People, Collaborations and Network
MeNND People
Giulia Frezza - Principal Investigator
Giulia Frezza is a philosopher and historian of science and medicine interested in health communication and interdisciplinary multimethod research.
She holds a PhD in epistemology and history of science at Denis-Diderot University Paris VII (FR) and Roma TRE University (IT). She worked as a post-doc and lecturer in philosophy and history of medicine at Sapienza University of Rome (IT). She investigated the roots of hereditary theories and classical genetics, and the development of Italian occupational medicine in the 1960s and 1970s as an early example of the citizen science movement (see https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Giulia_Frezza).
Currently she is a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellow working at the Metaphor Lab within the Amsterdam Center for Language and Communication of the University of Amsterdam (NL - http://metaphorlab.org/; https://aclc.uva.nl). Her research aims to improve human health and wellbeing in a broad, inclusive, sense. Her project ‘Metaphorical Narratives in Dementia Discourse’ (MeNDD) addresses fundamental ethical issues in the field of dementia communication with an interdisciplinary focus. For instance, MeNDD addresses stigma and the use of respectful language in dementia communication by crossing a philosophical perspective with tools and methodologies from linguistics, discourse analysis and the social sciences.
Giulia is interested in the integration of art and science as a research topic and tool. She worked as a playwright, assistant director and performer. She has organised workshops for children and adults, and science outreach events for the Museum of the History of Medicine (Sapienza University of Rome, IT - https://web.uniroma1.it/museostoriamedicina/) for the European Night of Museums, and for three editions of the Medical Science Festival of Bologna (IT- https://bolognamedicina.it/en/).
Christian Burgers - Supervisor
Christian Burgers is a Full Professor of Communication and Organisations in the Amsterdam School of Communication Research (ASCoR) at the University of Amsterdam (The Netherlands). He also holds the Logeion Chair in Strategic Communication at the same university. His research focuses on the role of language in strategic communication, with a particular focus on framing and sensemaking processes. He is the project leader of his VIDI project “Contemporary Political Satire” (2018-2024). Website: http://www.copolsat.org/. He is also the main editor of the book series Metaphor in Language, Cognition and Communication (MiLCC, Benjamins, https://benjamins.com/catalog/milcc).
Jolanda Veldhuis
Jolanda Veldhuis is an Assistant Professor in the field of risk - and health communication, social marketing as well as Media Psychology at the Department of Communication Science of the Faculty of Social Sciences (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam). She graduated in Biomedical Sciences (Master of Science, with a specialization in Communication and Education) and obtained a master degree in Biology Vocational Education (Lerarenopleiding Biologie, also visiting scholar of the University of Namibia). She obtained her PhD in the field of media psychology, studying media effects and intervention methods impacting body image in youngsters. In more recent years, she was a visiting scholar at the Ohio State University (USA), the University of Cape Town (South-Africa), and Flinders University (Adelaide, Australia). Her research interests include communication strategies to negotiate the effects of media exposure, processing of media communication in a social context (media-by-peer interactions), and research-based social marketing applications.
Gerard Steen - Host and Former Supervisor of MeNDD Project
Gerard Steen is Full Professor of Language and Communication at the University of Amsterdam's (UvA), Faculty of Humanities, Department of Dutch Studies. He is also the founding director of the Metaphor Lab Amsterdam. He conducts research into figurative meaning in language and communication. He has developed various methods for the identification and analysis of metaphor, drawing on social and cognitive science techniques to test their reliability. Currently, he is working on building an interdisciplinary metaphor processing model that will combine approaches from linguistics, psychology, and the social sciences. The model will be used to investigate structures and processes of metaphorical meaning in their situated context of use, and to utilize the resulting knowledge for practical applications in language and communication. His latest research has focused on resistance to metaphor in language, cognition, and communication in domains like the media, politics, science, and health communication. Webpage: https://www.uva.nl/profiel/s/t/g.j.steen/g.j.steen.html
MeNND Collaborations
Dementia Diaries
Dementia Diaries brings together people’s diverse experiences of living with dementia as a series of audio and video diaries.
Diarists want to change the way people talk and think about dementia. Their diaries are a great way of doing this. Not only is Dementia Diaries a personal archive for diarists, but it’s a public record too.
Steve Milton
Director of Innovations in Dementia
Steve is a trainer and public speaker and coordinates Dementia Diaries. He has been working with older and disabled people since 1985, as a researcher, writer and service manager. He helped set up the Alzheimers Society Helpline in 1995 which he ran for 7 years.
Laurence Ivil
Multimedia journalist and producer
Laurence designed, co-created, and co-coordinated the launch of Dementia Diaries in January 2015 together with the non-profit agency On Our Radar in January 2015. He co-ordinated the project with On Our Radar for two years.
MeNND Network
Metaphor Lab Amsterdam
METAPHOR LAB AMSTERDAM is an international expertise centre for Metaphor Studies aiming to modernize more traditional approaches to metaphor, as in rhetoric, while indicating its potential for application to and intervention in everyday reality.
Dementia in Metaphor
DEMENTIA IN METAPHOR ‘Towards shared understanding and decision-making in families of various cultural backgrounds’
The project is part of the national dementia program Memorabel that is held at the Radboud University Medical Center (NL) and focuses on Dutch patients’ and caregivers’ cross-cultural patterns of language use in dementia discourse. Project leader, Dr. G.J. Olthuis, Radboudumc.
Dementia and Cultural Narrative Network (UK)
DEMENTIA AND CULTURAL NARRATIVE NETWORK (UK) promotes collaboration among academics and between academics and non-academics from different countries working in the field of dementia and cultural narratives.
ERA_NET Neuron Project BEAD
ERA-NET Neuron project BEAD ‘Optimizing the aging Brain? Situating Ethical Aspects of Dementia Prevention The project employs a multi-perspective, combining interview research, discourse analysis and an integrated analysis of the ethical, social, epistemic and cultural aspects of the new dementia. In partnership with the University Medical Center Göttingen (coordinator), and Université de Montréal (CA), ETH Zurich (CH).
Scientific Committee
dr. ANKE OERLEMANS, Radboud University Medical Center, Healthcare improvement science
dr. JEAN WAGEMANS, University of Amsterdam, Faculty of Humanities, Capaciteitsgroep Taalbeheersing, Argumentatietheorie en Retorica
International Advisory Board
Prof. Rose-Marie Droes, VU Medisch Centrum, NL
Prof. Paul Higgis, University College London, UK
Prof. Brigitte Nerlich, University of Nottingham, UK
Prof. Silke Schicktanz, University of Goettingen, DE
Prof. Elena Semino, Lancaster University, UK
Prof. (emeritus) Myrra J.F. Vernooij-Dassen, Faculty of Medical Sciences, Radboud University, NL
Prof. Julia van Weert, Amsterdam Center for Health Communication, UvA, NL