Article Summary by Andrea Ford In recent years, you hear a lot about ’vulnerability’—for example, during the COVID-19 lockdowns in the UK the idea that some people are more vulnerable than others and should therefore be treated differently came up often. We thought it was interesting how vulnerability seemed to be used interchangeably with risk […]
Category: Journal Announcements
They Are Not All Wolves: Menstruation, Young Adult Fiction and Nuancing the Teenage Boy
Article Summary by Jemma Walton Literary depictions of menstruation are scarce, despite the fierce interest which accompanied the 1970 publication of Judy Blume’s Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret; a Young Adult novel that ends with the young female protagonist thanking God for the arrival of her first period. However, an intensification in menstrual activism across […]
Creating Comics, Songs and Poems
Article Summary by Muna Al-Jawad, Neil Singh and Gaurish Chawla Decolonising is now a commonly used buzzword in higher education, but what does it feel like in practice? This paper captures the reflections – both analytical and creative – of three healthcare workers and academics in medical education in the UK. We hope to make […]
Adolescent Idiopathic Scoliosis: Interdisciplinary Creative Art Practice and Nature Connections
Article Summary by Catherine Baker, Nina Morris, Athanasios Tsirikos, Olga Fotakopoulou and Flora Parrott Whilst Scoliosis isn’t rare, very few people had heard of it and therefore, don’t understand the impact that it can have on the lives of those diagnosed and the people they share their lives with. Most cases affect children and young […]
Narrative Medicine Theory and Practice: The Double Helix Model
Article Summary by Liam Butchart and Shabnam Parsa In the medical humanities, narrative medicine—the academic field that uses the study of patient and provider stories to better understand illness experiences and to heal—has become a dominant school of thought. “Narrative Medicine Theory and Practice: The Double Helix Model” critically examines this approach. Whereas the current […]
Illness and (Hyper)Masculinity in ‘HIMM’ Ccomics from the USA
Article Summary by Paul Mitchell In “Illness and (Hyper)Masculinity in HIMM Comics from the USA”, I explore how three cartoonists graphically depict their personal experiences of illness. The texts that I analyse, My Degeneration (Peter Dunlap-Shohl), Relatively Indolent but Relentless (Matt Freedman) and The Hospital Suite (John Porcellino) deal with diverse health problems, from Parkinson’s […]
Hanna Rion and The Weekly Dispatch’s Twilight Sleep Crusade
Article Summary by Eleanor Taylor 1847 was a momentous year in the history obstetric anaesthetic, as well as the history of medicine, with James Young Simpson’s discovery of the anaesthetic properties of chloroform. For the next fifty years, chloroform was the anaesthetic of choice. However, in the early 1900s, a new method of obstetric pain […]
Prostheses of Disability: Islamic Fundamentalism and the Disabled Body in Postcolonial Arab Fiction
Article Summary by Abir Hamdar What is the relationship between disability and Islamic fundamentalism? To answer this question, this essay explores the representation of disability in postcolonial Arab fiction about Islamic fundamentalism and in particular, the significance of the prosthesis: an artificial device that substitutes for a missing part of the body. As the essay […]
Gender, Race and Class at Work: Enlisting African Health Labour into the Gold Coast Medical Service, 1860–1957
Article Summary by Lucky Tomdi This article is part of an ongoing project that examines the historical roles and experiences of African health workers in Ghana during the late 19th and 20th centuries. It examines how gender, race, and class shaped the participation of Africans in colonial and Christian missionary biomedical services from 1860 to […]
(Post)confessional Mode and Psychological Surveillance in The Crown and Fleabag
Article Summary by Sarah Hagaman Two fictional therapy sessions are at the heart of my article, “(Post)confessional Mode and Psychological Surveillance in The Crown and Fleabag.” In Season 4 of The Crown, Princess Margaret—the Queen’s younger sister—discovers she may suffer from a hereditary mental illness. The second, Season 2 of Fleabag shows a short, bizarre […]