Somatosphere in 2017

As 2018 begins we pause to briefly look back at the posts that appeared in the past year on Somatosphere. Last year we were happy to publish a number of excellent series, including “Toxicity, Waste, and Detritus in the Global South: Africa and Beyond,” edited by Gabrielle Hecht and Pamila Gupta, “Critical Histories, Activist Futures,” edited by Tess Lanzarotta and Sarah M. Pickman, “The First 1,000 Days of Life,” edited by Michelle Pentecost and Fiona C. Ross, and “Speculative Health,” edited by Matthew Wolf-Meyer, as well as a raft of other book reviews, book forums, and other pieces.

A huge thanks to all of the entire editorial team, our contributors, and to our readers! We’re very excited for 2018. In the coming days we’ll have a series responding to the recent #7wordsCDC story; we’ll also be continuing our numerous series and publishing forums on recent books by Alondra Nelson, Des Fitzgerald and Fernando Vidal and Francisco Ortega. And later in the year we celebrate the 10^th anniversary of the site…. so there’s a lot to look forward to!

Toxicity, Waste, and Detritus in the Global South: Africa and Beyond

Edited by Gabrielle Hecht and Pamila Gupta

Short adventures into our planet’s toxic sensorium, by Africanists and some of their scholarly kin.

Pamila Gupta and Gabrielle Hecht, Toxicity, Waste, Detritus: An Introduction
Danny Hoffman, Toxicity
Jennifer Wenzel, Waste
Sharad Chari, Detritus
Claudia Gastrow, Urban
Anne Berg, Dump
Joshua Grace, Poop
Muchaparara Musemwa, Lake
Robyn d’Avignon, Minerals
Jatin Dua, Port
Pamila Gupta, Island
Mehta Iqani and Francois Knoetze, Art
Jennifer Lee Johnson, Fish
Charne Lavery, Drift

Critical Histories, Activist Futures

Edited by Tess Lanzarotta and Sarah Pickman

This series is our attempt to capture some of the insights, suggestions, critiques and experiences from a conference entitled “Critical Histories, Activist Futures: Science, Medicine and Racial Violence.”

Sarah Pickman, Critical Histories, Activist Futures: Science, Medicine and Racial Violence
Sarah Pickman, More than Local Arrangements: How Conference Logistics Can Speak to Values
Ayah Nuriddin, Shelby Pumphrey, Ezelle Sanford III and J. Corey Williams, Working for the Race: Black Scholars, Invisible Labor, and the Baggage of Creating Space
M.X. Mitchell, History, Ethics, and the Environmental Archive
Amy Sprowles and Kerri J. Malloy, Klamath Connection and Critical Histories/Activist Futures: The Role of Interdisciplinary Discourse in Addressing Racism and Inequity in STEM Education
Robert Rock and Nientara Anderson, Medical Student Activism: Political x Institutional x Personal
Myrna Perez Sheldon, Justice, Science, and Pedagogy

Aftermath

A series examining the consequences of recent nationalist political turns throughout the world, including the US election.

Veronica Davidov, “Notes on a Balinese Cockfight” and Donald Trump
Deborah Levine, #SoComplicatedSyllabus – Check it out and please contribute!
Jessica Mulligan and Heide Castaneda, Do Americans suddenly like Obamacare? Contextualizing opinion polls and media narratives
Pamela Block and Michele Friedner, Teaching Disability Studies in the Era of Trump
Hunter Keys and Koen Peeters Grietens, Anomie and aftermath: the historical residue of Flemish nationalism in present-day debates on refugees in Belgium

First 1,000 Days of Life

Edited by Michelle Pentecost and Fiona C. Ross

Exploring “the ways that a global health initiative driven by new findings in epigenetics and neuroscience and by a reframing of theories about health and disease in terms of developmental origins shape ideas about (global) health and population futures, invigorate campaigns, and take form and settle in localized contexts.”

Fiona C. Ross, Stakes of Life: Science, states, policies, publics and ‘the first thousand days’
Terena Koster and Fiona C. Ross, ‘A bit of a compromise’: Coming to terms with an emergency caesarean section
Kylie Marais, Mothers Matter: Developing the ‘Waiting Mother’
Tamuka Chekero and Fiona C. Ross, ‘On paper’ and ‘having papers’: migrants navigating medical xenophobia and obstetric rights in South Africa

Speculative Health

Edited by Matthew Wolf-Meyer

Examining “how speculation makes particular kinds of persons and social forms possible; to think though other models and modes of speculation about the body, health, and disease — in film, literature, and mass media; to consider how particular technologies and techniques create futures.”