Jefferson Humanities & Health

Tuesday, February 3, 12-1PM, Jefferson Alumni Hall Eakins Lounge. Lunch provided. Open to Jefferson students, faculty and staff.

Described as “bright” and “stylish” by Opera News, American soprano Sarah Fleiss joins the exclusive international Baroque touring ensemble, Le Jardin des Voix of Les Arts Florissants for the 2025–26 and 2026–27 season productions, where she performs in Les arts florissants and La Descente d'Orphée aux Enfers by Charpentier under William Christie and in Il giardino di rose by Scarlatti under Paul Agnew. She also tours Latin America with Curtis on Tour during the 2025–26 season and performs solo recitals in the U.S. In Summer 2025, she attended the Georg Solti Bel Canto Accademia in Tuscany. During the 2024–25 season, Sarah performed the roles of Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro under the baton of Nicholas McGegan with Curtis Opera Theatre, the soprano soloist role in Handel’s Messiah with Hudson Baroque and the soprano soloist role in Brahms’ Ein Deutsches Requiem with the Dalton Chorale in New York City. Previous role highlights include the title role in Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen, Ginevra in Handel’s Ariodante, and was a featured soloist in a staged production of Handel’s L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato. In concert, she performed as the soprano soloist in the Fauré Requiem with the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra and Poulenc’s Gloria and Dvořák’s Te Deum with the Wichita Symphony Orchestra. In 2024, Sarah was a Renée Fleming Arist at the Aspen Music Festival, covering Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro under conductor Nicholas McGegan. Sarah is the 2025 winner of the Arthur W. Foote Award from the Harvard Musical Association.

Sarah completed her Master of Music and Bachelor of Music degrees at Curtis Institute of Music. Prior to Curtis, Sarah attended Columbia University and its Juilliard exchange program.

The Humanities Concert Series is made possible through a generous gift from Deborah L. August, MD, MPH, and Robert H. Rosenwasser, MD, FACS, FAHA

Questions? Contact Kirsten Bowen, Humanities Program Coordinator.

Thursday, February 5, 12-1PM, Ham 224/225. Lunch provided. Open to Jefferson students, faculty, and staff. 

We all have a soundtrack that marks the many chapters of our lives. Teaching artist Josh Robinson will facilitate a reflection through your musical past, your stories, and the role music has played throughout your life. The workshop uses music as a vehicle to help participants connect to others and reconnect to themselves. Participants will be guided to reflect on the meaning of various songs in their lives and how music has helped them through both positive and negative experiences.

About the facilitator

Josh Robinson is a professional percussionist, teaching artist, and drum facilitator. He has been a visiting instructor in the Humanities at Thomas Jefferson University for the past four years and is in his second year as the Humanities artist-in-residence. For the past 19 years, Josh has used his skills, expertise, and life experience to share drumming and the many gifts it brings with thousands of people each year around the country.

Students who attended the Soundtrack to Your Life session on October 23 for Asano credit are not eligible to count this session towards Asano.

Friday, February 6, Connelly Auditorium, 7PM. Dinner provided.

The debate is a comedic event where professionals from different fields will argue why their field is the most important. The debate is an intellectual and humorous play on the following scenario: "A boat crashes and everyone boards a raft to escape. In the raft, you have room for one more person. Among the remaining, however, stands a group of health professionals. They each quickly prepare to explain why they are the most qualified and deserving of that last spot on the raft.

Their argument is based on why their specific field is the most valuable to humanity. For this debate, panelists will give a 5-10 minute presentation to defend their case. 

This is not a Jefferson Humanities & Health event but credit is available for the Asano Humanities & Health Certificate.

Monday, February 9, 12-1PM, Jefferson Alumni Hall Eakins Lounge. Lunch and refreshments provided while supplies last. Open to Jefferson students, faculty, and staff.

Join us for a Humanities Concert with Shuishan Yu, PhD, a fourth generation Mei’an School guqin player and a professor in the College of Arts, Media, and Design at Northeastern University and Bin Wu, MA, tea scholar, contemplative arts practitioner, and Director of the Office of Campus and Community Engagement, Thomas Jefferson University.

Listening to Silence explores the restorative dimensions of traditional Chinese arts and culture and their continued relevance in contemporary life. Centered on the ancient Guqin—a zither with over 3,000 years of history—and the contemplative tea ceremony, this program offers an immersive experience in stillness, attention, and harmony. In a world of speed and noise, the Guqin teaches stillness and breath; in a world of fragmentation, the tea ceremony cultivates mindfulness and care. Together, they guide us toward reconnection—with ourselves, with others, and with the natural world—illuminating the enduring relationship between art, health, and humanities.

Co-presented by Jefferson Humanities & Health and the Office of Campus and Community Engagement, Thomas Jefferson University.

The Humanities Concert Series is made possible through a generous gift from Deborah L. August, MD, MPH, and Robert H. Rosenwasser, MD, FACS, FAHA

Lunch will be available at approximately 12:40PM after the performance and during the tea ceremony. Traditional Chinese snacks and desserts provided by Ms. Wuyi Yan will be available at the start of the event.

Questions? Contact Kirsten Bowen, Humanities Program Coordinator

Monday, February 9, 5-6:30PM, Ham 210/211. Light dinner provided. Open to Jefferson students.

It’s so easy to feel off-balance - to feel torn between polarities of work-rest, doing-being, dark-light, joy-sorrow…and to be knocked off-center by unexpected events or changes. In this workshop we will explore and engage in creative practices that promote an awareness of what balance/imbalance feels, sounds and looks like, and what helps us restore and return to a sense of balance.

Facilitated by Peggy Tileston, MT-BC and art therapist Sondra Rosenberg.

About the Creative Approaches to Self-Care Series

In order to care effectively for others, we must first learn to care for ourselves. This interdisciplinary series is designed to engage students in self-care practices that promote healthy stress management and burnout prevention. Workshops will address topics including how to cope with stress and anxiety, cultivate relaxation techniques, find balance and develop self-compassion.

Please note: This workshop is in-person and open to Jefferson students only; pre-registration required.

Co-presented with the Student Counseling Center (SCC)

Tuesday, February 10, 12-1PM, Scott Memorial Library 200A. Lunch provided. Open to Jefferson students. 

Join us for a discussion of excerpts from There Plant Eyes: A Personal and Cultural History of Blindness by M. Leona Goldin.

There Plant Eyes probes the ways in which blindness has shaped our ocularcentric culture, challenging deeply ingrained ideas about what it means to be “blind.” For millennia, blindness has been used to signify such things as thoughtlessness (“blind faith”), irrationality (“blind rage”), and unconsciousness (“blind evolution”). But at the same time, blind people have been othered as the recipients of special powers as compensation for lost sight (from the poetic gifts of John Milton to the heightened senses of the comic book hero Daredevil).

Godin—who began losing her vision at age ten—illuminates the often-surprising history of both the condition of blindness and the myths and ideas that have grown up around it over the course of generations. She combines an analysis of blindness in art and culture (from King Lear to Star Wars) with a study of the science of blindness and key developments in accessibility (the white cane, embossed printing, digital technology) to paint a vivid personal and cultural history.

A genre-defying work, There Plant Eyes reveals just how essential blindness and vision are to humanity’s understanding of itself and the world.

Participants will be notified when the reading becomes available on Canvas. Copies of There Plant Eyes will be available for students after the discussion. Lunch will be provided.

Facilitator:

Katherine Hubbard, MA, Teaching Instructor, JeffMD Humanities Selectives, Sidney Kimmel Medical College.

Participants are expected to read, and come prepared to discuss, the text selected for each session. To access the reading, participants must visit the Health Humanities Reading Group module in the Jefferson Humanities & Health organization on Canvas or the JMD 153 or the JMD 252 Asano Certificate courses on Canvas. Most Asano students are already users in these Humanities & Health Canvas courses. If that is not the case, participants may email Kirsten Bowen, Humanities Program Coordinator.

About the Health Humanities Reading Group:

The Health Humanities Reading Group gathers regularly to think critically about health as it is understood through various disciplinary perspectives, social contexts and value systems. This ongoing program is open to students, faculty and staff, and offers an informal learning environment facilitated by participants. Participants are expected to read, and come prepared to discuss, the text selected for each session.

Tuesday, February 10, 5-6:15PM, JAH 207 and Zoom. Dinner provided. Open to all.

Every person has a story. In this candid conversation series, we’ll talk with community members about their real experiences at the intersection of healthcare, wellbeing and identity. Each guest brings unique insights and expertise into problems of health that span social and clinical dimensions, and engage questions of access, equity and justice. Sessions will be led by an interprofessional team of Jefferson student moderators and include interactive Q&A with attendees.

Special guest: Voices: Listeners in the Noise

Voices: Listeners in the Noise is a film documentary that shares first-hand narratives that reveal how urban soundscapes affect autistic individuals, raising awareness and inspiring more inclusive cities.

The film amplifies firsthand narratives from autistic individuals navigating urban soundscapes, while highlighting the often-overlooked sensory challenges of everyday life. By sharing these stories, Voices offers insight into how cities affect well-being and proposes a visionary framework for designing more accessible, autism-friendly urban spaces. Its first public screening was in Base Milan in October.

Visit Synesthetic Reserach & Design Lab for more information and to view the trailer.

A panel with the film participants will follow the screening.

Panelists:

Evander "Ev" Smith (They/He) has a strong desire to make the world more accepting & accessible for disabled people at all stages of life, and a commitment to helping others. They are an Autistic and Disabled self-advocate and speaker specializing in Autistic culture, LGBTQIA+ Autistic identities, and disability inclusion & celebration. They currently serve on the board of directors of the Neurodiversity Employment Network, and previously served on their advisory board for 2 years.

nae vallejo (they/he) is a Black, Caddo, Mexican, queer, trans, disabled, AuDHD access designer and experiential archivist. Their work moves through memory, rememory, and care, exploring how survivors leave trace across body, land and story. As the founding steward of naeborhood projects, nae creates art that weaves disability justice, sensory attunement and community connection into everyday practices of survival and tenderness.

The documentary is part of the project Echoes by Severino Alfonso and Loukia Tsafoulia, commissioned by the EU S+T+ARTS Residency "ReSilence," funded by the European Union's Horizon Europe research and innovation program. It is first presented at BASEMilan as part of the "ReSilence: Future Soundscapes & Affect Mining in Urban Ecosystems" exhibition.

“Voices: Listeners in the Noise” is supported with funds from the Institute for Smart and Healthy Cities, Thomas Jefferson University(2024 JeffSmart Seed fellowship).

Questions? Please contact Kirsten Bowen, Humanities Program Coordinator, Office of Student Affairs, at kirsten.bowen@jefferson.edu.

Wednesday, February 11, 12-1PM, JAH 407. Lunch provided. Open to Jefferson students, faculty, and staff.

Join Dr. Salvatore Mangione for a presentation on the White Rose, a Nazi Resistance Group made up of German medical students and faculty.

What are the social responsibilities of doctors and health care professionals? Join us for a conversation with Dr. Salvatore Mangione, physician, faculty member, and researcher on the White Rose Resistance Group. The White Rose was a Nazi Resistance Group made up of German medical students and faculty who had an expansive view of what it means to be a doctor. From 1942-1943, the group spoke out and distributed leaflets against Hitler and the atrocities the Nazi government and army committed. Most members of the White Rose were captured and executed. But, as they wrote in one of their leaflets, “We will not be silent," and their courage and legacy are remembered today.

Presenter:

SALVATORE MANGIONE, MD, is an Associate Professor of Medicine at the SKMC of Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, where he also directs the Humanities and History of Medicine courses.

Questions? Email Kirsten Bowen, Humanities Program Coordinator.

Thursday, February 12, 12-1PM, Hamilton 208/209. Lunch provided. Open to Jefferson students.

Everyone needs some down time but not the guilt that comes when we think we are not being productive. Why not relax and be productive by joining us for some yarn work? Spend some time with Dr. Elizabeth Spudich, Dr. Abigail Kay and Dr. Jenna Hagerty learning how to knit or crochet; or if you are already skilled come and share your talent.

Each student will get a kit including yarn, hooks or needles (depending on your chosen craft), some basic patterns, and other surprises!

Students will work on creating scarves that they can keep for themselves, gift to a loved one, or donate to JeffHope.

Facilitators:

Dr. Jenna Hagerty, Assistant Professor, Sidney Kimmel Medical College

Dr. Abigail Kay, MA, MD, Associate Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, Associate Dean, Academic Affairs & Undergraduate Medical Education, Sidney Kimmel Medical College.

Dr. Elizabeth Spudich, PhD, Assistant Professor, Chief, Anatomy Education Division, Department of Medical Education, JeffMD Anatomy Thread Director, JeffMD Cardiopulmonary Block Co-Director, Sidney Kimmel Medical College.

Questions? Please contact Kirsten Bowen, Humanities Program Coordinator, Office of Student Affairs.

Wednesday, February 25, 12-1PM, Online

The Schwartz Rounds program provides a regular open forum for a multidisciplinary discussion of the psychosocial and emotional aspects of working in healthcare. Each session is organized around a compelling theme or patient story, and includes both clinical and nonclinical panelists and participants.

This is not a Jefferson Humanities & Health event but credit is available for the Asano Humanities & Health Certificate.

Monday, March 2, 12-1PM, JAH 207. Lunch provided. Open to Jefferson students, faculty, and staff.

What makes the ideal physician is something we all grapple with since the very first day of medical school. Renowned ethicist Edmund Pellegrino tried to answer that question in a JAMA article of 50 years ago, where he boiled it down to three C’s: Competence, Compassion, and Culture. We all agree with competence and compassion, but what about culture? That rubric comprises seven personal qualities that are fundamental for the physician's ability to unleash the self-healing energies of the patient, and they are: 1) Attentive (active) listening; 2) Eye contact; 3) Compassionate touch; 4) Empathy; 5) Comfort with ambiguity; 6) Humor (especially of the self-deprecating kind, since not only it lifts others but also prevents narcissism); and 7) A philosophy of life that by bordering on stoicism can provide resilience. Hence, this presentation will review these interpersonal traits, which are often considered 'fluff' by some physicians, while in reality they are the intangibles that make all the difference.

Presenter:

SALVATORE MANGIONE, MD, is an Associate Professor of Medicine at the SKMC of Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, where he also directs the Humanities and History of Medicine courses.

Questions? Contact Kirsten Bowen, Humanities Program Coordinator.

Tuesday, March 3, 12-1PM, Ham 505. Lunch provided. Open to Jefferson students, faculty, and staff.

A microaggression is an unintentional and unconscious action that can negatively affect our day-to-day human interactions. They cause real harm to individuals. There is a large amount of evidence that it can be a major factor in the creation of disparities in the healthcare environment that can ultimately lead to patient-care disparities.

In this session, we will define microaggressions, its documented effects in medicine, the concept of silent collusion, and the steps one can take to disarm the effects of microaggression.

At the end of the session, the attendees will be able to

• Define microaggressions.

• Give two examples of how microaggressions affect the patient care environment.

• Define “silent collusion.”

• Name at least three techniques to address a witnessed microaggression.

Facilitator: Bernard L. Lopez, MD, MS, CPE, FACEP, FAAEM, Associate Provost for Diversity and Inclusion, Thomas Jefferson University.

Students who attended the session on October 6, 2025 for Asano credit are not eligible to count this session for Asano credit.

Friday, March 6, 12-1PM, Ham 208/209. Lunch provided. Open to Jefferson students.

Join us for a discussion of an excerpt from Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman's Open AI by Karen Hao.

When AI expert and investigative journalist Karen Hao first began covering OpenAI in 2019, she thought they were the good guys. Founded as a nonprofit with safety enshrined as its core mission, the organization was meant, its leader Sam Altman told us, to act as a check against more purely mercantile, and potentially dangerous, forces. What could go wrong?

Over time, Hao began to wrestle ever more deeply with that question. Increasingly, she realized that the core truth of this massively disruptive sector is that its vision of success requires an almost unprecedented amount of resources: the “compute” power of high-end chips and the processing capacity to create massive large language models, the sheer volume of data that needs to be amassed at scale, the humans “cleaning up” that data for sweatshop wages throughout the Global South, and a truly alarming spike in the usage of energy and water underlying it all. The truth is that we have entered a new and ominous age of empire: only a small handful of globally scaled companies can even enter the field of play. At the head of the pack with its ChatGPT breakthrough, how would OpenAI resist such temptations?

Spoiler alert: it didn’t.

By drawing on the viewpoints of Silicon Valley engineers, Kenyan data laborers, and Chilean water activists, Hao presents the fullest picture of AI and its impact we’ve seen to date, alongside a trenchant analysis of where things are headed.

Participants will be notified when the reading becomes available. Copies of Empire of AI will be available for students after the discussion. 

Facilitators:

Jim Dyksen, MA, MSEd, Director, Center for Academic Success

Shawn Gonzalez, PhD, Assistant Director for Writing Services, Office of Academic & Career Success

Chris Miciek, MA, Director, Center for Career Success

Participants are expected to read, and come prepared to discuss, the text selected for each session. To access the reading, participants must visit the Health Humanities Reading Group module in the Jefferson Humanities & Health organization on Canvas or the JMD 153 or the JMD 252 Asano Certificate courses on Canvas. Most Asano students are already users in these Humanities & Health Canvas courses. If that is not the case, participants may email Kirsten Bowen, Humanities Program Coordinator.

About the Health Humanities Reading Group:

The Health Humanities Reading Group gathers regularly to think critically about health as it is understood through various disciplinary perspectives, social contexts and value systems. This ongoing program is open to students, faculty and staff, and offers an informal learning environment facilitated by participants. Participants are expected to read, and come prepared to discuss, the text selected for each session.

Monday, March 9, 5-6PM, Zoom. Open to Jefferson students.

In this virtual, art-based workshop, participants will engage in a variety of practices designed to reduce stress. Learn how to identify the physical and emotional symptoms of stress and how to move through them to a more grounded and relaxed state. Facilitated by art therapist Sondra Rosenberg.

About the Creative Approaches to Self-Care Series

In order to care effectively for others, we must first learn to care for ourselves. This interdisciplinary series is designed to engage students in self-care practices that promote healthy stress management and burnout prevention. Workshops will address topics including how to cope with stress and anxiety, cultivate relaxation techniques, find balance and develop self-compassion.

Please note: This workshop is virtual and open to Jefferson students only; pre-registration required. A Zoom link will be provided in the Eventbrite order confirmation and the event reminder from Eventbrite, which will be emailed 48 hours before the event. If you do not receive the Zoom link, please contact Kirsten Bowen.

Co-presented with the Student Counseling Center (SCC)

Tuesday, March 10, Connelly Auditorium, Hamilton Building and Online. 12-1PM. Lunch provided. Open to all.

In this time of technological and political upheaval, we must re-evaluate the way that we talk about and embrace AI—especially generative models like ChatGPT, and Artificial General Intelligence. Many of the ways that society could benefit from AI—better education and healthcare, a faster transition to renewables, clean air and clean water—have nothing to do with AI models today; they are based on the machine-learning models that have come before. But Silicon Valley, with OpenAI at its helm, has woven a remarkably compelling narrative about generative AI and Artificial General Intelligence being the key to progress and abundance. This narrative cloaks what’s happening beneath the surface, says Karen Hao. In this timely talk, drawing on years of original research, she examines a growing body of evidence to ask whether AI will ever produce broad-based economic benefit. Companies like OpenAI have become empires in the full sense of the word, consolidating extraordinary power and wealth in the hands of the few. In this historic moment, she shows us, the threat of the empires of AI grows clearer by the day. A return to empire is the unraveling of democracy. But there is another viable path. Karen offers an ultimately realistic and hopeful look at how to wrestle back what we’ve already lost, in order to create a world we all want.

Called “one of the foremost tech journalists covering AI” by Dr. Joy Buolamwini, Karen Hao writes for publications like The Atlantic and leads the Pulitzer Center’s AI Spotlight Series, which trains journalists around the world on how to cover artificial intelligence.

In Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI (Penguin Press, 2025), Karen, the first journalist to ever profile OpenAI, tells the behind-the-scenes story of how a cadre of the most powerful companies in human history is reshaping the world in its image. “Excellent and deeply reported” (The New York Times), Empire of AI is an “essential work of public education” (Zuboff), “a bestselling page-turner that has made waves not just in Silicon Valley but around the world” (TIME), and a revelatory portrait of the people controlling this technology. It is the jaw-dropping story of ambition and ego, hype and speculation, plunder and destruction, politics and labor, and, of course, money and power—a brilliant and deeply necessary look at the industry defining our era, and what the future holds.

Karen was formerly a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, covering American and Chinese tech companies, and a senior editor for AI at MIT Technology Review. Her work has been cited by Congress, featured in university curriculums, and remade into museum exhibits. She has won numerous accolades, including an American Humanist Media Award and a National Magazine Award for Journalists Under 30. Karen also sits on the AI advisory board of the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY. Prior to journalism, she was an application engineer at the first startup to spin out of Google, and she received a B.S. in mechanical engineering and minor in energy studies from MIT.

About the Carlin Foundation Annual Lecture on Healthcare Innovation

The purpose of the Carlin Foundation Annual Lecture on Healthcare Innovation is to stimulate innovation in medicine and medical care delivery by exposing students and other attendees to notable speakers and ideas. The Foundation encourages the selection of speakers who will challenge participants to think creatively and innovatively about the difficulties and opportunities facing healthcare, looking, in particular, to experts and industries outside of healthcare.

During 2025-2026, the Jefferson Humanities Forum hosts multidisciplinary scholars and thinkers to investigate the theme of Trust.

Questions? Contact Kirsten Bowen, Humanities Program Coordinator, Student Affairs.

Tuesday, March 10, 1:30-2:30PM, Ham 208/209. Light refreshments provided. Open to Jefferson students, faculty, and staff.

Following her Jefferson Humanities Forum keynote, join us for a small group discussion with journalist Karen Hao, author of Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman's OpenAI.

Called “one of the foremost tech journalists covering AI” by Dr. Joy Buolamwini, Karen Hao writes for publications like The Atlantic and leads the Pulitzer Center’s AI Spotlight Series, which trains journalists around the world on how to cover artificial intelligence.

In Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI (Penguin Press, 2025), Karen, the first journalist to ever profile OpenAI, tells the behind-the-scenes story of how a cadre of the most powerful companies in human history is reshaping the world in its image.

Karen was formerly a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, covering American and Chinese tech companies, and a senior editor for AI at MIT Technology Review. Her work has been cited by Congress, featured in university curriculums, and remade into museum exhibits. She has won numerous accolades, including an American Humanist Media Award and a National Magazine Award for Journalists Under 30. Karen also sits on the AI advisory board of the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY. Prior to journalism, she was an application engineer at the first startup to spin out of Google, and she received a B.S. in mechanical engineering and minor in energy studies from MIT.

Questions? Contact Kirsten Bowen, Humanities Program Coordinator. 

Wednesday, March 11, 12-1PM, Scott Memorial Library 200A. Lunch provided. Open to Jefferson students.

Join us for a discussion of excerpts from the novel Blackouts by Justin Torres.

At the core of Blackouts is the imagined deathbed conversations between a young, unnamed narrator (referred to as Nene) and his friend and elder, Juan Gay. As Juan waits for his end, the two recount for each other moments of joy and oblivion, resurrecting loves, lives, mothers, fathers, and minor heroes. Juan shares his tattered and redacted copy of Sex Variants: A Study of Homosexual Patterns, and passes on his final wish: that Nene complete the story of Jan Gay, the real-life researcher whose early-20th-century interviews with queer people across the United States and Europe offered the foundation of Sex Variants, but whose contributions ended up being eclipsed—and all but erased—by the scientists whose legitimacy she required to publish her work.

A dream-like and genre-defying creation, Blackouts incorporates erasure, photographs, testimony, illustrations, imaginary screenplays, and more as it insists that we look long and steadily at what we have inherited and what we have made.

Participants will be notified when the reading becomes available on Canvas. Copies of Blackouts will be available for students after the discussion. Lunch will be provided.

Facilitator:

Katherine Hubbard, MA, Teaching Instructor, JeffMD Humanities Selectives, Sidney Kimmel Medical College.

Participants are expected to read, and come prepared to discuss, the text selected for each session. To access the reading, participants must visit the Health Humanities Reading Group module in the Jefferson Humanities & Health organization on Canvas or the JMD 153 or the JMD 252 Asano Certificate courses on Canvas. Most Asano students are already users in these Humanities & Health Canvas courses. If that is not the case, participants may email Kirsten Bowen, Humanities Program Coordinator.

About the Health Humanities Reading Group:

The Health Humanities Reading Group gathers regularly to think critically about health as it is understood through various disciplinary perspectives, social contexts and value systems. This ongoing program is open to students, faculty and staff, and offers an informal learning environment facilitated by participants. Participants are expected to read, and come prepared to discuss, the text selected for each session.

Thursday, March 12, 12-1PM, JAH 207. Lunch provided. Open to Jefferson students, faculty, and staff.

In this Anti-Racism in Health Focus introduction to the history of racism in medicine, participants will learn to

• Define the concept of race
• Define the institution of racism and its many forms including structural racism
• List 3 specific examples of racism in medicine
• Explain race-based medicine and describe examples of how it contributes to structural racism

Facilitator: Bernard L. Lopez, MD, MS, CPE, FACEP, FAAEM, Associate Provost for Diversity and Inclusion, Thomas Jefferson University.

Questions? Contact Kirsten Bowen, Humanities Program Coordinator.

Tuesday, March 17, 12-1PM, Scott Memorial Library 200A. Lunch provided. Open to Jefferson students, faculty, and staff.

Join the Health Humanities Reading Group for a discussion of the New England Journal of Medicine perspective roundtable, Pursuing Health Equity in the United States with Crystal W. Cené, M.D., M.P.H., David A. Ansell, M.D., M.P.H., Merlin Chowkwanyun, M.P.H., Ph.D., and Lisa A.Cooper, M.D., M.P.H.

This Perspective Roundtable explores the current state of health inequities and the kinds of work that is being done to eliminate them, the effects of these efforts on medicine and health care, and what the tools and strategies and pathways are for us to reduce inequities in health and health care.

Access the roundtable here.

Viewing time: 59 min and 19s

Special guest discussant: Ana Mari­a Lopez, MD, MPH, MACP, Professor and Vice Chair, Medical Oncology, Sidney Kimmel Medical College, Chief of Cancer Services, Jefferson Health New Jersey, Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center.

About HHRG

The Health Humanities Reading Group (HHRG) gathers regularly to think critically about health as it is understood through various disciplinary perspectives, social contexts and value systems. This ongoing program is open to students, faculty and staff, and offers an informal learning environment facilitated by participants. Participants are expected to read, and come prepared to discuss, the text selected for each session.

Questions? Contact Kirsten Bowen, Humanities Program Coordinator.

Wednesday, March 25, 12-1PM, Zoom

The Schwartz Rounds program provides a regular open forum for a multidisciplinary discussion of the psychosocial and emotional aspects of working in healthcare. Each session is organized around a compelling theme or patient story, and includes both clinical and nonclinical panelists and participants.

This is not a Jefferson Humanities & Health event but credit is available for the Asano Humanities & Health Certificate.

Friday, March 27, Hamilton Lobby, 12-1PM. Free and open to all.

Join us for a conversation and hands-on tour of the Helix Gallery exhibition Touching Feeling with textile artists Linda Ruggiero and Sugandha Gupta.

Both artists use textile practice to create works that honor embodied knowledge and challenge conventional modes of perception. Ruggiero draws from her experience as a critical care nurse, using the rhythm of weaving to process the emotional weight of trauma and caregiving. Gupta's artistic vocabulary is rooted in touch, sound, and sensation, informed by her lived experience of albinism and visual impairment. Her multi-sensory textiles deliberately resist the visual primacy of contemporary culture, inviting audiences to experience art through their strongest perceptual abilities. Both artists use fiber's tactile properties to express what words cannot fully capture, from emotional trauma to sensory experience. Together, their textiles create spaces of embodied understanding—spaces you're invited to explore not just with your eyes, but through touch.

Sugandha Gupta is Assistant Professor of Fashion Design and Materiality at Parsons School of Design. Born with Albinism and visually impaired, Gupta creates Sensory-Textiles, a collection of textiles and wearables that engage audiences through their sense of touch, sound, smell, and sight. Over nearly twenty years, Gupta’s work has been exhibited at the Guggenheim Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, the United Nations Headquarters, American Craft Council, and the Smithsonian Craft Show, among other venues.

Linda Ruggiero is a Philadelphia-based nurse and textile artist whose sculptural fiber work is informed by her experiences in critical care at a Level I trauma center. As a clinically practicing nurse with doctoral training in neuroscience, she uses color psychology and tactile materiality to create textiles that tell stories of grief, trauma, and healing. In June 2025, she presented her first solo exhibition, Woven Stories, at Da Vinci Art Alliance in Philadelphia.

Monday, March 30, 12-1PM, Scott Memorial Library 200A. Luch provided. Open to Jefferson students.

Join us for a discussion of excerpts from the The Complete Stories of Leonora Carrington.

Surrealist writer and painter Leonora Carrington (1917–2011) was a master of the macabre, of gorgeous tableaus, biting satire, roguish comedy, and brilliant, effortless flights of the imagination. Nowhere are these qualities more ingeniously brought together than in the works of short fiction she wrote throughout her life.

Published to coincide with the centennial of her birth, The Complete Stories of Leonora Carrington collects for the first time all of her stories, including several never before seen in print. With a startling range of styles, subjects, and even languages (several of the stories are translated from French or Spanish), The Complete Stories captures the genius and irrepressible spirit of an amazing artist’s life.

Participants will be notified when the reading becomes available on Canvas. Copies of The Complete Stories of Leonora Carrington will be available for students after the discussion. Lunch will be provided.

Facilitator:

Katherine Hubbard, MA, Teaching Instructor, JeffMD Humanities Selectives, Sidney Kimmel Medical College.

Participants are expected to read, and come prepared to discuss, the text selected for each session. To access the reading, participants must visit the Health Humanities Reading Group module in the Jefferson Humanities & Health organization on Canvas or the JMD 153 or the JMD 252 Asano Certificate courses on Canvas. Most Asano students are already users in these Humanities & Health Canvas courses. If that is not the case, participants may email Kirsten Bowen, Humanities Program Coordinator.

About the Health Humanities Reading Group:

The Health Humanities Reading Group gathers regularly to think critically about health as it is understood through various disciplinary perspectives, social contexts and value systems. This ongoing program is open to students, faculty and staff, and offers an informal learning environment facilitated by participants. Participants are expected to read, and come prepared to discuss, the text selected for each session.

Monday, March 30, 5-6PM, Online. Open to Jefferson students.

In order to effectively care for others, we must first learn to care for ourselves. This virtual workshop will introduce you to a variety of music-based experiences designed to promote healthy stress management and burnout prevention. Facilitated by Peggy Tileston, MT-BC.

About the Creative Approaches to Self-Care Series

In order to care effectively for others, we must first learn to care for ourselves. This interdisciplinary series is designed to engage students in self-care practices that promote healthy stress management and burnout prevention. Workshops will address topics including how to cope with stress and anxiety, cultivate relaxation techniques, find balance and develop self-compassion.

Please note: This workshop is virtual and open to Jefferson students only; pre-registration required. A Zoom link will be provided in the Eventbrite order confirmation and the event reminder from Eventbrite, which will be emailed 48 hours before the event. If you do not receive the Zoom link, please contact Kirsten Bowen.

Co-presented with the Student Counseling Center (SCC)