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Reposted by laura cowley

Christine Slobogin @slobogin.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

A labor of love and laughter!! Our book _Sick Jokes_ is finally out with @manchesterup.bsky.social ! Working on this with @katiesnow.bsky.social and @lauracowley.bsky.social has been a blast, and our contributors are BRILLIANT! Have your libraries order it!!

Me (a white woman with shortish dark blonde hair in a black and white horizontal striped dress) smiling while standing in front of a green plant holding two copies of the book _Sick Jokes: Visual Histories of Humour, Health and the Body_

Close up of the cover of _Sick Jokes: Visual Histories of Humour, Health and the Body_. The cover includes the title in orange and "Edited by Christine Slobogin, Katie Snow and Laura Cowley" in yellow. The cover image is a black-and-white photograph of a white man with glasses and an oxygen tube and hospital gown pulled up to reveal both a Karposi's sarcoma and a happy face tattoo.

Photo of two pages at the beginning of the book.

A selection:

A note on the cover image
When deciding which image from this volume to put on the cover, we knew that we wanted something that captured one of the book's central themes: the use of humour as a means of reclaiming power from the medical systems or diagnoses that so often leave us feeling powerless. Marc Geller's photograph of Tom Shearer does exactly that, with Tom's personality - embodied in his smiley face tattoo and steady gaze - posing a pointed challenge to medical and cultural assumptions about what it means to be, or to joke about being, 'sick'. The context in which this portrait (one of many, discussed in Jo Michael Rees's Chapter 6, in this volume) was taken also suggests the importance of laughing in the faces of death and danger, of creating community and of sharing experience - other prominent themes throughout Sick Jokes.
We are very aware of the ethical quandaries of sharing patient photographs, especially on a book cover, publicly viewable on shelves and on screens. While we cannot get consent from Shearer for this specific use of his photograph, we have received permission from Geller. The portrait was taken by Geller on assignment for the American LGBT magazine The Advocate in 1991, to accompany an interview about Shearer and Beowulf Thorne's radically funny wine Diseased Pariah News. Geller stated in an email to us that he felt Tom's bravery in creating such a zine comes through in the way he faced the camera. While we cannot know how Shearer or Thorne imagined these portraits might circulate after their deaths, the photographs belong to a project and artistic friendship that was itself public-facing.
We hope that this photograph draws people into this volume while also showing Shearer as he wanted to be perceived. We hope that we have done him - and other patients, artists and jokers - justice.
Christine Slobogin, Katie Snow and Laura Cowley

Dedications
For Cindy Slobogin, who taught me to love art - Christine Slobogin
For Rory Ivor Snow, who can find the funny in anything - Katie Snow
licence, thanks to the supertial commercial us, dischindle
For Sue Cowley, who was a good patient but a far better teacher -
Laura Cowley

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laura cowley @lauracowley.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

This month! An afternoon bringing together perspectives from architecture, neuroscience, public engagement, planning studies, art and art history. Join us at UCL Bartlett 30th April www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/humour-dis...

A colourful digital flyer for the event with a QR code. Text reads: By UCL Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment. Humour, Disability and Public Engagement. 30 April. 14.00. The Bartlett School of Architecture.

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Katie Snow @katiesnow.bsky.social · 02/04/2026

Our edited volume Sick Jokes: Visual histories of humour, health and the body is almost here! It's up on the Manchester University Press website for preorders, ahead of its publication this September 🤩 🥳 📣 📖 lnkd.in/e47UeTsd

Cover image of a male hospital in-patient looking directly at the camera, a smiley face tattoo exposed on his arm.

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Fiona Johnstone @drfijohnstone.bsky.social · 12/11/2025

RETHINKING RIGOUR: a two-day symposium on creative-critical research in medical humanities organised by the NNMHR. Explore method, assessment, and new possibilities for scholar-practitioners. 🗓️ Dec 4–5, Durham + online 🎟️ Free via Eventbrite: nnmh.org.uk/rethinking-r...

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Rebecca Whiteley @rebeccawhiteley.bsky.social · 31/10/2025

Booking is now live for our exciting online workshop Object Stories in Health and Medicine 1700-1900! See the full programme and grab a ticket here: www.birmingham.ac.uk/events/objec...

birmingham.ac.uk

Object stories in health and medicine, 1700-1900 - University of Birmingham

This event is aimed at researchers across the medical humanities and histories of medicine and psychiatry working with material culture.

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laura cowley @lauracowley.bsky.social · 29/09/2025

At at Birkbeck Cinema this Wednesday, very excited to screen Andrew Kötting’s Mapping Perception. Book here: www.bbk.ac.uk/events/event...

Four men wearing black gowns and white ruffs gather over a girl wearing a child’s nightdress. She is lying down and seems to be suspended in mid air. The group are lit with high contrast against a black background.

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Dr Anna Jamieson @annafranjam.bsky.social · 26/09/2025

10 days until the #CFP deadline for the online workshop *Object Stories in Health and Medicine 1700-1900*. We invite proposals for 15-minute talks on a single object related to health or medicine during the 18th & 19th centuries #histmed #histpsych #medhums www.birmingham.ac.uk/events/objec...

birmingham.ac.uk

Object Stories in Health and Medicine, 1700-1900 - University of Birmingham

x9artsandlaw-event,x9history-event,x9historycultures-event,x9clemt-event

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Rebecca Whiteley @rebeccawhiteley.bsky.social · 05/09/2025

CfP for an online workshop on Object Stories in Health and Medicine, 1700-1900 @annafranjam.bsky.social and I can't wait to hear about your objects!

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London Review of Books @lrb.co.uk · 24/08/2025

‘Satire can be a powerful agent of those wider, slower forms of political and social change, though when measured against the immediate political intentions of its authors it can seem as though it has achieved nothing at all.’ Colin Burrow on satire: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

lrb.co.uk

Colin Burrow · Let custards quake: Satire without the Jokes

To think of a satirist as a person who angrily turns against a gale-force wind and sprays liquefied shit at a group of...

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Society for the Social History of Medicine (SSHM) @sshmedicine.bsky.social · 20/08/2025

📣Annual Book Development Prize Competition 📣 Submissions are now invited for the 2026 Award, which funds authors to turn a proposal into a book in the Social Histories of Medicine series, published by @manchesterup.bsky.social Applications are accepted on a rolling basis until 16 Jan 2026. #histmed

sshm.org

Annual Book Development Prize Competition

Rules and Entry Form The Society for the Social History of Medicine (SSHM) invites submissions to its Annual Book Development Award Competition. The Award Two awards of £2000.00 each will be given …

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Angela Woods @literarti.bsky.social · 19/08/2025

Reflecting on their work in the Copenhagen Centre for Health Research in the Humanities, Folker et al offer real insight into theory-building within and through the dynamics (& difficulties) of engaged critical medical humanities research link.springer.com/article/10.1...

link.springer.com

Engaged Medical Humanities—A Framework for Knowledge Production in Research Collaborations - Journal of Medical Humanities

In the field of medical humanities, there has been a general call to understand biocultural entanglements and to break down rigid distinctions between culture and health, as well as disciplinary bound...

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Christine Slobogin @slobogin.bsky.social · 25/06/2025

New CFP for a Topic Collection on Visual Medical Humanities with @bmj.com Medical Humanities journal. Reach out if you have any questions! Deadline January 5, 2026. mh.bmj.com/pages/topic-...

mh.bmj.com

Topic Collection: Visual Medical Humanities | Medical Humanities

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History Workshop @historyworkshop.org.uk · 26/07/2025

As cities across the UK reverberate with the sound of pots and pans to protest the starvation of Palestinian people in Gaza, a piece from the archive on the humble pot and pan as tools for protest by Matthew Kerry: www.historyworkshop.org.uk/activism-sol...

historyworkshop.org.uk

Radical Objects: The Pot and Pan

Matthew Kerry explores how the humble pot and pan have become powerful tools for protestors.

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The Polyphony @the-polyphony.bsky.social · 21/07/2025

In the latest piece from the 2024 Medical Humanities International Summer School, Mercy Nqandeka and Rachel Cummings reflect on their contrasting research cultures and the implications for inquiry in the medical/health humanities. thepolyphony.org/2025/07/21/i...

thepolyphony.org

Insider/Outsider Research in London and South Africa

Mercy Nqandeka and Rachel Cummings reflect on their contrasting research cultures and the implications for inquiry in the medical/health humanities. This piece is part of a collection of posts from…

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Dr Louise Creechan @louisecreechan.bsky.social · 20/05/2025

Delighted this is now LIVE! CFP for a Special Issue of ‘Neurodiversity’ - towards a critical turn in neurodiversity studies via arts/humanities/social sciences - we want to hear from you!!

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laura cowley @lauracowley.bsky.social · 18/07/2025

Today in the archives: surveys of ‘public conveniences’ aka public toilets. This 1973 volume was amusingly concerned about Hull having their loos too close to their statue of Queen Victoria

Black and white image of graffiti that reads “KEEP BRITAIN FILTHY” from a 1973 survey of public toilets. Presumably a response to the charity Keep Britain Tidy

Photo of an old library catalogue card for the survey. It reads repetitively: “Council of British Ceramic Sanitaryware Manufacturers. Survey of washing facilities in Public conveniences
in Great Britain and also of vandalism in Public Conveniences. Council of British Ceramic sanitaryware manufacturers.
1973”

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Dr. Alexandra F. Morris @disabledarchaeo.bsky.social · 16/07/2025

I'm currently with Dr Wade Berger trying to get a group of disabled museum educators to the ASTC conference. Both of us are currently jobless due to higher education cuts, but feel it's important to keep advancing this research anyways. Thank you very much for any and all help! gofund.me/54f249fc

gofund.me

Donate to Fund Travel for Disabled Museum Workshop Leaders, organized by Wade Berger

We’re raising funds to send a cohort of disabled museum educators to the … Wade Berger needs your support for Fund Travel for Disabled Museum Workshop Leaders

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Tilly Guthrie @tillyguthrie.bsky.social · 25/06/2025

The organisers of the UKDHHH outdid themselves today - what a brilliant day of talks, and a masterclass in accessibility

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Katie Snow @katiesnow.bsky.social · 24/06/2025

Eeeek this will be good'un! Happy publication day @slobogin.bsky.social ⭐ Essential reading for all medical history/medical humanities visual culture people.

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Dr Beckie Rutherford (she/her) @beckierutherford.bsky.social · 21/04/2025

Another brilliant article I would add to this list is this collaborative piece on oral history and Section 28 - several of its contributors highlight the parallels between the demonisation of LGBTQ+ people in the 1980s and 90s and the relentless persecution of the trans community today.

historyworkshop.org.uk

Intergenerational Oral History and Section 28

How can oral history interviews between different generations of LGBTQ+ people aid our understanding of the ongoing impact of Section 28?

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Christine Slobogin @slobogin.bsky.social · 11/04/2025

So exciting seeing this book up on the Bloomsbury website! It'll be out at the end of this year. I co-wrote a piece on visual medical humor with @katiesnow.bsky.social and @lauracowley.bsky.social 🎭 www.bloomsbury.com/us/art-and-t...

bloomsbury.com

Art and the Critical Medical Humanities

This agenda-setting edited volume makes a forceful case for the contribution that art – its practices and its histories – can make to debates and developments i…

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Angela Woods @literarti.bsky.social · 06/10/2023

Super excited for this year’s IMH seminar series on “hidden experience” - on queer theory, memory, trauma, disability studies, sugar, politics and more! mailchi.mp/dbab179fbcc9...

mailchi.mp

IMH newsletter: September 2023

News & updates from the Institute for Medical Humanities, Durham University.

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laura cowley @lauracowley.bsky.social · 07/10/2023

Introducing my research with this recent delight from the archive. By the UK Disability Movement artist Steve Cribb:

Image description: A snail out for a stroll thinking ‘Oh, will I qualify council tax relief?’ The piece is an example of digital painting from the early 1990s. The thought bubble is pink. The background is a photograph of a tree lined street. The snail is digitally painted in yellows and browns

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