Tana Jean Welch Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Medical Humanities
Biosketch
Tana Jean Welch is a poet and scholar of contemporary American poetry and medical humanities. She received her Ph.D. in English from Florida State University, specializing in American poetics, feminist science studies, posthumanism, and new materialism. She teaches courses in literature, writing, and humanities and serves as the director of the Chapman Humanities and Arts in Medicine Program (CHAMP). Dr. Welch is also the managing editor for HEAL: Humanism Evolving through Arts and Literature. Her scholarship has been published in MELUS, Literature and Medicine, and Academic Medicine. Her poetry has been published in The Colorado Review, The Southern Review, Prairie Schooner, The Gettysburg Review, and other national literary journals. She is the author of the poetry collections In Parachutes Descending (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2024) and Latest Volcano (Marsh Hawk Press, 2016).
Dr. Welch’s monograph, Advancing Medical Posthumanism Through Twenty-First Century American Poetry (Palgrave, 2024), places contemporary poetics in dialogue with biomedicine in order to create a framework for advancing a posthuman-affirmative ethics within the culture of medical practice.This poetry challenges the idea that human and nonhuman are separated by firm boundaries, and in doing so, participates in an ethical discourse predicated on materiality, embodiment, and kinship. Considering poetry by Juliana Spahr, Claudia Rankine, Cathy Park Hong, Brian Teare, Sam Sax, and Franny Choi, Welch illustrates how these poets challenge us to rethink health, illness, and the structural institutions and systems that guide medicine. A relational, dynamic view of health and the body opens up avenues of action for the betterment of all bodies and their social and physical environments.
♦
Education
Ph.D. Literature, Florida State University
M.F.A. Poetry, San Diego State University
B.A. English, San Diego State University
♦
Service
Director, Chapman Humanities and Arts in Medicine Program
Advisor, Humanities and Medicine Student Interest Group
Advisor and Managing Editor, HEAL: Humanism Evolving through Arts and Literature
Advisor, Arts in Medicine Community Outreach Program
♦
Memberships
American Society for Bioethics and Humanities
Health Humanities Consortium
Modern Language Association
Association of Writers and Writing Programs
American Medical Women's Association
♦
Courses
MDE 7052: Literature and Medicine
MDT 7120: Narrative Medicine: Reflective and Creative Writing
IHS 4123: Narrative Medicine: Patient-Centered Care and the Individual Story
IHS 3126: Comics and Medicine
BMS 6037: Foundations of Medicine 1
BMS 6030: Foundations of Medicine 2
♦
Research Focus
Medical Humanities
Narrative Medicine
21st Century American Poetry
Multiethnic and Global Literature
Gender and Feminist Theory
Posthumanism and New Materialism
♦
Publications
MONOGRAPH
Advancing Medical Posthumanism Through Twenty-First Century American Poetry (2024)
POETRY BOOKS
In Parachutes Descending (2024)
Latest Volcano (2016)
PEER-REVIEWED ARTICLES
Welch, T.J. (2023) "Better Medicine: Shared Suffering and Chronic Vulnerability in Brian Teare's The Empty Form Goes All the Way to Heaven." Literature and Medicine.
Welch, T.J. (2022) "Commentary: The Hate U Give." Academic Medicine.
Welch, T.J. (2017) "Language, Matter, Movement: Dynamic Community in Cathy Park Hong’s Dance Dance Revolution," published in Community Boundaries and Border Crossings by Ethnic Women Writers: Critical Essays. Eds. Kristen Lillvis, Molly Fuller, and Robert Miltner. Lexington.
Welch, T.J. & Harrison S. (2016) "Teaching Medicine Through the Study of Literature: Implementing a Fourth-Year Distance Learning Elective," Academic Medicine 91(3).
Welch, T.J. (2015) "Don't Let Me Be Lonely: The Trans-Corporeal Ethics of Claudia Rankine's Investigative Poetics," Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States 40(1).
Welch, T.J. (2014) "Entangled Species: The Inclusive Posthumanist Ecopoetics of Juliana Spahr," The Journal of Ecocriticism 6(1).
Rodriguez J., Welch, T.J., Saunders C., & Edwards, J. (2013) “Students' Perceptions of the Impact a Creative Arts Journal Has on Their Medical Education,” Family Medicine 45 (8).
Rodriguez J., Welch, T.J., & Edwards, J. (2012) "Impact of a creative arts journal on a medical school community: A qualitative study," The Journal of Poetry Therapy 25(4):197-204.
Tana Jean Welch is a poet and scholar of contemporary American poetry and medical humanities. She received her Ph.D. in English from Florida State University, specializing in American poetics, feminist science studies, posthumanism, and new materialism. She teaches courses in literature, writing, and humanities and serves as the director of the Chapman Humanities and Arts in Medicine Program (CHAMP). Dr. Welch is also the managing editor for HEAL: Humanism Evolving through Arts and Literature. Her scholarship has been published in MELUS, Literature and Medicine, and Academic Medicine. Her poetry has been published in The Colorado Review, The Southern Review, Prairie Schooner, The Gettysburg Review, and other national literary journals. She is the author of the poetry collections In Parachutes Descending (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2024) and Latest Volcano (Marsh Hawk Press, 2016).
Dr. Welch’s monograph, Advancing Medical Posthumanism Through Twenty-First Century American Poetry (Palgrave, 2024), places contemporary poetics in dialogue with biomedicine in order to create a framework for advancing a posthuman-affirmative ethics within the culture of medical practice.This poetry challenges the idea that human and nonhuman are separated by firm boundaries, and in doing so, participates in an ethical discourse predicated on materiality, embodiment, and kinship. Considering poetry by Juliana Spahr, Claudia Rankine, Cathy Park Hong, Brian Teare, Sam Sax, and Franny Choi, Welch illustrates how these poets challenge us to rethink health, illness, and the structural institutions and systems that guide medicine. A relational, dynamic view of health and the body opens up avenues of action for the betterment of all bodies and their social and physical environments.
♦
Ph.D. Literature, Florida State University
M.F.A. Poetry, San Diego State University
B.A. English, San Diego State University
♦
Director, Chapman Humanities and Arts in Medicine Program
Advisor, Humanities and Medicine Student Interest Group
Advisor and Managing Editor, HEAL: Humanism Evolving through Arts and Literature
Advisor, Arts in Medicine Community Outreach Program
♦
American Society for Bioethics and Humanities
Health Humanities Consortium
Modern Language Association
Association of Writers and Writing Programs
American Medical Women's Association
♦
MDE 7052: Literature and Medicine
MDT 7120: Narrative Medicine: Reflective and Creative Writing
IHS 4123: Narrative Medicine: Patient-Centered Care and the Individual Story
IHS 3126: Comics and Medicine
BMS 6037: Foundations of Medicine 1
BMS 6030: Foundations of Medicine 2
♦
Medical Humanities
Narrative Medicine
21st Century American Poetry
Multiethnic and Global Literature
Gender and Feminist Theory
Posthumanism and New Materialism
♦
MONOGRAPH
Advancing Medical Posthumanism Through Twenty-First Century American Poetry (2024)
POETRY BOOKS
In Parachutes Descending (2024)
Latest Volcano (2016)
PEER-REVIEWED ARTICLES
Welch, T.J. (2023) "Better Medicine: Shared Suffering and Chronic Vulnerability in Brian Teare's The Empty Form Goes All the Way to Heaven." Literature and Medicine.
Welch, T.J. (2022) "Commentary: The Hate U Give." Academic Medicine.
Welch, T.J. (2017) "Language, Matter, Movement: Dynamic Community in Cathy Park Hong’s Dance Dance Revolution," published in Community Boundaries and Border Crossings by Ethnic Women Writers: Critical Essays. Eds. Kristen Lillvis, Molly Fuller, and Robert Miltner. Lexington.
Welch, T.J. & Harrison S. (2016) "Teaching Medicine Through the Study of Literature: Implementing a Fourth-Year Distance Learning Elective," Academic Medicine 91(3).
Welch, T.J. (2015) "Don't Let Me Be Lonely: The Trans-Corporeal Ethics of Claudia Rankine's Investigative Poetics," Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States 40(1).
Welch, T.J. (2014) "Entangled Species: The Inclusive Posthumanist Ecopoetics of Juliana Spahr," The Journal of Ecocriticism 6(1).
Rodriguez J., Welch, T.J., Saunders C., & Edwards, J. (2013) “Students' Perceptions of the Impact a Creative Arts Journal Has on Their Medical Education,” Family Medicine 45 (8).
Rodriguez J., Welch, T.J., & Edwards, J. (2012) "Impact of a creative arts journal on a medical school community: A qualitative study," The Journal of Poetry Therapy 25(4):197-204.