Review by Christina Lee Thomas Joiner, Mindlessness: The Corruption of Mindfulness in a Culture of Narcissism (New York: Oxford University Press 2017). In Mindlessness: The Corruption of Mindfulness in a Culture of Narcissism, Thomas Joiner scrutinises the reliability of positive outcomes in publicised mindfulness-based clinical studies and brings his clinical experience in psychology to shed […]
Category: Book Reviews
Matthew Morgan’s Critical Finds Meaning in Intensive Care Medicine
Review by Amitha Kalaichandran, M.D. The intensive care unit (ICU) in any hospital is the most high-tech, and the least interactive, in terms of doctors and patients. I often think back to two patients in the pediatric ICU—one who had a recurrence of metastatic cancer resulting in multi-organ failure, and for which every last intervention […]
Enchanting Robots: Intimacy, Magic, and Technology by Maciej Musiał
Review by Sue Smith Enchanting Robots: Intimacy, Magic, and Technology is part of the book series, Social and Cultural Studies of Robots and AI, edited by Kathleen Richardson, Cathrine Hasse and Teresa Heffernan, and is written by Polish academic, Maciej Musiał. In Enchanting Robots Musiał discusses ‘magic’ and ‘magical thinking’ in order to critically assess […]
Words in Pain
Book Review by Kelechi Anucha Olga Jacoby. Ed. Jocelyn Catty, Trevor Moore, Skyscraper Publications, 2019.254pp, £15.00. Words in Pain is a collected volume of letters by a young woman named Olga Jacoby, written over a four year period from 1909 to 1913. It follows the inexorable progression of her terminal illness and is addressed to […]
The Biopsychosocial Model of Health and Disease: New Philosophical and Scientific Developments
Book Review by Neil Vickers Derek Bolton and Grant Gillett, The Biopsychosocial Model of Health and Disease: New Philosophical and Scientific Developments. Houndmills: Palgrave, 2019. ISBN 978-3-030-11899-0. This book is an open access book, that can be downloaded free of charge. The biopsychosocial model of health and disease (BPSM) is the nearest thing academic medicine […]
Effecting Change in Perspective is a Challenging (and Hence Critical) Endeavour
On Madness and the Demand for Recognition: A philosophical inquiry into identity and mental health activism by Mohammed Abouelleil Rashed (Oxford University Press, 2019), and how ‘soft and pure’ disciplines must take the lead to enrich our repertoire in how we think about ourselves and others today Book Review and Provocation by Kai Syng Tan […]
Disability Studies and the Environmental Humanities: Toward an Eco-Crip Theory
Disability Studies and the Environmental Humanities: Toward an Eco-Crip Theory by Sarah Jaquette Ray and Jay Sibara (Editors), Forward by Stacy Alaimo, 2017, Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 667 pages, £58. Reviewed by Dr. Sue Smith Disability Studies and the Environmental Humanities: Toward an Eco-Crip Theory is a groundbreaking project dedicated to bringing […]
The Human Body in the Age of Catastrophe: Brittleness, Integration, Science and the Great War
Stefanous Geroulanos and Todd Meyers (writers). The Human Body in the Age of Catastrophe: Brittleness, Integration, Science and the Great War (2018), University of Chicago Press, 432 pp, £26.50. by Linda Roland Danil In this book, Geroulanos and Meyers mainly explore the emergence of a new approach towards corporeal integration in physiology during and after […]
Medicine and Empathy in Contemporary British Fiction [book review]
Anne Whitehead, Medicine and Empathy in Contemporary British Fiction (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2017) 224 pages, £75.00 ISBN 9780748686186 (Paperback forthcoming in May 2019). by Marie Allitt. In order to unravel the concept of empathy, Anne Whitehead engages with many of the increasingly relevant and problematic topics in both medicine and medical humanities today, […]
Lissa: A Story About Medical Promise, Friendship, and Revolution
Sherine Hamdy and Coleman Nye (writers), Sarula Bao and Caroline Brewer (art), Marc Parenteau (lettering), Lissa: A Story About Medical Promise, Friendship, and Revolution (2017), University of Toronto Press, 302 pp, £12.99. Reviewed by Dr Glyn Morgan Lissa is the first book in a new series from University of Toronto Press with the punningly pleasant […]