Sarah Roth // What does it mean to give voice to an experience of illness in literary form, and what modes of attention are asked of a reader as she engages with what is written?
Search Results for: Amala Poli
Book Review: Narrative Art and the Politics of Health
Steven Rhue // Narrative Art and the Politics of Health stands out as wonderful collection of essays that unites disparate stories of health and wellbeing entangled with in the politics of medicine and healing. Brooks and Blanchette have carefully organized this assortment of writings in three thematic divisions. Part 1 of the volume concerns institutional narratives that confront…
“A Discussion on Critical Interdisciplinarity: Methods and Methodologies in Medical Humanities”
Synapsis section editors and writers-in-residence will be speaking on a panel at the Northern Network for Medical Humanities Research Congress (April 19-21, 2023) on April 21 at 11:30am EST. The panel is titled “A Discussion on Critical Interdisciplinarity: Methods and Methodologies in Medical Humanities.” There, Amala Poli, Melissa “Mel” Maldonado-Salcedo, Emilie Egger, Dr. Diana Novaceanu,…
Medical Sensations – An Opportunity for a Medical Humanities Engagement
Amala Poli // I recently visited the Canadian Science and Technology Museum in Ottawa to explore the Medical Sensations exhibition, curated by David Pantalony and launched in November, 2017. The curation of this exhibition reveals a profound engagement with medical humanities by enabling the visitor to interact with medical culture. Organized around the five senses,…
A review of Eco Soma: Pain and Joy in Speculative Performance Encounters
Amala Poli // Community performance artist and disability culture activist Petra Kuppers’ latest work Eco Soma: Pain and Joy in Speculative Performance Encounter is a reimagination of the embodied self in the world through a recognition of multiple life worlds and forms in contested spaces. The text models a form of inquiry, inviting the reader…
Dreaming for Survival in The Marrow Thieves
Amala Poli // Métis Canadian writer Cherie Dimaline’s novel set in a dystopian future titled The Marrow Thieves presents a society plagued by troubled sleep. This article examines Dimaline’s work in the context of a “sleep crisis”, which scholar Diletta de Cristofaro defines as “the notion that our modern society chronically struggles with a lack…
Collapsing Work-Life Balance in Covid-19
Amala Poli // The beep of the phone.. thudding heart, fingers clicking away. “Is everything okay?” Yes, you say. “I just had to reply to this one email. All done now!” You set it aside, eyes flickering in the direction of the screen just a little.
Narrative Medicine Spring Basic Virtual Workshop: A Brief Reflection
Amala Poli // On March 19th, I began attending a three-day Basic Narrative Medicine (NM) Workshop. Like much else in academia during the Covid-19 pandemic, the workshop was held virtually via Zoom sessions. Having attended panels and conferences in the last year on Zoom, I wondered about how this would translate the experience of being…
Is Zoom the sole source of fatigue?
Amala Poli // We have all heard about Zoom fatigue; most of us are perhaps experiencing it on an everyday basis. The literature on combating Zoom fatigue continues to abound, with new perspectives and ideas in each article. [1] [2] However, what can we think of the potent combination of research and academic work when…
Stepping up to the challenge: Kerala’s response to the coronavirus
Amala Poli // The state of Kerala in India, recognized in 2018 for effectively containing the deadly Nipah virus outbreak, has reported four deaths since the outbreak of the COVID-19, despite a population of 35 million people. Being the state with India’s first reported COVID-positive patient, instead of being the hardest-hit region, Kerala holds the…