Writing about Nothing Very few works of art are ever actually about nothing. We all know the famous pitch in Seinfeld – “a show about nothing” – but we also know that the show is very much about all kinds of things. It’s just that none of these things matter. Matt Zoller Seitz, in…
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A (Latina) Cheropobic’s Unraveling: on the neurobiology of Writing through (painful) truths
A (Latina) Cheropohic’s Unraveling: on the Neurobiology of Writing through (painful) truths What happens when you suspect your voice is fading? We do not talk enough about “burnout” as academics, artists, and activists, yet we are more vulnerable now than ever. I empathize that it can feel embarrassing to confess that the fire…
What Can Chris Burden’s Performance Art Tell Us About Gun Violence?
In 1971, a crowd of ten people congregated after hours in an art gallery, F-Space in Santa Ana, California. They were there to watch the artist, Chris Burden, get shot. The bullet was supposed to only graze his arm, but it produced a slightly more severe injury. The few materials that record the…
Food Deserts: Health Disparities & Health Solutions
Eating healthy is the foundational practice that can help American society become a fit nation. While this is the main goal for individuals, there are many aspects that hinder eating a healthy diet. Socioeconomic and sociodemographic factors play an important role in accessing healthy foods. It is a disturbing irony that many people in…
How to Feed the Sick: Hospital Meal and Patient Care in Modern Japan (part I: till 1950s)
How did hospital meal come into being in modern Japan? Why did it become a compulsory part of patient care at hospitals?
Visual Metaphors of Trauma in David Small’s Stitches (2009)
Popular cancer narratives often follow a distinct emotional plot trajectory, tracing patient experiences across the heartbreak of diagnosis, the volatility of treatment regimens, and the ultimate elation of survival or the sorrow of loss. But as Nancy Miller shares in a footnote in her 2014 article “The Trauma of Diagnosis: Picturing Cancer in Graphic Memoir,”…
Seeing the world “as we are”: Can storytelling guide us to better health?
“We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are” (a quote often attributed to writer Anais Nin) succinctly describes the idea that our individual interpretations of the world deeply shape our realities. In modern psychotherapy, we often refer to these interpretive filters as “lenses” and highlight the impact they have on…
The Geographic Self
The Communication of Pain In her book The Body in Pain, Scarry discusses the way that pain “shatters language” and threatens to be “unsharable” (4,5). She describes how pain belongs to an internal geography, when one hears about another person’s physical pain, the events happening within the interior of that person’s body may seem to…
Enough of What Is and Isn’t So: Dying in Philip Roth
Enough of What Is and Isn’t So: Dying in Philip Roth “At life’s close, you’re like the child whose parents step out for a drive —” – Max Ritvo, “The Big Loser” Philip Roth puts Nathan Zuckerman through a lot. For every energizing success Zuckerman experiences throughout the three main novels of the Zuckerman trilogy…
The Performance of Pain
You cannot breathe; the world slows down around you; your chest tightens as you walk to your car. Once again, you feel as though you have failed to convince a doctor of your pain, and once again, you must face it alone. This is, unfortunately, the experience of far too many female patients, but the…