Sensitive Subjects Pt. 2: Creative Practice and Ethics in Times of Loss
Olivia Turner reflects on the Sensitive Subjects: Creative Practice and Ethics workshop she organised at Newcastle University, turning to issues around bereavement and grief
Sensitive Subjects Pt. 1: Consent in Creative Practice Research
In the first of three articles for The Polyphony, Olivia Turner reflects on ethics in creative practice research in the critical medical humanities, following a workshop she organised at Newcastle University. She begins with the issue of consent.
Why Practice Research? Creative Writing and Recurrent Miscarriage
Sabina Dosani recently completed a PhD in Creative Writing Research at the University of East Anglia. Between the births of her two daughters, she experienced recurrent miscarriages while working as a psychiatric expert witness. As part
Practice Research with Chronic Illness, Part 2
A series of disparate discomforts: Jane Hartshorn continues her reflections (see part 1) on the challenges of conducting creative writing practice as research in the medical humanities while living with the chronic illness she
A Series of Disparate Discomforts: Practice Research with Chronic Illness
Jane Hartshorn, who started a practice-based PhD in poetry in 2018, reflects on the tension between leaning into the chaos of chronic illness and attempting to accurately reflect it. In writing about my lived
‘Swimming to Recovery’: Polio in 20th Century Belfast
Hannah Brown shares the oral histories of two polio survivors from Belfast, demonstrating how the Northern Ireland Polio Fellowship (NIPF) helped promote a social conscience around disability. One of the striking cultural memories of
Practice Research: Gothic Fiction for Postpartum Psychosis
Georgia Poplett discusses her PhD research methodology, developing original novel-writing as academic discourse in order to expand cultural dialogue around postpartum psychosis. In 1913, reflecting on The Yellow Wallpaper, American author Charlotte Perkins Gilman
The Radical Potential of Sickness Stories
In Part 2 of their series exploring chronic illness narratives (see Part 1 on ‘refusal of resolution’ here), Char Heather considers the radical potential of sickness stories to crip and to queer what is
Neurodivergent Humanities Network and Mentorship Programme Launch
‘New ways of thinking, being and doing research’: the founders explain the ethos of the Neurodivergent Humanities Network and introduce their anti-hierarchical mentorship scheme. The Neurodivergent Humanities Network will launch on 20 April 2023
Power Struggle and Critical Encounter: The Birth of Arts in Health and the Medical Humanities
Dr Frances Williams explores some of the tensions to be found in attempting to narrate the history of the Arts in Health movement, a sprawling field encompassing many ‘sub-fields’, including the medical humanities. When