December 2019 – According to the Arts

Belladonna Self-Poisoning:
The Biomedical and The Literary

According to the art: Biomedical and Literary descriptions of belladonna toxicity are compared. The literary source is Daša Drndić’s novel Belladonna.

Farinelli and The King
A Play of Medical Eros

What These Works Say

According to the art: The play is the story of a real-life, eighteenth–century king of Spain and his mental illness that is tamed only when his castrato sings to him. Though the play has historical interest in itself, it highlights the concept of “medical eros” and how it can be distinguished from “medical logos.”

Natural Causes:
An Epidemic of Wellness, the Certainty of Dying, and Killing Ourselves to Live Longer

What These Works Say

According to he art: Barbara Ehrenreich evaluates the balance between doing all that’s thought to be important to extending life and the time and energy it takes. She does this from the perspective of a person who is in her mid seventies (“old enough to die”) and healthy. She finds a balance that works for her but is at odds with what Biomedicine and related industries would have her do.

Merchants of Doubt:
How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming

What These Works Say

This book is an exposé of the vulnerability that exists in advanced, western, democratic societies to trumped up arguments that can topple scientific evidence revealing urgent needs of individuals, societies, and nations, and can frustrate their solutions.

Far From the Tree

What These Works Say

This documentary film is based from Andrew Solomon’s book of the same title. The film looks at several families in which the children produced were not what were expected and how the parents worked to accept these children and to find happiness to the degree they could.