Sankari Palanivel

Medical Humanities researcher, academic writer, and educator with over two years of experience as a Teaching Assistant in higher education. Published in BMJ Medical Humanities, her work explores how narrative, language, and affect shape experiences of illness, recovery, and care. Situated at the intersection of literature and health humanities, her scholarship engages with narrative medicine, palliative care, illness memoirs, and healing practices, while her current research investigates music, emotional recovery, and mental health narratives as pathways to wellbeing and human flourishing.

Featured Publications

🟦 BMJ Medical Humanities
Illness Memoirs and Narrative Humility in Shaping the Language of Palliative Care
Investigates how illness narratives foster narrative humility and reshape the language of palliative care through patient-centered storytelling.
DOI: 10.1136/medhum-2025-013569

🟦 BMJ Medical Humanities
Integration Nodes: The Language of Fear and Cognitive Repair in Phobic Memoirs
Examines the narrative construction of fear and recovery, emphasizing memoir as a space for cognitive repair and emotional transformation.
DOI: 10.1136/medhum-2025-013666

Manuscripts under Review

English Language Anxiety in Multilingual India: Linguistic Hierarchy, Symbolic Power, and Communicative Insecurity in Educational Contexts

This study examines the relationship between language anxiety, linguistic hierarchy, and communicative insecurity within multilingual educational environments in India.

Music as Emotional Refuge: Madness, Memoir, and Unconscious Affective Listening

This article explores music as a site of emotional refuge and affective recovery, investigating the intersections of memoir, mental health, and listening practices within medical humanities discourse.

[Researching Cultural Vulnerability: Concepts, Contexts, and Challenges Online Faculty Development Programme], [Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, National Institute of Technology Tiruchirappalli (NIT Trichy), in collaboration with the UNESCO Chair in Vulnerability Studies, University of Hyderabad] - [27th January 2025- 1st February 2025]