Marie Cuvelier explores how the temporal logics of hospitalisation are subtly resisted in Gareth Greenwell’s 2025 novel Small Rain. thepolyphony.org/2026/05/18/t...

Bradford Stucki explores how the social construction of academic culture contributes to mental distress amongst University students and staff, and how the same processes can be directed towards care. thepolyphony.org/2026/05/13/s...

Arya Ray discusses new directions emerging from the one-day international workshop ‘The Senses and Medical Humanities,’ held at Durham University in February 2026. thepolyphony.org/2026/05/15/c...

Chris Bowlby considers the nature of legacy and grief as he reflects on preparing his son Ewan’s work for publication after his death. thepolyphony.org/2026/05/08/b...

Monesha L. and Sathyaraj Venkatesan explore how Indian digital comics resist individualist frameworks of mental health inherited from colonial psychiatry, instead framing illness as a shared social condition #medhums thepolyphony.org/2026/04/29/d...

Lucy Harrison weaves together the poems and life of Larkin with train journeys taken by both her and the novelist Yiyun Li. thepolyphony.org/2026/04/23/t...

Megha Manjari Mohanty reviews Art and the Critical Medical Humanities, exploring how the volume positions art as a methodological tool for rethinking medical knowledge and care alongside cultures of illness and health. thepolyphony.org/2026/04/21/c...

Yasmin Shafei explores the language of nineteenth-century Egyptian citizens’ petitions and points to its significance for the development culturally sensitive mental health interventions today. thepolyphony.org/2026/04/17/l...

Camilla Lyckblad introduces us to her audio installation on medical records and record keeping. Read and listen… thepolyphony.org/2026/04/15/v...

"Our journey through the woodland is not neutral. Tree roots rise, interrupting, or barring access. The narrow, uneven path is shaped by who we are: disability, gender, class, age, sexuality, race, history..." Kate Marks and Tracey Falcon for our In Practice series thepolyphony.org/2026/04/13/d...

In this second piece about their zine, Cervical screening for trans+ autistic people: A tool for self advocacy, researchers Georgia Rivers and @kmunday.bsky.social reflect on the motives for and process of their collaboration. thepolyphony.org/2026/03/27/m...

Joshua Clark explores the impact of grammatical and idiomatic differences between English and French on the conceptualisation, experience, and treatment of depression. thepolyphony.org/2026/03/25/h...

In the first of two pieces about their zine, Cervical screening for trans+ autistic people: A tool for self advocacy, Georgia Rivers and Katie Munday discuss the pressing need for accessible community resources and why they chose to create one for themselves. thepolyphony.org/2026/03/13/b...

Kristin D. Hussey and Hannah Star Rogers draw on Science and Technology Studies (STS) to think through how the ‘lab’ is being employed across the medical humanities. thepolyphony.org/2026/03/05/l...

Liam Marshall reflects on the limits of contemporary medicalisation scholarship which can de-historicise enduring modes of power. thepolyphony.org/2026/02/26/m...

M. Iqbal Syauqi explores Intravenous Treatment as a tangible cultural artefact that transforms abstract suffering into visible care. thepolyphony.org/2026/02/20/f...

Elena Foulis (@drafoulis.bsky.social) and Julieta Manrique consider additional ways to understand people’s experiences with illness and pain beyond spoken languages, focusing on Manrique’s paintings of her experiences with fibromyalgia. thepolyphony.org/2026/02/18/t...

Vivek N. D. reviews Alan Bleakley’s Medical Humanities: Ethics, Aesthetics, Politics (2024), examining the contemporary purpose of medical humanities in medical education. thepolyphony.org/2026/02/12/r...

Gracie Wilson and Momoko Katayama reflect on the key points raised at the Cultures of Youth Mental Health workshop held at the University of Chicago’s Hong Kong campus. thepolyphony.org/2026/02/10/y...

Years of chronic illness left Eve McDonald frustrated by lack of language. Rather than submitting to suffering in silence, she chose to piece together a new language, embracing the “ineffability of illness” through creative writing and online support groups. thepolyphony.org/2026/02/09/a...

My short article on ‘ontological friction’ is out now! Super grateful to @evasurawy.bsky.social for the incredible support

Kristin Zeiler reflects on features of the early field of medical humanities in Sweden, specifically focusing on Linköping University, and poses three questions for the field based on these features. thepolyphony.org/2026/02/06/m...

Michaela Clark reviews an exhibition that explores and complicates the social and psychiatric norms of post-war Germany. thepolyphony.org/2026/02/04/n...

Annie James introduces the concept of ‘ontological friction’ to explore the medical and lived complexity of a form of menstrual pain. thepolyphony.org/2026/02/02/o...

Claire Jeantils, Rong Huang, and Benjamin Dalton unravel the stories behind the International Narrative Neurology Network (INNN), a cross-sectoral network that investigates Narrative Neurology from a practical and theoretical perspective. thepolyphony.org/2026/01/29/i...

@drmonicaross.bsky.social uses her personal and clinical experience to explore how diagnostic language can clarify, constrain, and quietly shape the meaning of a life. thepolyphony.org/2026/01/28/w...

How can dystopian narratives illuminate real-world structures of coercion, exclusion, and exploitation? Anindita C Xavier explores Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go. thepolyphony.org/2026/01/27/n...

We're pleased to announce this collection of contributions to The Polyphony from attendees at the 2025 International PhD School on Queer Methodologies in Medical Humanities, which took place in Durham in March 2025. 📖 Read the collection 👇 thepolyphony.org/category/col...

Julián Bohórquez and Ivory Day reflect on the importance of translating fundamental terms in philosophy of medicine into Spanish, as well as the value of importing Spanish terminology into the Anglophone discussion. thepolyphony.org/2026/01/20/m...

Loïc Bourdeau discusses the #ENDOs project and the deployment of narrative tools to challenge the normalisation of endometriosis pain, empower those living with the disease, and educate health practitioners. thepolyphony.org/2026/01/14/e...

Enjoyed reflecting on @thackraymuseum.bsky.social's 2024 exhibition 'You Choose' in this piece with @jackgann.bsky.social for @the-polyphony.bsky.social. Some fascinating insights into the prevalence of cancer in the popular imagination among all age groups. thepolyphony.org/2026/01/12/y...

Claire Turner and Jack Gann explore questions of personalised medicine, digital technologies, and prevalent health concerns in the exhibition You Choose. thepolyphony.org/2026/01/12/y...

Dilip K. Das introduces an interdisciplinary framework for epidemic narratives in India by drawing on methods from literature, social theory, and public health. He explores how communities, writers, and scholars make sense of outbreak narratives. thepolyphony.org/2026/01/09/e...

Xue Dong examines a seemingly euphemistic expression used by Chinese patients that may actually suggest serious discomfort. thepolyphony.org/2025/12/19/w...

Surjavo Sen Gupta reimagines a multisensory art gallery as a space for restoration and ocular relief through his time as a walk leader at the Flowing Heritage exhibition at Arthshila. thepolyphony.org/2026/01/07/h...

Suniti Madaan discusses how Amruta Patil’s graphic narrative Kari reconceptualises graphic medicine to trace the sociocultural and temporal paradigms of sickness in Mumbai. thepolyphony.org/2026/01/05/t...

Dolly Sen dismantles psychiatric authority through art activism, exposing the politics of diagnosis and reclaiming the narrative of madness. thepolyphony.org/2026/01/02/d...

"Participants in Chronic Illness Inclusion’s research... explained that disbelief from medical professionals ‘knocked [their] self-confidence’... [they] were left wondering if they were ‘making things up’. Ultimately many were left feeling ‘worthless’." thepolyphony.org/2025/12/22/e...

Back in August, I ran a poetry workshop for psychiatrists at St Nicholas Hospital in Newcastle. It was one of the most rewarding experiences of my academic career, and I hope more will follow. A special thanks to the History of Psychiatry Special Interest Group of the @rcpsych.bsky.social!

In our next creative piece for the 'In Practice' project, Greg Hoghman explores disability, geography and mobility through his digital cartography titled Travels of a Disabled Person Who Does Not Drive in 'America's Finest City (2003-2025). thepolyphony.org/2025/12/18/c...

Anuj Kumar brings together ecological vulnerability, multispecies care, and relational health in his reading of Shaunak Sen’s film All That Breathes. thepolyphony.org/2025/12/17/b...

Pragna Dev discusses the Indian care system in this personal review, in dialogue with Miller's foundational text. thepolyphony.org/2025/12/16/e...

Mila Daskalova reflects on the importance of poetry to psychiatry, both in the nineteenth-century and the present day. thepolyphony.org/2025/12/15/p...

"When anti-stigma campaigns shift away from acting on the wider determinants of health [..] they tend to [..] reproduce inequalities." #RecalibratingStigma @oliwilliams.bsky.social @gmthomas.bsky.social @amychandler.bsky.social Tanisha Spratt @brisunipress.bsky.social

Enjoyed writing this piece on 'Stigma's changing face' with Fay Dennis. The stigma of addiction and the stigma of Long Covid have much in common.

Thanks @the-polyphony.bsky.social for sharing your platform with us to give people a sense of what's in the new edited collection 'Recalibrating Stigma: sociologies of health and illness' Available as a free e-book or relatively inexpensive paperback 5/5 bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/recalibratin...

Lastly Caroline Law and @harrietcooper.bsky.social pull together their respective analyses of male infertility and parenting disabled children to consider how stigma is involved in shaping and maintaining reproductive norms and idealised notions of family. 4/5 thepolyphony.org/2025/12/05/r...

Then @hannahfarrimond.bsky.social & Fay Dennis combine analyses from their respective chapters in the book to explore what the examples of Long COVID and drug addition can tell us about how stigma emerges, affects people, gets disrupted, and mutates. 3/5 thepolyphony.org/2025/12/04/s...

The 1st post of the takeover is from me, Gareth, Amy, & Tanisha. It summarises the key arguments and concepts we put forward in the chapter we wrote for the book. In it we explain why both stigma and anti-stigma need to be better conceptualised and applied. 2/5 thepolyphony.org/2025/12/03/a...

2 years ago @the-polyphony.bsky.social kindly invited me @gmthomas.bsky.social @amychandler.bsky.social & Tanisha to write about the book we were putting together on stigma (see ⬇️). Now it's out @brisunipress.bsky.social they've let us do a mini-takeover! 1/5 thepolyphony.org/2023/09/11/r...