On Friday 18 October 2019 at Foyles Bookshop in London (Charing Cross Road), Prof Havi Carel delivered a talk ‘It’s hard to think without your pants on’: patients as knowers as part of the Royal Institute of Philosophy’s London Lectures … Read more…
The British Medical Research Council’s medical surveys of the South Wales collieries represent a key conflict between standardization and individuals’ personal experience of health. In a paper recently published in The British Journal for the History of Science , Life … Read more…
A ‘songline’ is a song used within Australian Aboriginal culture as a way to navigate across the land… Health research is often bounded by disciplinary expertise. In a paper recently published in the journal Medical Humanities, members of the Life … Read more…
What’s in a name? Pulmonary rehabilitation (PR), an exercise and education programme, is currently the most effective non-pharmaceutical therapy for people with chronic breathlessness. However, uptake of PR is often poor – does it have an ‘image problem’? This article … Read more…
Senior Research Associate on the Life of Breath project, clinical music therapist and mindful yoga teacher Kate Binnie visited a COPD support group in Oxford to share some helpful techniques with the group. Kate shares her observations here……. Seven people … Read more…
Black lung is a disease often relegated to the domain of the history book. But can historical research tell us anything new about this old disease? In an essay published in the latest issue of The Lancet Respiratory Medicine, Life … Read more…
How do we understand the relationship between tobacco and humans in light of the fact that tobacco has become one of the most widely used and traded commodities on the planet? In Anthropology of Tobacco, Life of Breath researcher Andrew … Read more…
What defines “coal identity politics” and what role might they have had in the election of Donald Trump? In this article, Arthur Rose examines the works of bell hooks, Elmore Leonard, and the television series Justified—based on Leonard’s fiction— to … Read more…
Can using letters help create a personal narrative and public story, generating new ways of relating to breathlessness? A new paper by Life of Breath researcher Alice Malpass and collaborator Elspeth Penny explores the value of using theories of story … Read more…
For World COPD Day 2018 and the publication of Life of Breath’s new Policy Report, consultant respiratory physician and honorary senior lecturer at the the Academic Respiratory Unit (University of Bristol) Dr James Dodd writes… What is COPD? Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary … Read more…
At a key moment in Hamlet’s duel with Laertes, Gertrude cries out that Hamlet ‘is fat and scant of breath’ (5.2.287). Was Hamlet fat, we may ask, as we recall the more memorable Hamlets, cinematic and dramatic? It depends, some … Read more…
Life of Breath collaborator Elspeth Penny writes about her experience facilitating a “Letter to my Breath” workshop at Barton Hill Settlement in Bristol as part of Fun Palaces 2018… It’s like a present when I’m invited to run a workshop, … Read more…
As part of the Fun Palaces campaign in October this year, Life of Breath collaborated with local Bristol artist Sophie Rae and the children of Shirehampton Primary School to create a breathing-themed mural. Sophie writes about the 5 days she … Read more…
Life of Breath collaborator Dr. Megan Wainwright introduces her new paper “Exploring ambivalent human-oxygen technology-world relations through the lens of Postphenomenlogy” published in the Journal of Material Culture as part of a special issue on Ambivalent Objects in Global Health (Eds. … Read more…
A new book on phenomenology and illness entitled Existential Medicine: Essays on Health and Illness is now out, with a chapter by Life of Breath Principle Investigator Havi Carel and PhD student Tina Williams. The book’s editor, Professor Kevin Aho, is the author of Existentialism: An Introduction, Heidegger’s … Read more…
The Life of Breath project was delighted to host Professor Lundy Braun in Bristol recently to speak at our bi-annual team meeting “Breathing Space” along with a special public lecture. Life of Breath researcher Coreen McGuire reflects on Lundy’s visit… … Read more…
Tina Williams and Havi Carel have contributed a chapter on breathlessness to this new essay collection which explores the experience of illness, ‘what it means’ and ‘what it feels like’ to be ill. Read more about this volume on our blog … Read more…
In this book chapter in the volume Atmospheres of Breathing, Prof Carel considers breathlessness from a phenomenological perspective, reframing it as an existential, social, personal, cultural and psychological phenomenon, rather than a medical symptom. (Read more about the book on … Read more…
Music & Mindful Yoga Therapist Kate Binnie joined Life of Breath as a researcher in January 2018. She writes: I am delighted and honoured to be officially part of the LoB team at Bristol! How I found LoB I stumbled … Read more…
The Life of Breath team, like our colleagues at Breathe Oxford, recently responded to the proposal that defining chronic breathlessness as a syndrome might raise awareness of its impact on people’s lives. We stress that more consultation with ‘experts-by-experience’ (patients who experience … Read more…
While in Delhi for a recent UN convention on tobacco control, anthropologist Andrew Russell reports on widespread ‘astroturfing’ – large multinationals subsidising apparently independent interest groups to secretly (or not so secretly) push corporate interests. Interference, intimidation, emotional blackmail and … Read more…
Recently it was proposed that defining chronic breathlessness as a syndrome might raise awareness of its impact on people’s lives . Our collaborators at Breath Oxford responded. Their research explores the neuroscience of breathlessness, particularly the networks that generate perceptions. They … Read more…
What do people with COPD think their lungs look like? Ideas about what is going on inside the body can influence how people present their symptoms and respond to medical treatment. In this study, anthropologist Megan Wainwright asked people with … Read more…
How do we accurately measure hearing loss? In a new paper in The British Journal for the History of Science, Life of Breath researcher Coreen McGuire (University of Bristol) and Jaipreet Virdi shed light on the career of Dr Phyllis Margaret Tookey Kerridge (1901–1940) – a pioneer … Read more…