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Letting ideas settle

 

When I try to put words to my five weeks in Ghent as CHARM Chair 2026, what comes back to me first isn’t a single event but a rhythm, the sense of having, for once, enough time to let ideas settle rather than rushing from one encounter to the next. CHARM, the Consortium for Health Humanities, Arts, Reading and Medicine is, as my fellow CHARM chair Rong Huang put it last year, really one of those rare acronyms that also functions as a mission statement.

Being appointed Chair gave me something I rarely get as a researcher spread across countries: sustained proximity. Not a single conference weekend, but five weeks in which to work, present, and simply be present. I used the time to advance two projects already underway: a CPD course on narrative practices for UK health and social care professionals, and a paper on cross-translating chronic illness. I found fantastic echoes within the international CHARM team, discussing the liminal spaces between languages and what can be found there when expressing the lived experience of illness.

As Chair, I was also invited in discussions on the network’s future, how I might help shape it and where it might go next. In turn, it made me reflect on my own place within the broader field of health humanities going forward. It also gave me space to reconnect with my own literary roots — with the literary theory and reading practices I first fell in love with when I started my research

— through conversations on shared reading and bibliotherapy. What struck me most, in the end, was the scale at which all this happens. CHARM is driven by a close-knit team based in Ghent, and yet its impact is sustained rather than fleeting, and its connections reach far beyond what any single location might suggest. It is, in that way, a quiet argument for what a network can be: not a matter of size, but of depth and continuity.

 

None of this would have been possible without the warmth of the welcome I received. My thanks go to the whole CHARM team and to Ghent University for making five weeks feel like far more than a visit, and especially to Jürgen Pieters, whose generosity (with his time, his introductions, and his readiness to talk through ideas) shaped the experience from the first day.

Claire Jeantils, PhD

 

CHARM CONFERENCE
“Health, Diseases and Environment: Between the Global and the Local”

Programme
Nancy – Maison des Sciences de l’Homme
23–25 rue Baron Louis, Nancy, France
Salle de se minaire, pole SJPEG
November 5–6, 2025

 

Org. Zoë Ghyselinck, Jürgen Pieters, Claire Crignon, Ingrid Voléry and Emanuelle Simon

Wednesday, November 5 –
Seminar Room

12:00 pm – Lunch (on site)

Presentation length: 20 minutes, followed by 10 minutes of discussion.
Chair J. Pieters (Ghent University)
2:00-2:30 pm – I. Voléry, E. Simon, C. Crignon (Université de Lorraine):
Presentation of the Trapps Project

2:30–2:45 pm – Coffee Break

2:45-3:30 pm (ONLINE)
Dr. Rong Huang (Peking University), “Yiwen hutong: The Symbiosis of Medicine and
Literature in Traditional Chinese Texts”.

3:30–3:45 pm – Coffee Break

3:45–5:15 pm – CHARM MEETING (ONLINE)

***
Thursday, November 6

9:00 am – Welcome Coffee

Chair E. Simon (Université de Lorraine)
9:30 am – Gwenola Le Naour (Institut d’Etudes Politiques, Lyon) – “Health and Toxic
Environments”.

10:30–11:00 am– Coffee Break

Chair C. Crignon (Université de Lorraine)
11:00–11:30 am– Sari Altschuler (Northeastern University)
“Insisting on the Local: Uncoupling Race and Madness in the Early United States”
11:30 AM–12:00 pm – Chris Parsons (Northeastern University)
“Planetary Histories of Smallpox in Colonial New England”

12:00–2:00 pm – Lunch (on site)

Chair – R. Wakote (Irenee, Université de Lorraine)
2:00–2:30 pm – Francis Guillemin (Public Health, INSPIIRE, Université de
Lorraine)
“Patient-reported outcomes measurement invariance for international comparisons of
local experiences and health issues”.

2:30–3:00 pm – Nora Bezaz and Ameni Ben Jebril (CEREFIGE, Université de
Lorraine) Anika Schumacher (Grenoble École de Management).
“Virtual Reality and the Well-Being of Older Adults in Long-Term Care Facilities: A
Conceptual Framework and Hypotheses”.

3:00–3:30 pm – Coffee Break
Chair I. Voléry (Université de Lorraine)

3:30–4:00 pm – Jun Jing Min Song (Department of Sociology, Tsinghua University,
China).
“Reverse Care at the End of Life”

4:00–4:30 pm – General Discussion and Conclusion (Z. Ghyselinck, Ghent University)

CHARM has kicked off a new intergenerational community and participatory action research project, Doodnormaal, toch? (Perfectly Normal, Right?), bringing together art, literature, and heritage to foster meaningful conversations about the end of life.

In collaboration with Wijkgezondheidscentrum ‘t Vlot (Joline Goossens & Fien Langouche) and the Outreachlab of the Huis van Alijn (Liesa Rutsaert), and under the guidance of Peter Pype and CHARM coördinator, Zoë Ghyselinck, we are uniting eight children and eight seniors from the Ghent neighborhood of Muide-Meulestede-Afrikalaan. Through creative expression, storytelling, and heritage exploration, participants engage in an imaginative dialogue about life’s final chapter—free from taboos.

Inspired by the Swedish Studio Döbra model and made possible through funding from the King Baudouin Foundation (KBS), this project contributes to a compassionate community where discussing grief and loss is enhanced. Over six interactive sessions, participants will explore questions such as “Where do we go after death?” and “What does grief feel like?” using heritage objects, literature, and artistic interventions.

By embracing art on prescription, we create a safe space for meaningful intergenerational encounters, ensuring that conversations about end-of-life and mourning are integrated into the community.
The team is currently working on the qualitative research component of this project and processing the data. Watch this space!