Luke Ross Lyons // Let me help you focus on the impact of COVID-19 on our “invisible population,” the incarcerated, locked behind barbed-wire fences, steel doors, and concrete walls, only hoping not to become infected. Let me share my own personal experiences inside prison and in the world of COVID-19 and the effects that my…

Tone Shewprashad // 1. On March 20, 2020, Governor Andrew Cuomo placed New York on an unprecedented lockdown. Journalist David Marcus soon expressed his anger and anxiety in a New York Post article titled “End New York City’s lockdown Now!” when he wrote “…the Big Apple is dying. Its streets are empty. The bars and…

Helen “Skip” Skipper // I roll through this beautiful journey called life consistently in an amused state, chuckling at myself and everything else in my surroundings. In no way possible does this mean I don’t take this thing called life seriously. I find that for me, as I navigate these treacherous turns, steep mountains, pitfalls,…

Nascimento Blair // I am writing an auto-ethnographic piece where I, the author, a formerly-incarcerated man, present my own testimonies alongside material that has been shared with me by “Carey,” who is currently incarcerated. It is based on anecdotal experiences and juxtaposes the premise of rehabilitation against the practice of incapacitation of prisoners. 1. There…

Tanya Pierce // In this auto-ethnographic piece on the current COVID-19 health crisis, I present my reflections on my own imprisonment through the lens of a returning citizen. In addition to exploring my own incarceration, I will tell the story of my friend Vanee Sykes, a returning citizen who survived prison but passed away from…

Shawn Elijah Williams // My name is Shawn Elijah Williams, but someday soon I wish to change it to Abdul-Qahir Al Queens, inshallah (God Willing). I was asked to write about my experience in solitary confinement, how I dealt with it, and how it affected me. But before I start on that, I think it’s…

Neni Panourgiá // Medical humanities, an area of inquiry that seeks to bridge the practice of medicine with the conceptual and ethical questions that arise from the contact between medicine and its object, the human being, is inherently interdisciplinary and open to diverse and often disparate approaches to science. Moving across disciplines, lexicons, protocols, and…

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,…