, Embodied, and Reflective Selves (ixtheo.de)
Connecting Modern Medicine to Traditional Healing: Dr. Cheo Torres at TEDxABQ – YouTube
Clinical Interventions with Cultural Arts
Why Stanford’s medical students dance, draw, write, play music and make films | Stanford Medicine
Therapeutic Potential of a Drum and Dance Ceremony Based on the African Ngoma Tradition (nih.gov)
Capoeira as a Clinical Intervention: Addressing Adolescent
Aggression With Brazilian Martial Arts
In Turkey, Sufi music is used to decrease patient stress | The World from PRX (pri.org)
Social Medicine On Air: 18 | Dance, Healing, Justice | Shilpa Darivemula on Apple Podcasts
More than Just an Arts Festival: Communities, Resistance, and the Story of Desh
Pardesh
Training the clinical eye and mind: using the arts to develop medical students’ observational and pattern recognition skills – PubMed (nih.gov): This study shows, when the arts, like dance and art, were used together with clinical medicine studies, the medical students had a much wider approach when understanding and connecting with patients.
Changes in cognitive function after a 12-week exercise intervention in adults with Down syndrome – PubMed (nih.gov): This study examines how the brain changes with someone who underwent dance training. The results of this study show how dance-training is a great therapy for patients with certain brain diseases. The study brings a greater understanding of the brain and dance therapy.
Kali Narrative: Creativity in Crisis | Shilpa Darivemula and Tanvi Gandhi — Intima (theintima.org)
The U.S. Has A History Of Linking Disease With Race And Ethnicity : Short Wave : NPR
Arts in Medicine Literature Review (giarts.org)
Organizations to Know
Making Moves Universal: dynamic movement-based transformational program designed to help people move into a state of being that enhances healing and sustains vitality
Freedom Community Clinic: Community-centered healing for the body, mind, and soul. Integrating ancestral, Indigenous, and holistic healing with the strengths of Western medicine
Humans of Medicine — The Human Side (of Medicine) (thehumansideofmedicine.com)
Institute for Healing & Justice in Medicine (instituteforhealingandjustice.org): Guided by the values of healing, community, and justice, the Institute for Healing and Justice in Medicine is an interdisciplinary hub – a community, a research epicenter, and a dialogue space.
The Healthcare Gambit (@thehealthcaregambit) • Instagram photos and videos: A podcast for women in healthcare by women in healthcare
White Snake Project: An activist opera company founded and led by an immigrant woman of color. We integrate social activism with original opera and are redefining how opera is made by investing in new technology and involving young people from our community
Dance, Theater, and Medicine – American Medical Women’s Association (amwa-doc.org)
The Swaddle: The latest discussions and questions on health and culture in India, with a great podcast with Ranjana Dave- In Conversation With Ranjana Dave by The Swaddle (soundcloud.com)
Pad.ma: Online dance archive of classical Indian dance exponents, rare gems of dance archived here
ABOUT US | DANCE DIALOGUES: Dance Dialogues is an initiative that works with dance makers and dance lovers, helping them connect with provocative and diverse ideas, individuals and institutions, towards informing their practice in multi-disciplinary ways.
Fellowships
FS National Fellowship — Freedom School for Intersectional Medicine and Health Justice
Atlantic Fellows for Health Equity
Medical Education Fellowship — EqualHealth
Apply to be a TED Fellow | TED Fellows Program | Participate | TED
Ashoka Fellows | Ashoka | Everyone a Changemaker
Gold Humanism in Medicine Fellowships
Home – Carol Emmott Fellowship for women leaders in health
Apply to be a Fellow | Global Health Corps (ghcorps.org)
Medical Justice in Advocacy Fellowship | American Medical Association (ama-assn.org)
The Phyllis Torda Health Care Quality Fellowship – NCQA
The Margaret E. Mahoney Fellowships in Health Policy | New York Academy of Medicine (nyam.org)
ASTMH – Benjamin H. Kean Travel Fellowship Recipients
Fellowship Program – American Medical Women’s Association (amwa-doc.org)
The Aseemkala Initiative 