Jess Farr-Cox 
David Scoins (lifelong runner, sometime sports teacher) spent seven years in China; a year or more in each of Xi’an, Nanjing, Beijing and Guangzhou, and shorter periods in other cities. The smallest of these cities has a population far bigger than … Read more…
Composer Toby Young writes: Tippett’s Fourth Symphony is a vast and complex tone poem, concerned with life, death and the very essence of being: a pretty impressive list of topics for a composer to deal with, perhaps, but not unexpected … Read more…
Arthur Rose, post-doctoral researcher on the Life of Breath project, writes: The supplementary task in any interdisciplinary work worth its salt is to formulate a ground on which the work might be based. This ground may be some central unifying … Read more…
Rebecca Oxley, post-doctoral research fellow on the Life of Breath project, writes about the recent project launch in Durham (see Making the invisible visible (1): Life of Breath officially launched its programme of work in Durham this week by offering a … Read more…
PhD student on the Life of Breath project Tina Williams, writes about the recent Philosophy of Medicine conference, with help from Emily Chester and Charlotte Withers: Day two began with a session on ‘The Problem with Classes’. David Teira’s ‘Disease-mongering … Read more…
PhD student on the Life of Breath project Tina Williams, writes about the recent Philosophy of Medicine conference, with help from Emily Chester and Charlotte Withers: Cutting-edge studies in the diverse field of Philosophy of Medicine were presented before delegates … Read more…
Nicola Caroli, breath teacher, writes: “This is what my breath looks like and when you have no breath you can no longer live,” wrote Maya, 7 years old. I met Maya in a children’s recreational facility in Berlin where I … Read more…
Sarah McLusky, Project Manager (Durham) writes: What is breath? We all know what it feels like. We can perceive the rise and fall of the chest, the air moving in and out of our lungs, but unless it’s a frosty … Read more…
In honour of the Glastonbury Festival, Jess Farr-Cox, Project Manager (Bristol) writes a post with an Arthurian flavour (see also ‘Arthur’s ‘labouring of the lungs’ in Tennyons’s Idylls of the King’): At our March meeting of the Life of Breath Bristol reading … Read more…
Jess Farr-Cox (Project Manager, Bristol) writes: Our recent official launch of the project was in many ways a model of interdisciplinarity.[1] The team is diverse and large, which gives us a richness of perspective, but also creates difficulties in how … Read more…
Mike Emanuel, Research Associate at Oxford Brookes University, Department of History, Philosophy and Religion, writes: In the fifth century BC, Hippocrates, in ‘On the Nature of Man’ and ‘Airs, Water, Places’ saw health as a matter of equilibrium within the body, and illness … Read more…
Dr. Nabil Jarad, Consultant Respiratory Physician at Bristol Royal Infirmary and School of Clinical Sciences, University of Bristol, writes: ‘I have given up trying to understand the riddle of breathlessness’ exclaimed Professor Duncan Geddes in one of the weekly seminars … Read more…
PI on the Life of Breath project Jane Macnaughton writes about the SPSP conference: Like many port areas in major cities in the west, the docklands of the city of Århus in Denmark are undergoing renovation from their identity as container port … Read more…
The Life of Breath project is recruiting two new post-doctoral researchers, to be based at the Centre for Medical Humanities, Department of English Studies, Department of Anthropology, and School of Medicine Pharmacy and Health at Durham University. These will both … Read more…
In the second of a series of posts about smoking (see also ‘A three-pipe problem’), Project Manager (Bristol) on the Life of Breath project Jess Farr-Cox writes: The overlap between breathing, smoking and singing is an interesting one, particularly as it bends … Read more…
Tina Williams, PhD student on the Life of Breath, writes: On the 27th & 28th March, the Oxford Phenomenology Network hosted this inaugural conference at the Oxford Research Centre in The Humanities, bringing together a wide array of disciplines for a … Read more…
Project Manager (Bristol) for Life of Breath Jess Farr-Cox writes: I have written elsewhere (see ‘Taking a deep breath’) about the strength of the link between heart and lungs, and others have touched on the strong association between the emotions, breathing … Read more…
Susan M D Carr, art therapist at the Prospect Hospice and PhD Student at Loughborough University, writes: I was in a CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) training session the other day, about to assist a ‘collapsed person’ in the form of a … Read more…
In the first of a series of posts on smoking (see also ‘Sing sweetly for tobacco!‘), Jess Farr-Cox (Project Manager (Bristol) for Life of Breath) writes: The Life of Breath project has engagement with schoolchildren as one of its stated aims, encouraging them to … Read more…
Physiotherapist and Bradcliff practitioner Pip Windsor writes: How can a symptom of chronic over-breathing be a feeling of lack of air? How can the answer to the feeling of air ‘hunger’ be to breathe less? Our body will usually give some useful … Read more…
Naya Tsentourou from the University of Exeter writes: In John Milton’s Paradise Lost prayer is defined as ‘one short sigh of humane breath’ (11.147). Earlier, in a passage that is twice repeated almost verbatim at the end of Book 10, … Read more…
The Centre for Medical Humanities (CMH) at Durham University is looking to appoint a Project Manager to for the Life of Breath, a five-year research project supported by a Wellcome Trust Senior Investigator Award in the Medical Humanities. The Life … Read more…
Project Manager (Bristol) for Life of Breath Jess Farr-Cox writes: The second Breathing Space meeting (see ‘Taking a deep breath’ for an account of the first meeting in October 2014) took place on January 21st 2015, in Friends House, London. After tea, … Read more…
Knowledge Exchange Facilitator (Humanities) Cleo Hanaway-Oakley at the University of Oxford writes: Cry, inspire, expire, and cry. This single short sentence provides a synopsis of Samuel Beckett’s play, Breath (1969). The full play script – which is, in its entirety, a mere … Read more…