New article up on SYNAPSIS! Ashley Moyse, Director of the Columbia Character Cooperatives, writes about the Cooperatives' mission, Jonathan Swift's vision of the bee, and imagining a future for medicine of mutuality, discernment, and care. Read it here: medicalhealthhumanities.com/2025/06/17/s...

Two new articles up on SYNAPSIS this Friday! First, Jing Sun examines the year 1923, a critical moment in Japan-U.S. medical exchange in the years before WW2. How did American physicians regard their Japanese counterparts, and vice versa? Read it here: medicalhealthhumanities.com/2025/05/07/w...

New articles for the upcoming week from SYNAPSIS! Returning contributor Merve Şen writes on Ben Marcus's 2012 novel The Flame Alphabet, and examines practices of amateur medicine and DIY-self care in the midst of an unsettling pandemic. Read it here: medicalhealthhumanities.com/2025/05/04/h...

A busy week at SYNAPSIS! Two new articles up today: first from Kathryn West, a review of the recent edited volume How to be Disabled in a Pandemic (2025). West examines the included essays with a particular focus on emphasizing the disabled voices. medicalhealthhumanities.com/2025/04/29/b...

NEW on SYNAPSIS this week: David Lombard writes on the complexities of hope in memoirs of mental illness and recovery. Is hope a universally positive emotion? How can we compare it to hope in other contexts, such as climate anxiety? Read it HERE: medicalhealthhumanities.com/2025/04/29/w...

#MedHums101 Medical humanities uses the arts, humanities & social sciences to improve our understanding of health and human experience. Explore articles on this theme to find out more 👉 thepolyphony.org/tag/arts-and...

Back in September 2024, members of @durhamimh.bsky.social travelled to Uppsala for a workshop on curating medical heritage in relation to pressing questions of indigeneity & reconciliation. The workshop was supported by seed funding from @matarikinetwork.bsky.social. Read the full report here!

Teaching incarcerated students is much like teaching any students, write @columbiauniversity.bsky.social scientists Tessa Montague and Shai Berman. Learn more about their experience teaching neuroscience at Sing Sing: tinyurl.com/yfkyjfej

Two new articles up on SYNAPSIS! First, we are happy to host Pauline Picot's review of Matthew Nienow's new verse collection, "If Nothing," an unsparing memoir of addiction and recovery. medicalhealthhumanities.com/2025/03/02/i...

Two new articles up on SYNAPSIS this week! First, Grace Kao explores the medical importance of a sense of purpose in life, especially for those with chronic illness. As she asks, "how does one reconstruct meaning when former touchstones have faded away?" medicalhealthhumanities.com/2025/03/01/r...

New this week on SYNAPSIS: Trishala Dutta writes on fungi as a mode of thinking about disability, ethics, and collective futures in the midst of capitalist ruination. Check out this fascinating piece here ⬇️ medicalhealthhumanities.com/2025/02/24/f...

Also new on Synapsis! Do you find the best cure for writer's block a quick walk around the block? Matt Somerville writes on the history of walking as creative practice, and the new research behind it. Read it here! ⬇️⬇️⬇️ medicalhealthhumanities.com/2025/02/21/t...

New on Synapsis! How can we speak of the singular traumas we collectively experienced during the COVID pandemic? Ingrid Berg reviews Days of Grace and Silence (2024), a remarkable new work of memoir and poetry by Ann E. Wallace. Read it here ⬇️⬇️ medicalhealthhumanities.com/2025/02/16/c...

NEW on SYNAPSIS: Nicholas Derda reviews Paul M. Renfro’s new book, The Life and Times of Ryan White: AIDS and Inequality in America (2024), and asks: how do we re-examine this history without reifying a whitewashed narrative about HIV/AIDS? Read it here: medicalhealthhumanities.com/2025/02/13/i...

NEW on Synapsis! We're excited to publish Danielle Wilfand's new piece on the experience of undiagnosed illness as both patient and physician, and the value of #narrativemedicine in allowing us to live with the chaos such illness brings. Read it below: medicalhealthhumanities.com/2025/02/08/t...

Our first post on Bluesky! We are an open-access onl'ne journal based at @columbiauniversity.bsky.social, publishing work on medical and health humanities We're interested in anything that connects medicine with the humanities—critical reading, looking, listening.