A Bestiary of Madness
Bill Penson and Darren Hill ask whether the bestiary might offer an alternative account of madness and distress to psychiatric and psychological models.
‘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.
History of Reproductive Rights: from Population Control to Reproductive Justice
Caroline Rusterholz offers a historical perspective on reproductive rights that reveals the key role activism has always played in this area.
‘It was like world politics but on a small scale’: The Early History of Cheiron-Europe
What are academic societies for? Intellectual exchange? Networking with like-minded scholars? Eva Surawy Stepney reflects on how the European Society for the History of Human Sciences forged connections across the Iron Curtain.
The Long History of the Medical Humanities
In our new ‘MedHums 101’ series, Kate Errington gives a general history of the field: it’s been around longer than you might think.
Fallen Empire: Degeneration in Émile Zola’s La Débâcle
Kit Yee Wong explores the themes of sickness and degeneration as metaphors for moral and political corruption in Émile Zola’s La Débâcle (1892). This blog post is based on the author’s published article: ‘Degenerate
HIV/AIDS Ecclesiology and Ruptures of the Body
Samuel Ernest reflects on HIV/AIDS and the study of the Catholic Church since the 1980s In Christian theology, HIV/AIDS has been considered primarily within the context of ecclesiology, or the study of the church,
Review of ‘Psychoanalysis for the People: Free Clinics and the Social Mission of Psychoanalysis’
Ana Minozzo reviews the first edition of an international online conference that explored socially engaged psychoanalytic practices from across the world. The event was hosted by the Freud Museum in London during the weekend
‘Gut Feeling and Digestive Health In Nineteenth-Century Literature, History and Culture’: Book Review
Arabella Henderson reviews Manon Mathias and Alison Moore’s Gut Feeling and Digestive Health In Nineteenth-Century Literature, History and Culture (Palgrave: 2018) “However novel the new gut-brain axis science may seem…many individuals who engaged with medical
Intellectual Disability: A Conceptual History 1200-1900
How does the language we use shape how we think about disability? In Deborah Thorpe’s review of Intellectual Disability: A Conceptual History, 1200-1900 (2018), the history of intellectual disability emerges as one of contested terms.