Fiona Johnstone

Congratulations to @drfijohnstone.bsky.social & colleagues! 📕🎉

@durhamimh.bsky.social @languagesdurham.bsky.social

#TransformativeHumanities

Facilitating the Queer Methodologies in Medical Humanities PhD School with David Woodhead was one of my highlights on 2025. I was so impressed by the students' commitment to doing this important work - have a look at the collection, and I am sure you will be too!

The print version is released 19th February, and the Open Access version is already available here: www.bloomsburycollections.com/monograph?do...

Thanks to SSHRC and Wellcome for support in making OA available

Described as “agenda-setting”, the book brings together 29 chapters by 40+ contributors. The cover features a detail from Ruth Cuthand’s Surviving: COVID-19.
Grateful to @literarti.bsky.social (foreword), Tanya Sheehan (afterword), @bendoyle.bsky.social at Bloomsbury, & our wonderful contributors!

Thrilled to finally be holding a physical copy of Art and the Critical Medical Humanities 📘

Co-edited with Allison Morehead and Imogen Wiltshire, this book has been a true labour of love.

RETHINKING RIGOUR: a two-day symposium on creative-critical research in medical humanities organised by the NNMHR.

Explore method, assessment, and new possibilities for scholar-practitioners.

🗓️ Dec 4–5, Durham + online
🎟️ Free via Eventbrite: nnmh.org.uk/rethinking-r...

10 days until the #CFP deadline for the online workshop *Object Stories in Health and Medicine 1700-1900*.

We invite proposals for 15-minute talks on a single object related to health or medicine during the 18th & 19th centuries #histmed #histpsych #medhums

www.birmingham.ac.uk/events/objec...

Curating Cultural Heritage for the Medical & Health Humanities: Reflections from Oslo Researchers from across the Matariki Network of Universities (MNU) recently gathered in Oslo for a stimulating few days of discussion, collaboration, and creative exploration as part of the Curating C...

Grateful for a rich few days in Oslo with the Curating Cultural Heritage for the Medical & Health Humanities project (MNU). Highlights: inspiring sessions at Norsk Teknisk Museum & MUNCH, deep dives into art, ethics & medicine—and a sauna swim to wrap it all up!
medhumsplatform.org/curating-cul...

Delighted to welcome the University of Stirling and @npapadogian.bsky.social to the Northern Network for Medical Humanities Research Steering Group. We're looking forward to collaborating with you and your colleagues!
nnmh.org.uk/university-o...

CfP for an online workshop on Object Stories in Health and Medicine, 1700-1900
@annafranjam.bsky.social and I can't wait to hear about your objects!

Screenshot of newsletter announcing new researchers joining the Durham Institute for Medical Humanities

Extremely pleased to be joining @durhamimh.bsky.social's Visual & Material Lab in Sept to explore materialities of reproductive healthcare, specifically around donor conception - can't wait to get started!

Proofs! (always good to receive book proofs a few hours before going on annual leave...)

Looking Again: The Quilt, the Gaze, and Queer Remembering David Woodhead reflects on the memories, legacies, and queer histories provoked by viewing- gazing upon- the AIDS memorial quilt in 1994 and in June this year.

"The quilt offers us a way to think. It is, somehow, a kind of methodology." @davidwoodhead.bsky.social gives a moving & thought-provoking account of (re)visiting the UK AIDS Quilt, on display @tate.bsky.social last month.

thepolyphony.org/2025/07/02/q...

Postdoctoral Research Associate

Two postdoc positions are available on the Wellcome-funded project "Between Deception and Dissent: regulating unproven, disproven and misleading health-related claims". www.kcl.ac.uk/jobs/118725-...

Yes, do!

Anti-Portraiture The portrait has historically been understood as an artistic representation of a human subject. Its purpose was to provide a visual or psychological likenesses…

Having an end-of-term office clean out and have discovered two spare editors’ copies of Anti-Portraiture (2020). Would be very happy to post them to good homes, if there are any takers on here?

www.bloomsbury.com/uk/antiportr...

Thanks Suzanne and Vicky for the invitation, really sorry that I can't be there, and I hope that the reconvened panel (with some brilliant speakers) goes well!

Gutted that I can't be at RAP2025 at The Clark in Massachusetts as originally planned today. I was invited to speak on a panel on "Case Histories" convened by Suzanne Hudson and Victoria Papa, but have sadly been unable to fly out due to circs beyond my control.

www.clarkart.edu/research-aca...

Liorah Hoek and Sanne van Driel smiling at the camera. They are standing in front of a PowerPoint slide in a seminar room. On half of the slide is blue and the other is white with orange and green paint splotches. On the blue slide of the slide the text reads 'The Plurality Game'.

The floor in The Sensory Den – a pop up sensory room. There are yellow and red jigsaw pieces, a red glowing stool, and three marble effect tiles in pink and orange and green and blue.

A lime green and orange lava lamp on a bench, a large cube to the right, and fibre optic tails in white/light blue on the floor.

A fan arrangement of conference programmes with abstract artwork in pink, orange, light blue and black. On the right there are white circles connected with white lines. The title on the programme reads: 'Critical Neurodiversity Studies Conference: Directions / Intersections / Contradictions, 24–26 June 2025, Durham University and Online.'

Great day today at our Critical Neurodiversity Studies Conference! Highlights included a keynote from Lisa Johnson and Liorah Hoek & Sanne van Driel’s workshop on what understanding experiences of plural identities can bring to critical neurodiversity studies. The Sensory Den was also a real hit!

Topic Collection: Visual Medical Humanities | Medical Humanities

Are you working in #VisualMedicalHumanities with a specific focus on art, anatomy and medicine? The BMJ Medical Humanities has just released this CFP for articles on "visuality in medical practice and history". Looking forward to seeing how this moves the field forward!

mh.bmj.com/pages/topic-...

This week we're profiling our new Medical Humanities in Practice Research Fellows. First up it's a written interview with Estelle Verdi about her research on Muslim women's experiences of baby loss. medhumsplatform.org/introducing-...

Introducing Phil Samba: New Medical Humanities in Practice Research Fellow An interview with Phil Samba, our new Medical Humanities in Practice Research Fellow.

Continuing our interviews with the new Medical Humanities in Practice Research Fellows, today we catch up with Phil Samba. Read on to find out about Phil's research on the barriers and opportunities of long acting injectable PrEP for Black Queer Men.
medhumsplatform.org/introducing-...

An appropriately gothic setting for the “Blood, Myth and Media” symposium today at Liverpool John Moores, convened by @beehughes.bsky.social and Stella Gaynor. Some great interdisciplinary papers on blood in horror, health, forensics, fashion and more.

Today!

A temporary prosthetic leg from World War One which has been heavily repaired with cement, paper and glue - brown, crusty, heavy, with very degraded materials

I'm excited to have had a paper accepted for the Artefacts conference (assoc of STEM and medicine museums) in Oslo in Oct. I'll be talking about object attachment & extreme repair in relation to this curious object, a prosthetic leg in the @sciencemuseum.org.uk collections. [more in thread]

Excellent - have shared with the teen!

We didn't get a programme, it was just her visceral gut response! Never read any critical lit on the play, so didn't realise this aspect of the play has been written about. We also thought it would be an excellent dilemma for Mumsnet (with everyone telling Elizabeth Proctor to Leave The Bastard).

I saw that last week! Loved it (the last time I saw this was the film version with Winona Rider in the 90s). Took my teen daughter - though she'd love it too but she was completely grossed out by the implications of grooming and had no sympathy for the John Proctor character whatsoever.

Such a pleasure to present on how creativity is central to the work of @durhamimh.bsky.social at "Creativity in Research" hosted by South West Yorkshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust yesterday. A great day with some fascinating reflections on what 'creativity' signifies in an NHS context.

Creating Care for People Who Self-Harm through Transformation of Aesthetic Objects - Journal of Medical Humanities The role of fiction in enabling care for people who self-harm is primarily framed as a relation of protection through absence or avoidance. It is frequently suggested that fiction should avoid depicti...

Really delighted to share this paper drawing on data from my PhD to explore the relation between care, texts, & self-harm. Particularly, I draw out how my participants engaged in active, creative, & relational viewing/reading practices to enable care for self-harm: link.springer.com/article/10.1...