Film Review by Robert Abrams Review of Oliver Sacks: His Own Life, documentary directed by Ric Burns (Steeplechase Films, USA, 2019) Screening for one night only special event in UK and Irish cinemas on 29th September. For tickets and more information, https://www.altitude.film/movies/tag/coming-soon Oliver Sacks: His Own Life bears the key hallmarks of a Ric Burns […]
Latest articles
“From Disaster, Miracles are Wrought”: A Narrative Analysis of UK Media Depictions of Remote GP Consulting in the Covid-19 Pandemic Using Burke’s Pentad
Article Summary by Gilly Mroz This study used narrative analysis (the study of stories and storytelling) to explore how the mainstream media reacted to the shift from face-to-face to remote medical consultations during the Covid-19 pandemic in the UK. We used a conceptual framework developed some years ago by the literary theorist Kenneth Burke, which […]
Vivisection Through the Eyes of Wilkie Collins, H.G. Wells and John Galsworthy
Article Summary by Jill Felicity Durey Before social media, novelists could help or hinder medical progress for humans and animals, as often their works were serialised. This article discusses the strong influence of Wilkie Collins, H.G. Wells and John Galsworthy on public acceptance or rejection of the medical use of vivisection. Collins, in the nineteenth […]
Lessons from the Frontlines: A Junior Doctor’s Experience of the First Wave of the COVID-19 Epidemic in a Resource-Limited Setting
Article Summary by Brabaharan Subhani and Dilushi Wijayaratne Sri Lanka is a low middle-income country which has a dominant state-run health service that provides free healthcare. The high rates of literacy and welfare orientation have enabled the country to achieve favourable health outcomes at a relatively low cost. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has stretched our […]
Breaking Free from the Cage of Modern Society
Film Review by Dr Franco Ferrarini, Gastroenterologist and Film Reviewer “Nomadland” (Chloé Zhao, USA, 2020) winner of the Oscar for best film, best director (Chloé Zhao) and best actress in a leading role (Frances McDormand) in 2021. At the beginning of ‘Nomadland’ we meet Fern (Frances McDormand), a middle-aged, middle-class woman, in what is probably […]
Making Emergency Responders Visible: Working-class Responses to Industrial Disaster in Nineteenth-Century Journalism and Poetry
Article Summary by Rosalyn Buckland Hidden beneath the ground in coalmines, or behind the walls of factories, the injured bodies of workers have too often been overlooked. While the nineteenth-century saw workplaces become ever more dangerous, journalists struggled to tell these stories. Using poems by Joseph Skipsey, I challenge journalistic neglect in order to illuminate the actions […]
War of Conscience: Anti-Vaccination and the Battle for Medical Freedom During World War One
Article Summary by Susan McPherson Many high-income countries have relatively high COVID vaccination uptake among people vulnerable to disease. There is also significant ‘vaccine hesitancy’ in some groups. Doubts may be fuelled to some extent by anti-vaccination campaigns. The term ‘anti-vax’ tends to be used to criticise those engaged in or endorsing anti-vaccination as though […]
Let’s Talk and Be Honest: Marianne Khoury, Egyptian film maker, Tackles Arab Women Taboos
Film Review by Khalid Ali, Film and Media Correspondent ‘Let’s talk’ (Documentary film, directed by Marianne Khoury, Egypt, 2019, winner of best documentary film in Cairo International Film Festival 2019) Showing at ‘The Time is New: Selections from Contemporary Arab Cinema’ at BFI Southbank and on BFI Player from 27 August–5 October. Tickets on sale […]
Person-ness of Voices in Lived Experience Accounts of Psychosis: Combining Literary Linguistics and Clinical Psychology
Article Summary by Elena Semino, Demjen Zsofia and Luke Collins A substantial minority of the general population and a considerable majority of people with diagnoses such as schizophrenia hear voices that other people cannot hear—a phenomenon that is sometimes described as a type of hallucination. Psychologists have noticed that reports of voice hearing differ in […]
Doctoral Research Fellowship: “Bodies in Translation: Science, Knowledge and Sustainability in Cultural Translation”
Announcement from the University of Oslo A Doctoral Research Fellowship (SKO 1017) in cultural history and cultural translation is available at the Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages, University of Oslo. Cultural translations in early modern descriptions of the «New World» The person appointed will form a part of the research project “Bodies in […]