Intoxicated method, thinking in difference
A response to Mel Chen
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 16772285 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Clare Barker (0000-0003-4692-8851, University of Leeds, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2015 |
| Volume | 41 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 30-31 |
| Publication date | 2015-06-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Medical Humanities (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1468-215X • E-ISSN: 1473-4265 |
| Publisher | BMJ (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1136/medhum-2015-010696 |
| PMID | 26052117 |
| OpenAlex | W2200143345 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 4 |
This issue of Medical Humanities signals a turning point for an area of scholarship that is made up of several ‘contested and fragmented fields’ (p. 17)1 and has been criticised for lacking a central theory, method or politics. At first glance, there may seem to be little in common between recognisable ‘medical humanities’ scholarship—typically engaging with illness experiences, patient–clinician encounters and the history of medical institutions—and Mel Chen's startlingly wide-ranging meditation on instances and tropes of toxicity and intoxication. What could the medical humanities possibly have to say about subprime mortgages in the global financial crisis? But Chen's immensely provocative article, ‘Unpacking Intoxication, Racialising Disability’,2 offers an expanded vision of what a critical version of the medical humanities might concern itself with, and in doing so suggests theoretical, methodological and political directions in which the field might move. In particular, Chen's work invites medical humanities scholarship that offers systemic critique of how global capital affects human bodies and takes a politicised approach to oppressive regimes that pose threats to the health of populations and regulate what we understand ‘health’ to be. While the medical humanities have undertaken rigorous analysis of how health-related metaphors and narratives affect
Art · Humanities · Literature · Medical education · Medical humanities · Narrative · Political science · Politics · Psychoanalysis · Scholarship · Sociology · Empathy and Medical Education · Health and Conflict Studies · Law · Medicine · Philosophy · Psychology · Race, Genetics, and Society
| Highly cited | No |
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