I was recently involved in a project which explored the histories and memories of St. Davnet’s Hospital, Monaghan. St. Davnet’s was founded as the Cavan and Monaghan District Lunatic Asylum in 1869, and its name changed to ‘Monaghan Mental Hospital’ in the late 1920s, and later to ‘St. Davnet’s Hospital’ in the 1950s. I was […]
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The Reading Room: Call for Reviewer
Julie Laplante’s Healing Roots: Anthropology in Life and Medicine is available for review. “Umhlonyane, also known as Artemisia afra, is one of the oldest and best-documented indigenous medicines in South Africa. This bush, which grows wild throughout the sub-Saharan region, smells and tastes like “medicine,” thus easily making its way into people’s lives and […]
The Reading Room: ePatients Conference, Queen’s University Belfast
ePatients The Medical, Ethical and Legal Repercussions of Blogging and Micro-Blogging Experiences of Illness and Disease Institute for Collaborative Research in the Humanities Queen’s University Belfast, 11-12 September 2015 The provisional programme for this conference is now available: Friday 11th September 11.00 – 11.30 Registration 11.30 – 11.45 […]
The Reading Room: ‘Patients as People’
Emma Barnard MA (RCA) ___________________________________________________________________ PATIENTS AS PEOPLE – an Exhibition by Emma Barnard in collaboration with consultant surgeons and patients within the ENT department, Whipps Cross University Hospital, Barts Health NHS. As a fine artist working predominantly within the field of photography, video and sound, I have for the past few years […]
Film Review: Inside Out
This year’s summer release by Pixar Animation Studios, Inside Out, follows the inner workings of the mind of Riley, an 11-year-old girl from Minnesota, as her life is suddenly turned upside down when her family moves to San Francisco. This film has already received great acclaim at Cannes Film Festival 2015 for its heartfelt relatable […]
The Reading Room: A review of ‘The Cambridge Companion to The Body in Literature’
The Cambridge Companion to The Body in Literature Edited by David Hillman and Ulrika Maude CUP 2015 Reviewed by Alan Radley Emeritus Professor of Social Psychology, Loughborough University, UK a.r.radley@lboro.ac.uk It was in the course of having a routine eye examination that I talked to the ophthalmologist about reviewing the present book, […]
Science Fiction & Medical Humanities: Special Issue CfP
Call for Papers for Medical Humanities Science Fiction and the Medical Humanities We are delighted to announce that Medical Humanities will be publishing a special issue: ‘Science Fiction and the Medical Humanities’. This edition of the journal will be guest edited by Dr Gavin Miller. Themes We invite papers of broad interest to an international readership of medical […]
The Reading Room: A review of Oliver Sacks’ ‘On the Move: A Life’
On the Move: A Life by Oliver Sacks. London: Picador, 2015 Reviewed by Paul Gordon, Psychotherapist Earlier this year, not long before this book was published, neurologist Oliver Sacks, author of hugely popular works such as Awakenings, Hallucinations and The Man Who Mistake His Wife for a Hat, announced that he had been diagnosed […]
The Reading Room: A review of ‘The Good Story: Exchanges on Truth, Fiction and Psychotherapy’
The Good Story: Exchanges on Truth, Fiction and Psychotherapy by Arabella Kurtz and J.M. Coetzee London: Harvill and Secker, 2015. Reviewed by Vivek Santayana, The University of Edinburgh Abstract: Arabella Kurtz and J.M. Coetzee’s The Good Story is a dialogue between a consulting clinical psychologist with an interest in literary studies and a […]
The Reading Room: Seamus O’Mahony on Richard Asher
Brimful of Asher Seamus O’Mahony, Consultant Physician, Cork University Hospital Richard Asher: Talking Sense. London: Pitman Medical, 1972. A Sense of Asher. London: British Medical Association, 1984. The Royal Society of Medicine recently (3 November 2014 – 24 January 2015) held an exhibition called “Richard Asher (1912-1969): A Celebration”. Asher, an English physician […]