The Visualised Foetus: A Cultural and Political Analysis of Ultrasound Imagery by Julie Roberts, London: Routledge, 2017, 176 pages, £110. Reviewed by Anna McFarlane Julie Roberts’ book delves into the muddy distinctions between the medical, the social, and the cultural, by using an emotive nexus point; the foetus, and its representation on screen. The monograph […]
Category: Book Reviews
Book Review: Subprime Health
Subprime Health: Debt and Race in U.S. Medicine, edited by Nadine Ehlers and Leslie R. Hinkson, University of Minnesota Press, 2017, 248 pages, £86 (£21.99). Reviewed by Jenny Tsai I’ve always found an appropriate similitude between the words “inequity” and “iniquity.” Subprime Health: Debt and Race in U.S. Medicine, edited by Nadine Ehlers and Leslie […]
Book Review: Black Man in a White Coat
Black Man in a White Coat: A Doctor’s Reflections on Race and Medicine by Damon Tweedy, New York: Picador, 2015, 304 pages, £12.20. Reviewed by John Carlo Pasco The White Coat Ceremony is a common rite of passage in American medical schools that is intended to welcome physicians-in-training into the institution of medicine. The white coat […]
Book Review: Brilliant Imperfection
Brilliant Imperfection: Grappling with Cure by Eli Clare, Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2017, 240 pages, £70. Reviewed by Dr. Sue Smith Brilliant Imperfection is an elegant addition to the current topical debate concerning disability and cure written by disabled, transgender activist, Eli Clare. Combining personal memoir and acute observation with critical disability […]
Book Review: The Cognitive Humanities
Garratt, Peter., editor. The Cognitive Humanities: Embodied Mind in Literature and Culture edited by Peter Garratt, London: Palgrave, 2016. xvii + 259 pages, £66.99. Reviewed by David Rodriguez, Stony Brook University It is a difficult task to collect work in a coherent introductory volume for a field as diverse, divisive, and multi-disciplinary as […]
Book Review: Caring Architecture
Caring Architecture: Institutions and Relational Practices by Catharina Nord and Ebba Högström, Newcastle Upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishers, 2017, 220 pages, £61.99. Reviewed by Cristin Sarg (University of Glasgow) Caring Architecture: Institutions and Relational Practices is an edited collection by Catharina Nord and Ebba Högström that had its genesis in a session of the […]
Book Review: The New Mountaineer
The New Mountaineer in Late Victorian Britain by Alan McNee. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave, 2016, £66.99. Reviewed by Dr Douglas Small, University of Glasgow The figure of the late-Victorian mountaineer – stalwart, resolute, determinedly pursuing his ascent with ice-axe and Manila hemp rope – might at first seem an unlikely individual to be of […]
Book Review: To Be a Machine
To Be a Machine: Adventures Among Cyborgs, Utopians, Hackers, and the Futurists Solving the Modest Problem of Death by Mark O’Connell, London: Granta, 2017, 244 pages, £12.99. Reviewed by Anna McFarlane, University of Glasgow Mark O’Connell’s To Be a Machine documents the writer’s encounters with a series of self-proclaimed ‘transhumanists’; those who subscribe to […]
Book Review: Meanings of Pain
Meanings of Pain edited by Simon van Rysewyk. Springer International Publishing, 2016, 401 pages, £126.50. Reviewed by Josie Billington (University of Liverpool), Andrew Jones, and James Ledson (The Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals NHS Trust) In The Illness Narratives (1988), a seminal text for the Medical Humanities, Arthur Kleinman tells the story […]
Book Review: Wellbeing Machine
Wellbeing Machine: How Health Emerges from the Assemblages of Everyday Life by Kim McLeod, Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 2017, 234 pages, $39.00. Violeta Ruiz, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona Kim McLeod’s Wellbeing Machine will probably be a difficult book to follow for any reader who is not familiar with Deleuzian and posthumanist ideas. I […]