Andreas Schmidt Eriksen

Short presentation

I work as a PhD-student at Medical Museion on the project “Health Matters”, funded by the Carlsberg Semper Ardens-Grant. Alongside PI Adam Bencard and postdoc Valeria Borsotti, I investigate how encounters with objects from medical history can foster deeper understandings of health complexity.

Many current challenges in public health, such as polypharmacy, health inequalities and mental health, can be characterized by their complexity through their interaction of biological, social, psychological and economic processes. Such challenges also concern communication – how can we talk about these things in a way that addresses the complexity of health and illnesses? In the project we explore how the medical museum can answer such a question through its material objects, social spaces and curatorial expertise.

I am trained as a historian from the universities of Copenhagen and Heidelberg and have formerly worked in Medical Museion as well as with historical research at the SAXO-Institute at KU. In my PhD-project, I will work in the intersection between history, philosophies of materiality, complexity theory and public health. More specifically, I will investigate historical cases of health complexity to contextualize current discussions within public health. Furthermore, I will develop a theoretical-methodological framework for doing historical research through the lens of complexity.