Medical Humanities in Transition Monika Pietrzak-Franger, Anna M Elsner Postdigital health practices: new directions in medical humanities Monika Pietrzak-Franger Solidarity during the COVID-19 pandemic: evidence from a nine-country interview study in Europe [read the article summary] Katharina Kieslich, Amelia Fiske, Marie Gaille, Ilaria Galasso, Susi Geiger, Nora Hangel, Ruth Horn, Marjolein Lanzing, Sébastien Libert, Elisa […]
Latest articles
The Idea of Medicine as Poetry: Alan Bleakley’s “Keats’ Lexicon”
The Bio-Illogical (Liverpool: The Artel Press, 2023. ISBN 978-1739900335). Book Review by Dr. Shane Neilson Alan Bleakley knows a thing or two about Keats. As an emeritus professor of medical education and medical humanities at Plymouth University Peninsula Medical School, one of his areas of scholarly interest has been increasing medical learners and practitioners’ tolerance […]
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 […]
Authority and Medical Expertise: Arthur Conan Doyle in The Idler
Article Summary by Anne Chapman Arthur Conan Doyle’s medical and writing careers intertwined (highlighted most recently by the current BBC programme Killing Sherlock: Lucy Worsley on the Case of Conan Doyle) and his work has a history of being read in the light of his medical expertise. He wrote at a time when the professionalisation […]
“It Is Difficult For Us To Treat Their Pain”. Health Professionals’ Perceptions of Somali Pastoralists in the Context of Pain Management: A Conceptual Model
Article Summary by Elenore Baum Pain relief in Sub-Saharan Africa is a major public health concern, particularly for marginalized populations such as pastoralists. Their seasonal mobility and remote lifestyle with limited access to health services contribute to their vulnerability towards poorer health outcomes, including pain. To improve pastoralists’ access to pain treatment in biomedical health […]
Transparent Boundaries as Scenographies of Trust: The COVID-19 Pandemic from the View of Material Cultural Studies and Artistic Works
Article Summary by Monika Ankele and Céline Kaiser From the start, the profound transformations that accompanied the COVID-19 pandemic found expression in a plethora of objects and facilities that dominated our daily lives far beyond the clinical sphere. Supermarkets, hotel receptions, taxis, restaurants, doctors’ surgeries and even schools were equipped with plexiglass screens of all […]
The Story Behind Kaleidoscopic Minds: An Anthology of Poetry by Neurodivergent Women
Blog by Dr. Catherine Bell, GP and coeditor of Kaleidoscopic Minds Kaleidoscopic Minds is an anthology of poetry written by neurodivergent women. The poets featured in this collection belong to a generation of late-diagnosed, undiagnosed and misdiagnosed women with lived experience of ADHD, autism, dyslexia, dyspraxia, OCD, and tics. The editors believe that poetry is […]