I. ‘Everything is the same level as the ground’
As protests against Assad morphed into slaughter, Khalid[i] did his best to avoid fighting. At the time, he was a law student, but the advent of war meant he was no longer exempt from military service. Once the government stooges came around, yanking young men off the streets, forcing them …
In spring semester of 2017 we (Pam Block and Michele Friedner) co-taught the graduate course “Conceptual Foundations of Disability Studies.” Though the readings were the same as in previous iterations of the course, the emphasis and tone of the class shifted, not just because of the co-teaching but because we were now teaching in a context in which the rights …
“Repeal and replace” has been the rallying cry for opponents of the Affordable Care Act (ACA or Obamacare), the signature domestic policy of the Obama administration that expanded insurance coverage to 20 million people. Opposition to the ACA inspired populist social movements and helped elect Republicans to state and national office. Donald Trump tweeted hundreds of times that Obamacare …
“I have to tell you, it’s an unbelievably complex subject…Nobody knew that health care could be so complicated,” said Donald J. Trump on Monday, February 27, at a press conference. This was his answer to a question about the then-seemingly stalled, but as of now reinvigorated, plans to repeal the Affordable Care Act, the 2010 health care law that …
Shortly after the election, I taught “Notes on a Balinese Cockfight” to my Anthropological Theory class, as I always do, at that point in the semester. By then we had covered “old ideas” – anthropologists who saw societies as bodies that successfully regulated themselves into homeostasis, cultures as cauldrons that take all that is natural and transform it into all …
Somatosphere invites readers to submit to “Aftermath,” a new series examining the consequences of recent nationalist political turns throughout the world, including the US election. We are particularly interested in pieces which reflect on how these events intersect with the thematic concerns of the site – health, medicine and science, broadly construed. We especially welcome pieces which draw on original …