From seizures to tics, can illness be all in the mind?
Psychosomatic illnesses have long been something of a mystery – but now neurologist Suzanne O’Sullivan is unravelling their secrets
9 May 2021 • 5:00pm
As a neurologist, Suzanna O’Sullivan is well aware of the complex tricks our minds can play on us.
Credit: Warren Allott
Early on in the pandemic, at the beginning of the first lockdown, consultant neurologist Suzanne O’Sullivan began to feel breathless as she walked up the stairs. “It was all so scary. I was thinking: ‘Oh my God, do I normally feel this breathless?’ I bought a thermometer and started checking my temperature, having never taken my temperature for years.” Fortunately, the symptoms soon dissipated. It wasn’t Covid. But like so many of us, hyper-vigilant and zeroed in on every ache, headache and sneeze, she had been primed for the worst. “It was understandable and perfectly normal,” she says, “Anxiety will produce changes in our body, w
Future and Form events present six visions of a literary future Published by
Marking its 50 year anniversary, UEA’s world-renowned MA in Creative Writing programme presents, as part of Norfolk & Norwich Festival 2021 (17-30 May), six new multidisciplinary, experimental works that explore the interface between contemporary literature and creative technology, starting 21 May.
“You’re taking a form that is probably aligned most with our humanity and putting that up against the idea of technology and thinking about how those two things have a conversation with each other” Mona Arshi
Discover extraordinary new experimental works and virtual and physical realities: performances, walks, interactive installations and digital engagements invite you to explore the very interface between contemporary literature, storytelling and creative technology.
Also sponsored by the Department of English’s Creative Writing Program
Award-winning writer Sarah Manguso will read from and discuss her memoir The Two Kinds of Decay in this online Zoom webinar.
Rounding With… is a series of mini-symposia, free and open to the public, in which an invited guest working in the field of narrative medicine gives a public reading or lecture and facilitates an interprofessional education (IPE) workshop.
This series is sponsored by the Wake Forest University Humanities Institute, made possible in part by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, and with support from an Engaged Humanities Grant received by the university from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Graffiti in Berlin Credit: Creative Commons
Matthew Sperling’s debut novel
Astroturf, an exploration of modern masculinity, was longlisted for the Wellcome Book Prize in 2019; its steroid-addled protagonist, Ned, has moved from London to Berlin for the follow-up,
Viral. Ned and Alice, an ex-actress, have formed a social media marketing agency called The Thing Factory, housed in the Kreuzberg district.
Having established that “the future is in platforms,” Ned and his team set about innovative methods of “harnessing… the products, the encounters, the kinds…
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