Posts submitted by reviewers of books within the Medical Humanities
With a week’s reflection under my belt I think the time has come for sharing perspectives. Sarah Atkinson has given a useful overview of the event and some of her highlights, and I’d like to lay out six of the ideas that caught my imagination. The points are chronologically rather Read more…
From the Cradle to the Grave: reciprocity and exchange in the making of medicine and the modern arts. A one day meeting at Exeter University, 14th April, 2011. This convivial one-day meeting lived up to its billing in that reciprocity and exchange between the practices of medicine and the concerns Read more…
Emotional Experience in Depression: A Philosophical Study is a three-year AHRC-DFG funded project lead by Matthew Ratcliffe and Achim Stephan. Its aim, quite simply, is “to provide the first ever detailed, systematic philosophical study of the nature and role of altered mood, emotion and feeling in depression.” The Phenomenology of Read more…
Two memorable presentations from Anastasia Scrutton (compassion, empathy and the intellect) and Simon James (narrative, memory and Dickens) provided a splendid opportunity to see how two apparently loosely-connected enquiries can converge fruitfully in a free-wheeling discussion. (Corinne Saunders, chairing, was absolutely right to insist that we hear both presentations first Read more…
In his recent article, Professor Brody eloquently outlines the story of the three ‘personalities’ of medical humanities: that of disciplinary list, programme of moral development and critical friend. I think our field inhabits all of these personalities depending on where you find it and the purposes it is being put Read more…
Never Let Me Go is the new film by Mark Romanek based on Kazuo Ishiguo’s 2005 novel. It has been described as a mystery and a sci fi thriller. As someone who found the film only marginally mysterious and distinctly unthrilling, I have no qualms whatsoever about discussing openly what Read more…
Jane Macnaughton reviews Tiger Country: At the opening of Nina Raine’s new play about life in an acute hospital, Emily, the new junior doctor in A&E appears with a copy of the Oxford Handbook of Medicine stuffed in the pocket of her scrubs. My heart gave a jump at the Read more…
The OEDb (Online Education Database) have just published a list of the 50 best blogs for Humanities Scholars. It is a fantastic resource for aspiring and established scholars alike, and a real reminder of the growing role of the blogsphere in not just showcasing but also furthering discussion across humanities Read more…
Late this October, three of us from the Centre for Medical Humanities, Durham University, packed our summer clothes and headed West and South to visit our colleagues at the well-established Institute of Medical Humanities in Galveston. The Medical Branch of the University of Texas (UTMB) opened in 1891 at Galveston, Read more…
The second seminar: Experiencing and Celebrating Fatness. Since I was involved in organising this it is hard to get any critical distance. The seminar is part of a larger series on Fat Studies and HAES and this one provided a forum for engagement with fat activism. As such, the space Read more…