Health Humanities - Page 3

Visualizing Shame: Menstruation, Graphic Medicine, and the Discourse of Lycanthropy

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Sathyaraj Venkatesan1 and Anu Mary Peter2

1Associate Professor, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, National Institute of Technology (NIT), Tiruchirappalli, India-620015. ORCID: 0000-0003-2138-1263. Email: sathya@nitt.edu

2Assistant Professor, School of Social Sciences and Languages, Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT), Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. Email: 0000-0001-6740-8252. Email: anumary.peter@vit.ac.in

 Volume 12, Number 6, 2020 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n6.08

 Abstract

Beyond its medical definition as a natural phenomenon concerning the female body, menstruation is a term that is overburdened with a plethora of distorted cultural and religious meanings. Through the centuries, the biological process of the monthly expulsion of non-pregnant women’s uterus lining is popularly misunderstood as a profane activity. Despite the surplus of awareness measurements to educate masses about menstruation’s biological underpinnings, societal negligence towards women’s incapacitating experiential realities associated with menstruation continues even in the twenty-first century. Accordingly, Paula Knight’s graphic medical memoir on infertility, titled The Facts of Life (2017), offers a distinctive perspective about menstruation through the creative deployment of the lycanthrope metaphor. By depicting her menstruating self as a lone werewolf, Knight offers a compelling representation of menstruating women’s abysmal corporeal and cultural anxieties. By close reading relevant images from Knight’s memoir and drawing theoretical insights from Victoria Louise Newton and Elizabeth El Refaie, this article analyses how graphic medicine necessitates a humane and non-stigmatizing approach to menstruation.

Keywords: Menstruation, Metaphor, Lycanthropy, Graphic medicine, Comics, Stigma.

Trauma, Body Movement and Mental Health: An Appreciation of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot

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Joyanta Dangar

Assistant Professor of English, M. U. C. Women’s College, West Bengal, India ORCID: 0000-0003-2246-7712, Email: joyengsimlapal@gmail.com

 Volume 12, Number 6, 2020 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n6.07

 Abstract

This article is intended to create an interdisciplinary space to enable productive dialogue about bodily representation of psychological trauma and its meanings in artistic, literary, visual, and health discourses, with reference to Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. Drawing on Pat Ogden and her colleagues’ somatic approach to trauma therapy and on Bessel A. van der Kolk’s hypothesis that traumatic experiences of the past manifest in physiological states and actions of the present, the article views postures and body movements of the characters in the play as symptoms of psychological trauma. It shows how the play offers unique insights into the trauma pathology of postwar Europe, which may be valuable to psychiatrists, psychotherapists, rehabilitation workers, victim advocates, and students and interns entering the fields of mental health and trauma treatment.

Keywords: chronic abuse, collapse, foetal posture, “robopathology,” trauma dance

Reconsidering Autistic Narrative Agency and the Autobiography: The Curious Case of Tito Mukhopadhyay’s Beyond the Silence: My Life, the world and Autism

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Shibashish Purkayastha

PhD Research Scholar (English), Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati, Assam, India. Email: shibashish.purkayastha@gmail.com

 Volume 12, Number 6, 2020 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n6.06

Abstract

The primary purpose of this paper will be to investigate whether in narrativizing the subtleties of shame and stigma into the form of a coherent autobiography, the autistic autobiographer, Tito Mukhopadhyay, intentionally or unwittingly, explores different avenues regarding the types of autobiographical accounts, which causes us to re-imagine our understandings of autism and numerous other forms of cognitive impairment, and move past excessively deterministic and essentialist/normalizing biomedical discourses of cure and care. The study shall work within theories of postcolonialism, phenomenology, narrative theory, trauma studies and life writing studies. A literature review based on the extant scholarship in the field of life writing studies, health humanities and other disciplines has been conducted and after the identification of the research gap, this study chiefly seeks to purport that the lived experience of autism can be at variance with the prevalent biomedical and neurological understanding of this condition. By taking into cognizance the various material realities of the patients as evinced in their autie-biographies, I maintain that this information can come to the aid of medical practitioners, psychologists and psychoanalysts in considering the subjective dimensions of experience of autism apart from the monolithic and monolingual truth as evidenced by a scientific enquiry of autism spectrum disorder. This also suggests some appropriate conversation starters about the crossing points between a debilitating condition and the act of composing one’s life narrative with such a debilitating condition.

Keywords: autobiography, trauma, agency, narrative, autism, stigma

Metaphor and Melancholy Consciousness: Enduring Efficacy and Universal Common in Obiora Udechukwu’s Eight Paintings

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Chukwuemeka Okpara1, Emeka Aniago2 & Tochukwu Felicia Okpara3

1Senior Lecturer, Dept. of Fine & Applied Arts, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Nigeria

2Senior Lecturer, Dept. of Theatre & Film Studies, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Nigeria

ORCID id 0000-0003-3194-1463. Email Id: emekaaniago@gmail.com

3Lecturer, Dept. of Fine & Applied Arts, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Nigeria

 Volume 12, Number 6, 2020 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n6.05

 Abstract

This paper analytically discusses the efficacy of Obiora Udechukwu’s eight paintings particularly their commonality in projecting humanity universal common, pervading melancholy consciousness, and their propensity to activate effectual catharsis. This paper also discusses how these eight paintings provide cognitive channels through which plausible interpretive attempt at psychoanalysis of Udechukwu in relation to the paintings can be attained. We are adopting interpretive approach in our attempt at coming up with plausible deductions and extrapolations of the embedded significations in the paintings. To deepen our purview on efficacy of these paintings as stimuli for emotion activation, we shall apply select theories explaining contexts of melancholy consciousness, effectual catharsis and cognitive channels of psychoanalysis in relation to paintings as texts. In the end, our interpretations indicate that Udechukwu’s techniques in these paintings create perpetual atmosphere subsuming consciousness of universally acknowledged debilitating agonies resulting from wars.

 Keywords: consciousness, efficacy, melancholy, metaphor, Obiora Udechukwu, painting

“Shadowy objects in the test tubes”: Biocitizenship, Disposable Bodies, and Wasted Lives in Hanif Kureishi’s “The Body” and Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go

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Manali Karmakar 1 and Avishek Parui 2

1Assistant Professor of English, School of Social Sciences and Languages, Vellore Institute of Technology, Chennai, Chennai 600127. ORCID: 0000-0002-9256-6081. Email: manali.karmakar@vit.ac.in

2Assistant Professor of English, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Madras, Chennai, 600036. Associate Fellow, UK Higher Education Academy. ORCID: 0000-0001-8008-9241. Email: avishekparui@iitm.ac.in

 Volume 12, Number 6, 2020 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n6.04

 Abstract

The paper aims to explore Hanif Kureishi’s (2002) “The Body” and Kazuo Ishiguro’s (2005) Never Let Me Go in order to throw light on the bioethical issues related to ageing, biocitizenship, organ transplantation, wasted lives and disposable bodies by extending the discussion from a human to a dystopian posthuman world where affluent sections of society replenish their aged degenerating organic body by incorporating biomatter from non-citizens and clones. The paper draws on and extends Nikolas Rose and Carlos Novas’s concept of biocitizenship, Zygmunt Bauman’s notion of wasted lives, Giorgio Agamben’s explanation of bare life and Julia Kristeva’s theory of abjection in the context of literary studies in order to analyze the socio-political status of the engineered lives who are classified as biomedical fodders.

Keywords: biocitizenship, organ transplantation, disposable bodies, wasted lives

The Struggle with Disease Taxonomy in Han Kang’s The Vegetarian

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Jharna Choudhury

Ph.D. Scholar. Tezpur University, Assam, India. ORCID ID: 0000-0002-0916-373. Email: jharnachoudhury123@gmail.com

 Volume 12, Number 6, 2020 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n6.03

 Abstract         

The root cause of the suffering of Yeong-hye denies all clear-cut medical nomenclatures in Han Kang’s novel The Vegetarian. This paper discusses how heath institutions (in the context of the text) negate the aspects of cultural oppression, sexual trauma and power-play (referring to Michel Foucault) within the family structure while formulating a categorical taxonomy of a disease. In a constant struggle with anorexia, vegetal metamorphosis and parallel dream sequences, the cause-effect relationships in the illness of Yeong-hye and her sister In-hye defers end-significations with plurality. Bringing in Susan Bordo, the hierarchy of gender in the control over food choices is discussed in the light of etiology of Yeong-hye’s disease, its “whatness”, and how medical institutions define her clinical condition.

Keywords: Disease, Taxonomy, Han Kang, Gender, Health Institution

What Skills Should Be Taught in Health Humanities Education?

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260 views

Larry R. Churchill

Stahlman Professor of Medical Ethics Emeritus, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA. Email: larry.churchill@vumc.edu

 Volume 12, Number 6, 2020 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n6.01

 Abstract

This essay argues that those working and teaching in the new field of Health Humanities should avoid definitions of their work that borrow from existing disciplines and focus instead on three fundamental skills. A case study is provided to differentiate health humanities questions from those typically asked by bioethicists. Three skills are given detailed examination: empathic listening, involving the capacity to expand our imagination to others; emotional equanimity, involving the ability to understand and learn from our emotional responses; and the de-centering skills of taming our moral vanity and recognizing the full humanity of others. These are not the only skills in play in health humanities, but these three are basic and will lead to the other skills needed.

 Keywords: Health Humanities, education, skills, bioethics

Towards Creating a Socially Sustainable Society amid COVID- 19 Pandemic: A Gandhian Perspective

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284 views

Neha Mishra1 & Anindya J Mishra2

1Ph.D. Research Scholar, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee, Uttarakhand, India. ORCID ID 0000-0001-8654-7581. Email- neha.mishra1293@gmail.com

2 Professor, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee, Uttarakhand, India. Email- anindya.mishra@gmail.com

 Volume 12, Number 5, 2020 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n5.rioc1s26n5

Abstract

The current coronavirus pandemic has emerged as a threat to the entire humanity. It has affected society at large and has created a lot of chaos and uncertainty in the world. This has created the need to restore and establish social sustainability in the society. Social sustainability is viewed as a process for creating successful places that promote people’s well-being by understanding people’s needs and wants. Here, Gandhi’s comprehensive vision for society can be related to the sustainable development approach and the social dynamics prevailing in the society amid the pandemic. As the three pillars of sustainable development- environmental, economic, and social- are interlinked, Gandhi’s ideas and principles of value-based approach and ethical living hold good in sustainable development discourse. However, though Gandhian principles and concepts have been often viewed in environmental sustainability, it is least analyzed and understood in terms of social sustainability. Therefore, the paper tries to fill this gap by focusing on building a social aspect of sustainability amid the pandemic through Gandhian perspective. This paper analyses social sustainability in terms of (a) social equity, (b) social well-being, and (c) participation by all. In this context, his idea of “Sarvodaya” is significant as it deals with social welfare, which holds importance in current pandemic days. Apart from “Sarvodaya,” Gandhi also developed an integrated view of the individual, society, and state by focusing on social harmony based upon the moral principles- love, truth, justice, and non-violence, which hold importance even today.

Keywords: Coronavirus pandemic, social sustainability, social equity, social well-being, Gandhian perspective

A Pandemic Circumscribing another Pandemic: The Covid 19 World of Disabled Women

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328 views

Gokul S

Research Scholar, Department of English Literature, the English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad, gokulloyola13@gmail.com, ORCID id: 0000-0001-8969-1570

 Volume 12, Number 5, 2020 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n5.rioc1s26n1

Abstract

Accessibility and inclusion have always been a major impediment in the lives of the disabled. As a result, their lives have always been ontologically nebulous from the gaze of the outside world. Covid-19 has brought new norms of normalcy and extrapolating social behaviour such as social distancing. Such a regimented form of behaviour has ossified even further the problems of inclusion and accessibility. The upsurge of the pandemic has further complicated the forms of social behaviour and thereby adding more to the disability of an already disabled. This paper aims to analyze the problems of this new behavioural norm by the espousal of a centrifugal outlook and multilateral imagination keeping the disabled as the focal point of discussion. It also explains vis-a-vis Foucault’s idea of Bio politics, the ways new norm installs amongst people a different kind of solidarity based upon a common idea of vulnerability.

Keywords: Pandemic, Disabled, Women, Accessibility, Inclusion, Bio-politics.

Resonance of Existentialism on Pandemic literature: An Introspection of Pandemic Literature of the Past

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347 views

Nencepreet Kaur

Research Scholar, Department of English, UILAH,Chandigarh University, Punjab, ramanperry@gmail.com, https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1589-9154

 Volume 12, Number 5, 2020 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n5.rioc1s25n3

Abstract

Literature has always been impacted by the abject state of thought of humans existing in a particular time and era. A sense of meaning, or forging an explanation evinced within literature during the cataclysmic contemporary crisis of the pandemic, definitely resonates within the existentialistic paradigms. Not addressing the effects this humanitarian crisis has had on humans in literature is akin to being in a bubble of time and being immune to the devastation all around. The pandemic which is arguably one of the most horrific disasters of modern times has nearly irreversibly affected the outlook, imagination and thinking of humans. It will definitely have an irrefutable impact on the literary discourse of modern times. The interactions during a crisis of such proportions, the various texts, practices, the socio-economic and political repercussions have an indelible impact on the way the literature of that time is doled out as literature effectively represents the society and its sentiments in general. The essence of the present times is survival, with death gaping at all within close quarters and this is the root of an existential way of living which reflects in literature as well. This can be ascertained by introspecting pandemic literature of the past and the purpose of this paper is to analyze the resonance of existentialism in pandemic literature.

Keywords: Contemporary Crisis, Pandemic Literature, Existentialism.

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