Drawing on her experience at the 2024 #MedHums International Summer School, Charlotte Lock reflects on the role of interdisciplinarity in her research on approaches to knowing, visualising and experiencing the heart. thepolyphony.org/2025/11/13/t...

Not long left to apply to be an editor at the Polyphony!

Not long left to apply to be an editor at the Polyphony!!

We are pleased to welcome a new member of the team: Xiao Ge has joined as Guest Editor for the Polyphony Meets China (PMC) project! Welcome Xiao! thepolyphony.org/2025/11/10/n...

Claire Jeantils and @sarawasson.bsky.social reflect on the experience of translating Wasson’s article “Before Narrative” into French, exploring the challenges and opportunities the process revealed for the field of medical humanities. thepolyphony.org/2025/11/05/t...

Michelle Sok I HE considers how Maite Alberdi's film The Eternal Memory challenges dominant cultural representations of dementia and terminal illness. thepolyphony.org/2025/10/30/w...

Xiaohong Liu introduces the concept and history of Chinese tea therapy, alongside its contemporary practice at Hunan Cancer Hospital in China: thepolyphony.org/2025/10/28/c...

Alina M. Jolly and Rayson K. Alex review I Have Not Seen Mandu, exploring its literary and epistemological disruptions of India’s mental health climate. thepolyphony.org/2025/10/27/f...

We're hiring 3 new editors! 2 general and 1 for reviews! thepolyphony.org/2025/10/27/w...

@cforsdick.bsky.social concludes the @readingbodies.bsky.social takeover and discusses how this project contributes to rethinking the medical humanities in ways that are simultaneously multilingual, transnational and translational. thepolyphony.org/2025/10/24/m...

In Part 4 of the @readingbodies.bsky.social takeover, @rocio.bsky.social discusses the colonial legacies of nineteenth-century medical metaphors and demonstrates their ongoing relevance for the present day. thepolyphony.org/2025/10/23/m...

In Part 3 of the @readingbodies.bsky.social takeover, Nicolás Fernández-Medina examines the Spanish avant-garde’s response to the biomedical sciences through the lens of Ramón Gómez de la Serna’s pioneering avant-gardism. thepolyphony.org/2025/10/22/b...

In Part 2 of the @readingbodies.bsky.social takeover, @oliviaglaze.bsky.social considers the policy and impact potential of research on languages, identity and culture within the medical humanities. thepolyphony.org/2025/10/21/l...

@katharinemurphy.bsky.social introduces the @readingbodies.bsky.social takeover and discusses what historical discourses of illness in European literatures and cultures contribute to the medical humanities. thepolyphony.org/2025/10/20/h...

"Rather than asking why specific communities are ‘hard to reach’, perhaps the real question is – have they simply been easier to ignore?" Rianna Raymond-Williams discusses 'Unboxing', a creative elicitation tool she developed for her doctoral study. thepolyphony.org/2025/10/17/e...

Saurabh Chowdhury writes from an anthropological perspective to discuss the entanglements between evolutionary biological variations and modern sociocultural prejudices. thepolyphony.org/2025/10/13/w...

Employing Alison Kafer's 'crip time' as a mode of writing, Ayeong unravels the recovery paradigm and its institutional salience. thepolyphony.org/2025/10/10/c...

This year, I've been lucky enough to work with @actionforme.bsky.social, as part of a collaboration between Action for ME and @durhamimh.bsky.social. (More on this soon!) For now, this reflective post explains my motivations - and what I believe a collaborative, cross-sector approach can achieve.

Katharine Cheston reflects on her own experience of ME and the need for a more caring, curious, and compassionate approach to health research. thepolyphony.org/2025/10/09/p...

@loladickinson.bsky.social interrogates her role as a historian within the medical humanities, questioning the functions of power, positionality, and perspective in her work. thepolyphony.org/2025/10/08/a...

Drawing on her fieldwork, Pragya Roy critically analysis the everyday embodied material realities of Dalit motherhood(s) through the nexus of caste, gender, and economic class. thepolyphony.org/2025/10/06/n...

Jack Rhys Hancock explores the well-loved novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and Simon Stephen’s play adaptation, reflecting its ongoing influence on the representation of Autism. thepolyphony.org/2025/10/03/b...

Yann Phesans interrogates the concept of therapeutic neutrality, combining personal history and clinical experience to offer an alternative. thepolyphony.org/2025/10/02/n...

Shu Yang reports on the latest developments in understanding diseases and disorders in the Chinese context from a gender perspective in medicine. thepolyphony.org/2025/10/01/p...

Sathyaraj Venkatesan reviews Maureen Burdock's 2025 comic publication, Sleepless Planet: A Guide to Healing from Insomnia, exploring its role as a graphic narrative in portraying sociocultural dynamics of sleep. thepolyphony.org/2025/09/29/b...

Antoinette Polito reviews Dr Heidi Edmundson’s unflinching account of working as an Emergency Medicine consultant in a London hospital, and her embodied reflections on life in the NHS. thepolyphony.org/2025/09/26/b...

Meg-John Barker concludes our takeover on 'queer space' and creative health with @queercircle.bsky.social, highlighting the importance of 'staying with the trouble' and co-creating spaces that are *really* 'safe enough'. thepolyphony.org/2025/09/23/c...

Finding creative ways to reclaim, recentre, and create healthier outcomes for marginalised communities: on the penultimate day of our @queercircle.bsky.social takeover, Ellc looks at how vocal workshops can allow queer folk to more fully embody their voices. thepolyphony.org/2025/09/22/q...

"What forms of care, collectivity and resistance might emerge if we treat institutions not as fixed authorities but as porous, reconfigurable and responsive?" Phoebe Eustance on their artistic research w/QUEERCIRCLE and on Institutional Psychotherapy at La Borde. thepolyphony.org/2025/09/19/c...

In our @queercircle.bsky.social takeover, Anni Raw "reflects on the value and risks of unspoken identity assumptions... and the ongoing work of co-curating a different kind of creative space that is specifically hospitable and safe (enough) for LGBTQ+ communities." thepolyphony.org/2025/09/18/q...

"Many decisions about trans lives are made by people who are not trans... The aim of QUEERCIRCLE’s research commission was for trans young people to reclaim power to express what they need..." Thank to Lu Wilson for Day 3 of our @queercircle.bsky.social takeover. thepolyphony.org/2025/09/17/t...

"Without anchoring in values, practice and accountability... ['safe space'] risks becoming a hollow signifier, more comfort than commitment." Day 2 of the @queercircle.bsky.social takeover! thepolyphony.org/2025/09/16/r...

Excited to share the first post of a takeover from @queercircle.bsky.social on the concept of 'queer space' as a site of health creation. Thanks to Research and Health Lead Frances Williams for setting the scene. thepolyphony.org/2025/09/15/q...

Christina Lee introduces the context behind Disability Matters' upcoming 'Online Town Hall Circus' event which will take place on the 19th of September. thepolyphony.org/2025/09/05/t...

Catalina Florescu illustrates and explores the pain of her migraines in poetic form. thepolyphony.org/2025/09/03/m...

Marta-Laura Cenedese and Silvia Pierosara present a new interdisciplinary project on the restorative capacity of narratives and reflect on its contribution to the field in the Italian context. thepolyphony.org/2025/09/02/r...

Members of the Media and Epidemics Research Network provide three vignettes illustrating the different ways 'Russian Flu' was reflected in media and literary culture. thepolyphony.org/2025/09/01/m...

Filipa Teixeira considers the notion of (mis)fitting within higher education and reflects on what is needed to craft spaces where diverse groups of researchers can “fit together well” while creating productive and lasting connections. thepolyphony.org/2025/08/29/m...

Shruti Ghosh explores zine making as a method for “queering” knowledge production in health research. thepolyphony.org/2025/08/28/t...

Atholl Kleinhans reflects on how the Queer Medical Humanities PhD School helped him to find an "epistemological home" that embraced both his research and his multifaceted identity. thepolyphony.org/2025/08/27/b...

Sharanraj Krishnan discusses how his engagement with the Queer Medical Humanities PhD School prompted him to ‘re-enter’ the ‘field’ and reexamine the positionality of the “I” within his research. thepolyphony.org/2025/08/26/c...

Harriet Mossop examines pleasure and pain as entryways into queer auto-theory in this reflection on 'Locating the “I”: autoethnography as queer methodology', a workshop led by João Florêncio and Edyta Just at the Queer Medical Humanities PhD School. thepolyphony.org/2025/08/22/t...

Kirti Verma explores the critical connections between literature, mental health, and the emergence of medical humanities in India through the work of writer, translator, poet, and editor Jerry Pinto. thepolyphony.org/2025/08/19/n...

Erika Pathó analyses the challenges related to the adoption of a Western-designed dietary measure to manage IBS symptoms in India, focusing on patients’ accounts of their experiences of dietary change. thepolyphony.org/2025/08/14/m...

Sally Cross explores her research on medical uncertainty in the context of fibromyalgia and ME/CFS through experimental poetry for our 'In Practice' project: thepolyphony.org/2025/08/13/p...

Alexander Meienberger examines the ongoing cultural and societal stigmas surrounding HIV/AIDS in Russia, highlighting the efforts of cultural initiatives to challenge these barriers and bring visibility to marginalized voices. thepolyphony.org/2025/08/12/h...

"[N]avigating medical institutions in a second or third language, often under conditions shaped by trauma or displacement... medical English is... the language through which people must articulate pain, negotiate power, and, crucially, consent to treatment." thepolyphony.org/2025/08/08/e...

100 years after its publication, Lucyl Harrison argues that Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway should be read as a pandemic novel that contends with the in/articulation of pandemic experience. thepolyphony.org/2025/08/06/m...

Nora and Margret introduce their applied anthropology podcast which explores themes of health technology and society. thepolyphony.org/2025/08/04/t...

Members of the Institute for Medical Humanities' Moving Bodies Lab reflect on a series of talks and workshops exploring what it means to be slow, still, and sedentary. thepolyphony.org/2025/08/01/s...