Seamus O’Mahony, The Way We Die Now. Head of Zeus, 2016. Reviewed by Richard Smith Perhaps the first and most important thing to say about this book is that it’s a joy to read. I started it on a flight from Dhaka to Mexico City when I was exhausted, but quickly […]
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Wellcome Book Prize Winner 2016 – ‘It’s All In Your Head’ reviewed
Suzanne O’Sullivan, It’s All In Your Head: True Stories of Imaginary Illness. London: Vintage, 2016; first publ in hardback 2015 by Chatto & Windus Reviewed by Professor Edward Shorter The very subtitle of the book makes one nervous: “stories of imaginary illness.” If there is one phrase that psychosomatic patients – who have symptoms […]
Poetry and Medicine: Prize Winners
In April I attended the 7th International Symposium on Poetry and Medicine where the 2016 Hippocrates Awards were announced. A fascinating day, the programme included critiques on Philip Larkin’s The Building, Celia de Freine Blood Debts, Mary Kennan Herbert’s Skin Man series, as well as a presentation on Poetry, Psychoanalysis and Ageing, and a discussion around the evidence for the benefits […]
Film Review: stories from Arab women during the Spring Revolutions
‘Our oath’ short film, 2015, directed by Laura Finney I was intrigued and moved by ‘The trials of Spring’, a documentary film depicting the fight of Arab women during the Spring Revolutions in 2010 (http://www.trialsofspring.com/). The film portrays heart-felt human stories of women from Syria, Yemen, Libya, Bahrain, Tunisia, and Egypt. Filming took place […]
THIS IS A VOICE at Wellcome Collection reviewed
‘His Masters Voice’. Painting by Francis Barraud, 1919. Credit:Courtesy of the EMI Group Archive Trust THIS IS A VOICE Wellcome Collection, 14 April – 31 July 2016 Reviewed by Steven Kenny Approaching the exhibition entrance of THIS IS A VOICE at the Wellcome Collection, it is easy to think the voice is treated […]
Book review: Social Class in the 21st Century
Mike Savage, Social Class in the 21st Century, Pelican, 2015 Reviewed by Jacob King, Medical Student. You may have heard about the Great British Class Survey, you may have even completed the Great British Class survey (GBCS) or tried their online Class Calculator. In 2015 Mike Savage and colleagues summarised the findings of […]
The Reading Room: The Violet Hour – Great Writers at the End
Katie Roiphe. The Violet Hour: Great Writers at the End. Virago, 2016 Reviewed by Professor Robert C Abrams, Professor of Psychiatry, Weill Cornell Medical College, New York A central premise of Katie Roiphe’s The Violet Hour is that the awareness of approaching death is a milestone we all will face at some time […]
CHCI Health Humanities Summer Institute 2016
Sunday 26 – Monday 27 June 2016, 10.00 CHCI Health Humanities Summer Institute 2016 Health Humanities Now Anatomy Lecture Theatre & Museum, King’s Building, Strand Campus 2 day Conference which aims to gather scholars and practitioners from all over the world in the burgeoning field of the health humanities. By showcasing some of […]
First impressions only happen once
Fergus Shanahan Eyes smiling, face beaming, the porter rose from his stool to greet arrivals at the cancer centre, each nervously hesitant, staying close to a supporting loved one. With the confidence of a man who enjoyed being good at his job, he paused for those needing directions, reassured us that we were […]
The Reading Room: Reading for Health
Erika Wright. Reading for Health: Medical Narratives and the Nineteenth-Century Novel (Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 2016) Reviewed by Dr Jane Darcy, Department of English, University College London Erika Wright begins Reading for Health with a timely reminder for Victorianists, quoting Ruskin’s argument about the dangerous temptation of the ‘phenomenon of the sick-room’ for […]