Don’t Breathe a Word: A Psychoanalysis of Medicine’s Inflations
Modern medicine has achieved great things but, like all institutions, it has significant flaws. Medicine’s major flaw is inflation, appearing in a variety of guises and intensities as the following: overconfidence, arrogance, self-importance, narcissism, authoritarianism, impulsivity or lack of reflection, fear of failure, intolerance of ambiguity, and overdeterminism.
Persian Literature and Educating the Whole Person
I suggest that students can learn to use emotional and aesthetic intelligence as a means of living healthier and more balanced lives and that ancient artistic and literary masterpieces are intellectual tools that revive and nourish our ability to pause, look closely, and ponder. I further suggest that, more often than not, seeking questions is more important than finding answers.
Re-Urbanism in Africa: Frictionless Utopias for the Contemporary Urban Age
Following an introduction to the concept of the "parallel city" or "satellite city," this essay reviews a variety of examples, including city-building projects in Lagos, Morocco, Mauritius, Ghana, and Uganda.
Achille Mbembe, Future Knowledges & the Dilemmas of Decolonization
In this “at large” Humanities Futures talk, philosopher Achille Mbembe considers the possibilities of a new planetary configuration of the…
Donna Haraway | Making OddKin: Telling Stories for Earthly Survival
Multispecies environmental and reproductive justice must be practiced against human exceptionalism and in resistance to colonial capitalist divisions of species,…
Health, Loss, and the Biopolitical Distribution of Affect
This panel from the Health Humanities & Social Justice Breath, Body, Voice Conference at Duke University dealt with health, the…
Nikky Finney: Sipping Kerosene at the Refectory
Famed poet Nikky Finney kicked off our Health Humanities & Social Justice Breath, Body, Voice Conference with a reading from…
Alan Bleakley: A Psychoanalysis of Medicine’s Inflations
In this keynote address from the Health Humanities & Social Justice BREATH, BODY, VOICE Conference, Plymouth University’s Alan Bleakley discusses…
Jonathan Metzl, MD: A New Paradigm for Race & Racisms in Medicine
Jonathan Metzl is the Frederick B. Rentschler II Professor of Sociology and Psychiatry, and the Director of the Center for…
Medical Memoirs and Social Agency in Planetary Perspective
In this panel discussion, WiSER Institute colleagues Achille Mbembe (Author, Philosopher) and Nolwazi Mkhwanazi (Senior Lecturer in Anthropology), are joined…
Race and Medicine
The Health Humanities & Social Justice: BREATH, BODY, VOICE Conference sought to ask the question: “How are the humanities transforming…
From Colonial Medicine to International Health in East Asia
This essay examines in depth the history of colonial medicine in East Asia and its transition to an international health initiative.
Toward Global Histories of Pharmaceuticals in East Asia
This brief essay considers the history of pharmaceuticals in East Asia. It begins with a discussion of the burgeoning popularity of cultural and social histories of modern medicine in East Asia, and it describes the benefits and potential pitfalls of examining medicines as commodities.
Remapping Sound Studies
The authors argue that this project necessitates asking different sorts of questions than have been typically asked in sound studies, and they contend that this change will in turn require broadening the purview of sound studies because it will challenge some of the field’s central presuppositions.
Explorations in Islamic Feminist Epistemology
Responsive to Elizabeth Castelli’s (2001) call to "trouble" and destabilize our categories of analysis in the study of religion and gender, this paper explores the feminist epistemological category of "experience," particularly as it relates to the study of Islam and Muslim societies.
The Future of Political Theory: The Normative Science of Politics
This essay examines the contrasts between political theory and political science, with a view toward the future trends of the two in relation to one another in the twenty-first century. The author ventures to make three predictions and invites readers to offer their own insights in response.
African Intellectuals in the Face of the Phenomenon of Dictatorship
Given the current political climate, this paper insists that we recognize the work of Africans who strove to counter totalitarianism throughout the twentieth century. Starting with the Fifth Pan-African Conference in 1945, it brings to light the contributions of African thinkers, writers, and artists who dedicated themselves to resistance in the form of creative production.
Thinking "Global Blackness" Through the Frame of Angelus Novus: An Exploration of Racial Aporias and the Politics of Modern Power, Sovereignty, and Temporality
In this exploratory essay, I would like to offer a way of thinking about the generative processes inherent in the formation of modern power that bring about and sustain a globalizing "blackness."
The Future of Political Theory: Revisiting Its Past and Some Thoughts About Its Future
This short essay revisits answers to a similar question about the future of political theory posed 15 years ago and considers the significance of changes that have occurred since then.
Entanglement and the Future of Religious Studies
Entanglement as a concept is shown to transcend long-established limits and embrace fluidity, allowing more nuanced understandings of the past and the future in multiple areas of the humanities.
The Future of Political Theory: American Political Thought in the Trump Era
This essay discusses how the study of American political thought can help contemporary scholars grapple with the rise of authoritarian populism in the United States.
Water Security in the Middle East and North Africa
This essay details the causes of and status of freshwater scarcity in this region and its broad and alarming economic, social, and political implications, which have a direct bearing on the area’s growth and security.
The Black Outdoors: Humanities Futures After Property and Possession
Carter and Cervenak recap the multiple meditations (including providing summaries of talks of invited speakers for the series) carried out throughout the year on what "the black outdoors" means for social thought, even as they also theorize and question that very concept.
Multilingualism as Migration: Remarks on Literature, Philology, and Culture
This essay asks to what extent, and how, literary scholarship can contribute to questions raised by migration.
Neuropsychiatry as Area Studies: Han Tong-se (1930–1973) and the Diagnostics of Gender/Sexual "Deviance" in Cold War South Korea
Part of a larger book project, this short essay illuminates understudied ways in which nonnormative sexuality and gender variance firmly undergirded authoritarian development in Cold War South Korea.
