Roundtable and launch success

We were delighted to be able to celebrate our launch with our first prestigious roundtable panel, and a celebration featuring speeches and creative performances on Friday 27th March.

Chair Susan Wardell, and panellists Karyn Paringatai, Helen Nicholson, Barbara Brookes, Elizabeth Stephens, and Maebh Long, during the roundtable panel. (Photo courtesy of Michelle Elvy)

The roundtable panel was opened with words from Otago's DVC Research & Innovation, Gregory Cook, which we are delighted to share below:

E ngā mana, e ngā reo, e ngā karangatanga maha, tēnā koutou katoa.

Distinguished guests, colleagues, partners, and friends—welcome. I am delighted to stand before you today to mark the formal opening of the Centre for Medical Humanities.

We gather to recognise not only the establishment of a new Centre, but the articulation of a vision—one that affirms that health and wellbeing are not solely matters of biology or clinical intervention, but are also profoundly shaped by culture, history, language, values, and lived experience.

The Centre for Medical Humanities is founded on this understanding. It brings together scholars from across disciplines to examine the broader contexts in which health, illness, disability, and care are experienced and understood. In doing so, it seeks to illuminate dimensions of human experience that are too often overlooked, yet are essential to compassionate, equitable, and effective healthcare.

This work is particularly significant in the context of Aotearoa New Zealand and the wider Pacific, where the pursuit of health is inseparable from questions of identity, community, and justice.

The Centre is committed to fostering research that is not only rigorous, but also responsive—drawing on interdisciplinary approaches and embracing methodologies, including Kaupapa Māori, that honour diverse ways of knowing and being.

Equally, the Centre recognises that knowledge must not remain confined within academic boundaries. Through a strong commitment to creative communication and public engagement, it will cultivate spaces in which research can be shared, challenged, and reimagined—enabling dialogue that extends into the communities it serves.

As the first Centre of its kind in Aotearoa New Zealand, this initiative reflects both leadership and responsibility. It positions the University of Otago as a key contributor to national and international conversations in medical humanities, while remaining grounded in its obligations to local communities and to Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

Today’s opening is the result of the dedication, insight, and collaboration of many individuals and groups. To all who have contributed to bringing this vision to fruition, I extend my sincere appreciation. Your work has laid the foundation for a Centre that will, I am confident, make a lasting and meaningful contribution.

Thank you—and welcome.

Nō reira, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa.

Panellists included

• Professor Emerita Barbara Brookes (Medical Historian; co-founder of medical humanities selectives programme; co-founder of Corpus) 

• Professor Maebh Long (Eamon Cleary Chair of Irish Studies; Co-Director Centre for Irish and Scottish Studies; Deputy-Director Centre for Medical Humanities)

• Professor Helen Nicholson (Clinical Anatomist and Medical Educator; former Vice Chancellor of the University of Otago)

• Professor Karyn Paringatai (Ngāti Porou; Te Tumu; Prime Minister’s Science Prize for Research, Prime Minister’s Supreme Award for Tertiary Teaching Excellence)

• Associate Professor Elizabeth Stephens (University of Queensland; chair of the Australasian Health & Medical Humanities Network)

Hugh Campbell, PVC Humanities, opened the launch party section of our evening with a speech. We were graced with a poetry reading from Otago University Press publisher, Corpus co-founder and editor, and awarded poet, Sue Wootton. We also had a dance performance themed around identity, from three undergraduate students: Caprice Gifford, Ada Wilson-Keen, and Lilly Greig.

A warm thanks to all who contributed!

You can see some additional lovely photos from the event here.