Dear friends and readers, I have been given pause what we should call ourselves. Last night I watched the most horrifying film I’ve ever seen and I’ve seen some horror. It’s a 1974 Frederick Wiseman film called Primate where he filmed the people or scientists who “do” science at Yerkes Regional Primate Research Center in [...]
Archive for the ‘medicine’ Category
Watch what these primates do: Frederick Wiseman — with framing from Trollope, Agree, Montgomery
Posted in 20th century culture, film studies, medicine, politics, science, Trollope, tagged animal rights, Frederick Wiseman, primate on December 14, 2011 | 5 Comments »
Maggie Mahar’s Money-Driven Medicine: First, make a profit! the new Hippocrates’ oath
Posted in 20th century culture, medicine, politics, tagged drug companies, hospitals, medical insurance, physicicans on December 11, 2011 | 5 Comments »
Dear friends and readers, A final blog of notes and links on an important book I read with my students this term: Mahar’s Money-Driven Medicine. This remarkable book should be required reading for all adult Americans. Preface: Her achieved goal to tell the story of health care in the US through the eyes of doctors, [...]
Atul Gawande: realities of medicine hidden and mostly misunderstood
Posted in 20th century culture, medicine, men's memoirs, science, tagged Atul Gawande on December 5, 2011 | 5 Comments »
Dear friends and readers, Another blog where I’m turning my lecture notes into a blog for my students and in the hope other readers involved in some aspect of medicine (and which of us is not?) will find them of interest. I begin with Gawande’s Complications: A Surgeon’s Notes on an Imperfect Science, his introduction, [...]
Harm spreading across the globe: privatizing medical knowledge
Posted in 20th century culture, disability issues, Disabilty studies, medicine, political novels/films, politics, teaching, Uncategorized, tagged Atul Gawande, Fernando Mereilles, Frederick Wisemen, Helen Epstein, hospital, John LeCarre, Marcia Angell, near death, Philip Mirowski, Science, Sheldon Krimsky, Simon Channing-Williams on July 14, 2011 | 14 Comments »
Wit (directed by Mike Nichols, screenplay by Emma Thompson based on Margaret Edson’s play): Jason, the resident (Jonathan Woodward) has disregarded Miss Bearing (Emma Thompson), the patient’s request to be DNR on the grounds “she’s research!” Suzie, her nurse (Audra McDonald), is protecting the space around Miss Bearing. “It is simply no longer possible to [...]
Winston Graham’s v Alfred Hitchcock’s Marnie
Posted in 20th century culture, feminism, Film adaptations, film studies, gothic, historical fiction, medicine, Movies, Poldark, Winston Graham, tagged Hitchcock, marital rape, marnie, Rhetoric of Fiction on January 13, 2011 | 8 Comments »
Marnie (Tippi Hedren) all distress and the caring tender Mark (Sean Connery) from Hitchcock’s 1960s Marnie) Dear friends and readers, I’ve not given up on Winston Graham because his 8th Poldark novel, The Stranger from the Sea, revealed a precipitious falling off. A series of 7 remarkable historical novels set in the 18th century is [...]
Winston Graham’s Warleggan: the power of death and memory (Poldark novel 4, Cornwall 1792-93)
Posted in 18th century, 18th century novels, historical fiction, medicine, novels of sensibility, Poldark, political novels/films, Winston Graham, tagged Cornwall, Poldark, smuggling on August 25, 2010 | 24 Comments »
Final shots of Season 1: Film ends with Trenwith burned down, Mark Daniel killed, all money and hopes lost, Ross to go abroad as soldier, leaving Demelza with Jeremy (very different from book here) Dear friends and readers, Ross Poldark, jacobin landowner, in the film an unabiding renegade who rapes Elizabeth in order (he tells [...]
Winston Graham’s Jeremy Poldark: in the midst of life there is death (Poldark 3, Cornwall 1790-91))
Posted in 18th century, Costume drama, Film adaptations, historical fiction, medicine, Poldark, political novels/films, Winston Graham, tagged Poldark on July 30, 2010 | 19 Comments »
In this novel Francis Poldark (Clive Francis) attempts to kill himself Dear friends and readers, Those who read my blog regularly will know this spring I fell in love with the 1975-76 mini-series Poldark, and have been watching them slowly ever since. I’m half-way through the first half of season 2 (1977-78). About half-way through [...]
Capitalism: A Love Story and Duped by Obama; the Controlling Society
Posted in medicine, Movies, political novels/films, tagged michael moore, obama on October 7, 2009 | 6 Comments »
Moore talking to a gathering crowd (from Capitalism) Dear Friends, On Sunday, Izzy and I went to see Michael Moore’s strong film, Capitalism: A Love Story. I understand that numbers of people have been saying it’s like Moore’s early film, Roger and Me, which statement is meant to imply the two are similar in mood [...]
