15 Jan
2026
15 Jan
'26
4:19 p.m.
*Summer School*
*Call for Applications *
*(Deadline: February 15, 2026)*
**
*24^th univie: summer school – Scientific World Conceptions (USS-SWC)*
*GLOBAL HEALTH***
*Vienna, July 6-10, 2026*
*https://summerschool-ivc.univie.ac.at/*
**
*Course Description*
‘Global health’ has attracted wide attention. This program will explore
this interdisciplinary topic from a variety different but interrelated
perspectives. First, global health reveals significant health
disparities: but what causes these, and which disparities are unjust and
demand redress? How types of social oppression – such as, racism and
heterosexism – relate to health injustices will be explored, alongside
investigating the contentious role of advocacy in public health.
Second, global health reveals dilemmas between individual rights and
communal benefits. For example, clinical trials funded by Western
pharmaceutical companies benefit and exploit participants in low-income
countries; measures to control the spread of Covid-19 protected and
restricted individuals; and international differences in assisted dying
legislation largely depend on how much a jurisdiction values individual
autonomy. Such dilemmas are viewed through a philosophical
bioethics/public health ethics lens.
Third, global health will be explored from a sociological and humanistic
perspective, emphasizing how health is shaped by global
interdependencies, power relations, and cultural meanings. Moving beyond
biomedical paradigms, the sociology of health can highlight the social,
political, and epistemological dimensions of illness, care, and
inequality. In addition, Graphic Medicine as an innovative visual and
narrative approach to representing experiences of vulnerability and
global crisis, will be introduced.
*Topics*will be selected reflecting participants’ interests and may include:
·History of efforts to account for what causes public health
disparities, and what makes a disparity an injustice/inequity in need of
intervention
·Efforts to theorize how various types of social oppression relate to
health injustices and the amelioration of those injustices
·Role of advocacy in public health, including limits on the roles of
public health experts in crafting social policies around issues such as
immigration and climate change
·Ethics of clinical trials by Western pharmaceutical companies that take
place in low-income countries
·Justification for liberty-limiting measures to control the spread of
Covid-19 around the globe
·International differences in forms of assisted dying and which, if any,
are justifiable.
·The conceptual evolution from Public Health to One Health and Planetary
Health, focusing on how sociological approaches reframe health as a
relational and systemic phenomenon
·Postcolonial and decolonial perspectives, questioning how global health
reproduces colonial hierarchies and epistemic injustices
·Visual storytelling: how comics and graphic narratives contribute to
understanding emotional labour, care, and social inequality in health
**
**
*Lecturers*:
*Stephen Holland (University of York)*
Stephen Holland is a Professor in the Departments of Philosophy and
Health Sciences, University of York.
Stephen’s main research interests are in ethics, including moral and
political philosophy, bioethics, and public health ethics. As well as
numerous articles, he is the author of ‘Bioethics: A Philosophical
Introduction’ and ‘Public Health Ethics’, both published by Polity, and
‘Ethics and Governance of Public Health Information’, published by
Rowman & Littlefield. He is currently working on a book on assisted
dying, due to be published by Polity next year.
*Veronica Moretti (University of Bologna)*
Veronica Moretti is an Associate Professor at the University of Bologna
and a member of the University Bioethics Committee. Her main research
interests lie in the field of creative and participatory methods within
the sociology of health and illness, and in the intersections between
technology and human practices, with a specific emphasis on digital
health theories.
She is co-coordinator of the ESA Research Network 22 Sociology of Risk
and Uncertainties, a board member of the European Society for Health and
Medical Sociology (ESHMS), and one of the founders of Graphic Medicine
Italia. Her latest publication, The Social Genre of Comics (Palgrave,
2025), investigates how comics can function as a social and
epistemological genre within the humanities and social sciences.
**
**
**
*Sean A. Valles (Michigan State University)*
Sean A. Valles, PhD, is Professor and Director of the Michigan State
University Center for Bioethics and Social Justice and Director of
Learning Environment for the College of Human Medicine.
Dr. Valles is a philosopher of health specializing in the ethical and
evidentiary complexities of how social contexts combine to create
patterns of inequitable health disparities. His work includes studying
the challenges of responsibly using race and ethnicity concepts in
monitoring health disparities, scrutinizing the rhetoric of the COVID-19
pandemic as an ‘unprecedented’ problem that could not be prepared for,
and examining how biomedicine meshes with public health and population
health.
Dr. Valles is author of the 2018 book “Philosophy of Population Health:
Philosophy for a New Public Health Era.” He is also co-editor of the
Oxford University Press book series "Bioethics for Social Justice.” Dr.
Valles received his PhD in history and philosophy of science from
Indiana University Bloomington.
**
*Application form and further information*:
https://summerschool-ivc.univie.ac.at/application/
<https://summerschool-ivc.univie.ac.at/application/>
USS-SWC operates under the academic supervision of an International
Program Committee of distinguished philosophers, historians, and
scientists. Its members represent the scientific fields in the scope of
USS-SWC, make contact to their home universities and will also support
acknowledgement of courses taken by the students. The annual summer
school is organised by the Institute Vienna Circle of the University of
Vienna.
https://wienerkreis.univie.ac.at/ <https://wienerkreis.univie.ac.at/>
Find information about our exchange programme with Duke University (North
Carolina) here:
https://international.univie.ac.at/en/international-cooperation/university-…
<https://international.univie.ac.at/en/international-cooperation/university-wide-partnership-agreements/north-america/>
*Inquiries:*
__
_Administrator:_
Zarah Weiss
Institute Vienna Circle
Alser Straße 23/32
1080 Wien
summerschool.ivc(a)univie.ac.at <mailto:summerschool.ivc@univie.ac.at>
_Scientific director:_
Georg Schiemer
Institute Vienna Circle
Alser Straße 23/32
1080 Wien
georg.schiemer(a)univie.ac.at <mailto:georg.schiemer@univie.ac.at>