‘Obstinate Material’: Surgical intervention and Obsessional Thoughts
Eva Surawy Stepney reflects on the use of psychosurgery for the treatment of obsessional thoughts.
Race, Public Health, and Drug Control in the American Philippines
Eva Ward discusses the contradictions and assumptions behind America’s ‘war on drugs’ in the Philippines.
Private Islands in COVID-19
Lottie Hughes reflects on the public, the private – and Kim Kardashian – during the COVID-19 pandemic
‘Look Out for Changes in Behaviour’: Encephalitis Lethargica and COVID-19
Kate McAllister reflects on parallels between COVID-19 and the early twentieth century epidemic of Encephalitis Lethargica.
Casual Sex on Campus: A History
Kristin Hay discusses the moral panic around student populations after increased access to the contraceptive pill
Snow
Laura Grace Simpkins discusses visual disturbances and the metaphors we use to describe them.
Shame, Stigma and “Unexplained” Symptoms
Katharine Cheston discusses the isolation, disbelief and stigma experienced by people with poorly understood medical conditions Autobiographical accounts of illness tend to follow a similar script. Typically, they open with an interruption: new symptoms
What’s it like to have ADHD?
David Ellis reflects on ADHD and the language – and judgements – around it. ‘But you said for me to write a couple of lines’, I protest as the teacher ushers me out of
The Good Neighbours: Invisible Health Conditions during COVID-19
Laura Donald reflects on invisible health conditions during the COVID-19 pandemic. I live in a Glasgow tenement building whose inhabitants pride themselves on their neighbourliness. Often I mute the residents’ WhatsApp group, sometimes for
Elsa of Arendelle: Depigmentation, Deafhood, and Genetic Difference
As part of her ongoing research, Dr Sara Louise Wheeler places Frozen’s protagonist Elsa in context of historical and contemporary depictions of those living with genetic conditions which cause depigmentation and deafness. Historically, hegemonic