I am Anna McFarlane, the new blog curator and reviews editor here at the BMJ Medical Humanities blog, and I wanted to introduce myself to regular readers – and first time visitors. I’m delighted to be taking on this post and would like to thank my predecessor, Columba Quigley, who has been answering all my questions and doing everything she can to make this transition as smooth as possible. Thank you also to editor-in-chief Deborah Bowman and everyone else on the editorial board for all your help so far.
My interest in the medical humanities has been growing exponentially over the last few years. While my thesis dealt with a relevant subject – the representation of psychological discourses in science fiction – it was my post as the research assistant on the Wellcome Trust-funded Science Fiction and the Medical Humanities project at the University of Glasgow that really urged me to develop a relationship with the field as a whole. As part of that project, myself and the principal investigator, Dr Gavin Miller, edited a special issue of BMJ Medical Humanities and took the opportunity to dive into a series of fascinating enquiries, covering speculative design, bioethics, and disability studies among many others. It is now my pleasure to take on a more permanent role working with the journal.
To that end, I’m looking forward to continuing and developing the work of this blog over the next few months, so please get in touch if you’d like to provide us with:
- Book reviews: If you need a review copy, email me and I’ll see what I can do.
- Guest blog posts: If you want to explore a relevant medical humanities topic in blog-form, perhaps one raised in the pages of the journal, let me know.
- Other reviews and innovative interventions: reviews on exhibitions, television shows, and other media will be considered, as well as any novel ideas for developing conversations in the medical humanities that you might have.
You can get in touch with me to discuss any of these options, or just to chat about all things related to the medical humanities, on Twitter (@mariettarosetta), or by emailing me at anna.mcfarlane[at]glasgow.ac.uk. If you haven’t read the journal before, you can find the current issue here. I’m very much looking forward to working with all of you as we explore this developing field together.