The Polyphony

🚀 Delighted to announce the publication of our new #MedHums101 brochure: ‘What is Medical Humanities?’ We hope it sparks your imagination, inspires your curiosity & encourages you to engage in our vibrant interdisciplinary field! tinyurl.com/what-is-med-...

Álvaro González Montero reads the diaries of poet Jaime Gil de Biedma and the work of artist Pepe Espaliú as two contrasting epistemologies of HIV/AIDS, and reflects on what their culturally specific insights offer to wider debates on stigma and illness today. thepolyphony.org/2026/10/27/e...

Lucy Jameson, Ila Indhoomati Thangavel, and Anna C. Wright reflect on the ‘Measurement Heretics: Being, Meaning and Measuring Well’ workshop. thepolyphony.org/2026/10/23/m...

Thanks to Said Chraibi Kaadoud, who on #InternationalStammeringAwarenessDay explores his lived experience of stammering, with reference to his own artwork and Japanese anime film 'The Anthem of the Heart'. thepolyphony.org/2026/10/22/f...

For #BLAW, Fiona Johnstone, Sofie Layton, Estelle Verdi, Mary Robson & Sumayya Mulla write about a programme of collaborative research using creative practice to challenge silence, deepen understanding & transform support for reproductive loss & maternal bereavement. thepolyphony.org/2026/10/15/g...

Time is running out ⌛️ Help shape The Polyphony's future by participating in the 2026 Polyphony User Survey. ⏰️ The survey closes on 16th October 2026 ⏰️ For more information, visit: thepolyphony.org/2026/09/16/2... Take part: durhamuniversity.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...

What can living with a chronic illness tell us about the what counts as medical evidence? Rena Alcalay explores the concept of ‘bodily doubt’ and how living with a chronic illness destabilises our assumptions about quantifiable data. thepolyphony.org/2026/10/12/c...

Only one week to go! Help shape The Polyphony's future by participating in The Polyphony User Survey. The survey closes on 16th October 2026. For more information, visit: thepolyphony.org/2026/09/16/2... Take part: durhamuniversity.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...

We're delighted to welcome Jordan McCullough to his new role as Editor in Chief at The Polyphony. Find out more about Jordan and his vision for our platform ➡️ thepolyphony.org/2026/10/06/w...

What is contragestive time? In our latest essay, the research team behind the Contragestive Time project (funded by @wellcometrust.bsky.social Discovery Award) explore how alternative forms of fertility control can reshape how we think about contraception and abortion. thepolyphony.org?p=29224

What happened to the “psychopathic” child? In this piece, Jesper Vaczy Kragh considers the history of “psychopathy” in child psychiatry, and asks what the contemporary discipline and the humanities might learn from the disappearance of this diagnosis. thepolyphony.org/2026/09/24/t...

In his review of Glasgoscopy, a poetry collection by Glasgow-based occupational therapist Vicki Husband, Craig Lamont examines the potential of poetic language to illuminate Husband’s experience of the city and its people. thepolyphony.org/2026/09/15/p...

How would literary/cultural studies look if neurodivergent ways of knowing were treated as foundational? @autisticrealms.bsky.social and @betskyyy.bsky.social explore essays that occupy neurominority positions as 'productive sites of embodied meaning-making'. thepolyphony.org/2026/09/11/r...

"Before we make a diagnosis... we are entrusted with the narrative of another human being. It is one of the greatest privileges of our profession." Psychiatrist Loshini Rajentharan explores mythological vignette-writing as reflective practice. thepolyphony.org/2026/09/04/w...

Georgia Rivers and Monique Huysamen discuss their research into how social care policy and organisations can better understand how autistic adults and people with learning disabilities express their desires and explore sexual intimacy. thepolyphony.org/2026/09/01/s...

@durhamimh.bsky.social Hua Ma explores how Chinese food culture and beauty culture shape women’s lived experiences of eating disorders. thepolyphony.org/2026/08/26/e...

What role does technology and multispecies relationships play in both ecological disaster and survival? Pramod K Nayar explores how these questions are represented in Brian Vaughn and Pia Guerra’s graphic novel 'Y' thepolyphony.org/2026/08/21/e...

Arunima A. Vasudevan examines the need for an academic distinction between ‘memoirs of’ and ‘memoirs about’ schizophrenia to better account for complexity of expression within the experience. thepolyphony.org/2026/08/19/o...

Favour Rubyson Kharnaior uses poetry to reflect on the relationship between medicine and spirituality and considers how spiritual approaches to healing can work in harmony with conventional medicine thepolyphony.org/2026/08/13/t...

How can memoir writing and storytelling help us to explore alcohol addiction? Jennifer Wallis reflects on her personal experience of an alcoholic parent and how her expertise as a historian has shaped her understanding of alcoholism. thepolyphony.org/2026/08/07/t...

In the latest contribution to our Multilingual Medical Humanities project, @maresamarangoni.bsky.social considers how a universal biomedical paradigm collides with local cultural knowledge and historical memory in debates surrounding Veneto’s vaccine mandates. thepolyphony.org/2026/08/05/w...

@miladaskalova.bsky.social, @juliamacintosh.bsky.social, Cheryl McGeachan, and Azra Khan reflect on how the conference unfolded, examining how delving into the history of madness fosters connection, belonging, and continuity for the mad present. thepolyphony.org/2026/07/31/f...

Max Edward Perry reviews Charlotte Blease's Dr Bot: Why Doctors Can Fail Us — and How AI Could Save Lives (Yale University Press, 2025), reflecting on its arguments in the context of today’s debates about technology and healthcare. thepolyphony.org/2026/07/29/d...

Caroline Williamson Sinalo reviews The Clinical Witness: Conflict, Catastrophe and Medical Testimony, engaging with the complex interconnectedness of contemporary crises and the moral ambiguities, responsibilities, and pain that come with bearing witness to them. thepolyphony.org/2026/07/24/s...

What can healthcare learn from Miss Marple's "Quite Art of Knowing," particularly in the discipline of psychiatry? Loshini Rajentharan's reflections offer a response. thepolyphony.org/2026/07/22/m...

WAN Huan’s personal reflection explores her sudden loss to reveal how clinical knowledge breaks down within rigid hospital hierarchies, and why medicine requires humanistic empathy when silence, shock, and grief leave families speechless. thepolyphony.org/2026/07/20/w...

Susie Russell examines her experience of embodiment, relationality, and interdependence at the 2025 PhD School: Queer Methodologies in Medical Humanities. thepolyphony.org/2026/07/16/q...

Margarita Saona reviews Mary Roach's "Replaceable You: Adventures in Human Anatomy," where science, cyborgs, and animals come together as we think about the human body. thepolyphony.org/2026/07/15/b...

Amr Ihab reflects on their experience of medical training and how cultures of competition and rivalries among medical professionals can be challenged through the medical humanities. thepolyphony.org/2026/07/13/b...

How do we interpret data about the climate and what stories often go missing when we only focus on data? Benoit Dillet and Sophia Hatzisavvidou examine the role that climate data plays in overlooking and depoliticising lived experiences of climate anxiety. thepolyphony.org/2026/07/06/b...

What do advertisements in twentieth-century patient organisation magazines reveal about medical consumerism and the globalisation of diabetes care? @andrewburchell.bsky.social tells us in the latest contribution to our Multilingual Medical Humanities project. thepolyphony.org/2026/06/29/c...

Katrin Wehling-Giorgi reflects on a day of interdisciplinary dialogue at Durham’s Institute for Medical Humanities, 27 March 2026 thepolyphony.org/2026/06/24/n...

Louis J Kennedy reflects on working at a public trauma hospital in Johannesburg, unpicking how it operates as a ‘sociostructural space of pain’. thepolyphony.org/2026/06/23/j...

Crystal Voyle, Michelle Pullen, and Kate Marks reflect on the key points raised at the Co-Production and Physical Activity event held at Durham University in March 2026. thepolyphony.org/2026/06/19/c...

Upendra Bhojani extends his research beyond questions of public health and illustrates the historical, colonial, and social dimensions of tobacco use in India. thepolyphony.org/2026/06/16/t...

Have you considered how evacuation structures are designed around the 'standard' body? Lydia Chung illuminates the structural ableism in disaster response design. thepolyphony.org/2026/06/11/n...

Garima Shrivastava considers how self-managed abortion in India unsettles simple ideas of access, drawing attention to the social, technological, and institutional conditions that shape experiences of abortion. thepolyphony.org/2026/06/10/a...

Anita Wohlmann and Birgit Bundesen introduce us to the ‘Metaphor Map’- a way to help those express, listen to, and create meaning out of psychic experience. thepolyphony.org/2026/06/05/m...

'I suggest that we might... get curious about how the bed is normatively imagined, how it shapes the ways we live our lives, and what this tells us about the spaces and relationships in which we tend to make care (un)available.' Sarah Boira introduces Bed Theory. thepolyphony.org/2026/06/03/b...

'I lay tender flowers and soft grasses on... cyanotype paper and reform my uterus... I think about how often after an interaction with a medical professional I'm left to rebuild myself from the inside out.' Our latest 'In Practice' post @arlenejackson.bsky.social thepolyphony.org/2026/05/29/c...

Vicki Husband uses her poetic perspective to reflect on the practice and pedagogy of occupational therapy in her book Glasgoscopy. thepolyphony.org/2026/05/27/g...

Inspired by both personal history and intellectual curiosity, researcher Molly Scott examines the impact of bodily disconnect on responses to touch in those who have experienced trauma. thepolyphony.org/2026/05/22/f...

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...