Kristine Munoz. (U-I photo)
A project-based at the University of Iowa has won a national grant to launch a digital library for demonstrating the importance of stories about health.
The narratives will teach people how to gather personal stories about health — in English and Spanish. Codirector Daena Goldsmith says the project has the ability to improve patients’ lives and improve health care provider morale, especially during a pandemic.
Goldsmith says, “This is a really good demonstration of how the humanities are absolutely relevant and essential to the kinds of issues that we’re all facing today.”
Codirector Kristine Muñoz says the project is about teaching people the benefits of storytelling about grief. “And teaching people to use storytelling to make sense of those universal parts of life,” Muñoz says. The National Endowment for the Humanities awarded about 150,000 to the project for three years of support.
Muñoz is headquartered at the U-I while Goldsmith is based at Lewis and Clark College in Oregon.
(By Kassidy Arena, Iowa Public Radio)