Article Summary by Jay Clayton This contribution to the special issue of Medical Humanities on Global Genetic Fictions focuses on an award-winning science fiction story by Samuel R. Delany, “Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones.” In the story, Delany imagines something he calls “hologramic information storage,” which allows an interplanetary Special Service agent […]
Category: Special Issues
Painful Metaphors: Enactivism and Art in Qualitative Research
Article Summary by Peter Stilwell There is now widespread consensus that pain is subjective, meaning that it is a private and personal experience. Because pain is experienced from a person’s unique perspective, others (e.g., healthcare practitioners, family, friends) cannot directly “see” or fully understand what the experience is like. To somewhat express what it is […]
Genetic Enhancement, TED Talks and the Sense of Wonder
Article Summary by Loredana Filip Science can be communicated to the public in various ways, including books and journal articles. And yet in our digital world, online interactions have a growing impact on the audience. TED talks became a widely available and highly popular resource for the communication and reception of science. They reach huge […]
Shame-to-Cynicism Conversion in The Citadel and The House of God
Article Summary by Arthur Rose “Shame is everywhere in medicine”, a recent call for voices by The Nocturnists reminds us, “and yet—due to its taboo nature and the culture of silence that surrounds it—shame is nowhere in healthcare”. Admitting shame is often, itself, treated as shameful, which may account for this ubiquitous absence. This article […]
History, Pastness and the Postgenomic Imaginary
Article Summary by Jerome de Groot The mapping of the Human Genome is one of the most important advances in scientific knowledge in the past century. It means that we can ‘know’ the human body in increasingly complex detail. In this article I look at the ways that a number of artists – rappers, poets, […]
A Brief and Personal History of ‘What’s in a Name’ in Reproductive Genetics
Article Summary by Jeff Nisker Although Juliet’s claim, ’What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet’, may apply to family names, ‘that which we call’ embryos and procedures in reproductive genetics often smell sweet because the names were created to perfume not-so-sweet-smelling practices. Reproductive-genetic scientists […]
Global Genetic Fictions
Article Summary by Clare Barker In ‘Global Genetic Fictions’, Clare Barker introduces the concerns of the special issue. This special issue explores cultural representations of genes, the human genome and genetic science in a range of artforms and genres, including poetry, genre fiction, rap music, TED talks, popular science, historical fiction and postcolonial literature. The […]
December Issue: State, religion and the Marginalisation of traditional healing
In today’s post, we want to preview a summary of work by Shakir Ullah, He Guoqiang, Usman Khan, and Komal Niazi: State, religion and the marginalisation of traditional healing in Gwadar, Pakistan. In this ethnographic encounter, authors explore suppression and domination faced by traditional health seekers in Gwadar, Pakistan. The study aimed to provide an […]
December special Issue: Haunted Hearts
Today we are pleased to present another from the December Special Issue Section: The haunted heart and the Holy Ghost: on retrieval, donation and death, by Joshua Hordern. In his summary of the work, Joshua writes: What is haunting about our hearts? Some people who receive transplanted hearts report a strange feeling of connection to […]
Podcast: Heart in Medicine, History and Culture
Today we are joined by Therese Feiler, a Postdoctoral Researcher in Systematic Theology and Ethics at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich. She is part of the project DigiMed Bayern, a multidisciplinary consortium working on digitalized and personalized medicine in in the field of athero-sclerotic diseases. She’ll be speaking to EIC Brandy Schillace about the upcoming December […]