Neni Panourgiá // From the Politics of Theory to the Brutality of Practice If there ever was a time when the theory of Medical Humanities could be tested, that time came slithering on December 31, 2019. As the world was celebrating the arrival of a new year, hoping to leave the horrors of 2019 behind,…
Austen, Expectations, and Crips in the World
Pasquale S. Toscano // I’ve been reading a great deal of Jane Austen lately, which is odd, because I’ve never considered myself a fan of the grande dame of English letters. All of her plots are so damned predictable, and well—how shall we put this—quaint. And then there are those maddeningly handsome gentlemen and far-too-fetching…
Coffee with Colleagues: Arden Hegele & Rishi Goyal
Synapsis Editors Arden Hegele, PhD, and Rishi Goyal, MD, PhD (Left to right): Dr. Loren Wolfe, Professor Eileen Gillooly, Dr. Rishi K. Goyal, Dr. Arden Hegele together in the Grande Salle at Columbia Global Centers Paris in June 2019. Arden Hegele, PhD, teaches at Columbia in the Medical Humanities and in English and Comparative Literature….
Gut Check: A History of Bowels and Brains
Timothy Kent Holliday // In recent years some scholars have argued that the gut microbiome, perhaps as much as the brain, defines the condition of humanness (Moore, Mathias, & Valeur 1). Communication between the gastrointestinal tract and the central nervous system is referred to as the gut-brain axis. Gut flora sometimes figure in how scientists…
Pain is complex. We should treat it that way.
Steve Server// “What sort of pain is it?” Often, when health care providers inquire after patients’ pain, we get a sort of flummoxed look. In response, we sometimes get a confused chuckle. As first year medical students, we are trained to differentiate sorts of pain: crampy vs. electrical/burning; dull vs. sharp; localized vs. radiating. As our medical…
Cultivating Life After Death
Avril Tynan // “Death is not an event in life,” wrote philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein in the early 20th century, “We do not live to experience death” (6.4311). Of course, Wittgenstein could not know that 100 years later we would be living through a pandemic, but if Covid-19 has taught us anything, it is that death…
a mature defense
Michelle Munyikwa // “The secret source of Humor is not joy but sorrow.” — Mark Twain, as quoted in Laughter Out of Place “You know, Michelle,” my senior resident said, in that didactic tone of voice that educators often use when they are about to drop some wisdom, “humor is a mature defense.“ We had…
Confronting the Consequences of a Single Story
Sara Press// Every person pictured has consented to having their portraits shared publicly. In 2009, Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie gave a TED Talk on “The Danger of a Single Story.”[1] In her talk, Adichie advocates for the importance of storytelling, but cautions against homogenizing complex humans and situations into a single narrative. She explains, “The…
Airborne Imaginaries
Emily Waples // This month, the CDC published an update to its coronavirus guidelines, acknowledging the airborne transmission of SARS-CoV-2, even at distances greater than now-sacrosanct six-foot radius. The revision was radical only in its belatedness, affirming well-established scientific evidence of aerosol transmission. Occurring on the heels of an April 30 update to the WHO…
Book Review: Medicine is War: The Martial Metaphor in Victorian Literature and Culture by Lorenzo Servitje
Warren Kluber // Two men in military fatigues flank the entrance of an unmarked white tent; this must be the vaccination site. As I take my place in line, I feel my jaw instinctively tighten and my posture straighten, as if my body— and not just my registration ticket—is about to be inspected. The woman…
How to Subvert the Illness Narrative: An Interview with Writer David Ryan
Barbara Lock, MD // When I talked with writer and writing teacher David Ryan in mid-April 2021, more than a year into the pandemic, I was relieved to find his bright generosity intact. Ryan is my former writing professor. Class conversation was just as likely to hit on his heady days as drummer for The…
