What's the Point?

PhD researcher Ciara Gorman joins Bryony Armstrong to discuss:

• Where the humanities can take you
• The study of languages and how people communicate
• The importance of languages in political, personal and medical settings
• The skills we learn in the humanities classroom
• Why the world fears gender studies
• Paying attention to contemporary culture

Content warning: this episode contains some discussion about violence against women and mental illness.
Credit note: the linguist referenced is Paula Teixeira Moláns who can be found here: https://www.gla.ac.uk/pgrs/paulateixeiramol%C3%A1ns/. As a clarification, in her talk she was discussing Galician, and said that: 'English has a limited vocabulary and relies on a spatial metaphor such as high and low pitch whilst other languages have other strategies. For instance Galician uses son agudo and grave (as in ‘acute’ or ‘pointy’, and ‘heavy’ or ‘serious’ respectively)'.
Artwork: Riduwan Molla https://www.canva.com/p/riduwanmolla/
Music: Madaan Mansij https://www.pond5.com/artist/mansij_tubescreamer
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Although there has been scientific consensus on the climate crisis for decades, humans have been slow to respond to its urgency. Environmental humanities researcher Conor Brennan joins me to talk about:

• What is environmental humanities?
• How can evironmental humanities help to solve the climate crisis?
• The role of popular culture in communicating the climate crisis
• The problems that arise when we take arts and humanities out of the equations
• How art convinces people to change their behaviour about the climate crisis
• How has the climate crisis affected literature and aesthetic experiments?
• Why climate activism should include humanities teaching in schools/universities

Read "The Humanities in the UK Today" report by the Higher Education Policy Institute
Other sources discussed:

• Edward Said, "Jane Austen and Empire", Culture and Imperialism (1993)
• Richard Powers, The Overstory (2018)
• Kim Stanley Robinson, The Ministry for the Future (2020)
• Olga Tokarczuk, Drive Your Plough Over the Bones of the Dead (2009)

Find Bryony @BF_Armstrong
Find the pod @wtppod_
Find Conor
Artwork: Riduwan Molla https://www.canva.com/p/riduwanmolla/
Music: Madaan Mansij https://www.pond5.com/artist/mansij_tubescreamer
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

We tend to see medicine as a strictly scientific sector, but the arts and humanities are essential when it comes to educating our doctors and caring for patients and the planet. Doctor and Professor of Medical Education Ian Fussell joins me to talk about:

• What is medical humanities
• How and why we can use arts and humanities in medical education
• The links between planetary health, medical health, and social justice
• Why medical and scientific researchers need artists and humanities specialists
• How the humanities helped the medical field during the Covid-19 pandemic
• Medicine as an enabler of the arts and humanities

Find Bryony @BF_Armstrong
Find the pod @wtppod_
Find Ian at the University of Exeter Medical School
Artwork: Riduwan Molla https://www.canva.com/p/riduwanmolla/
Music: Madaan Mansij https://www.pond5.com/artist/mansij_tubescreamer
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Lecturer in American literature Dr Xine Yao joins Bryony Armstrong to discuss:

• Why defunding the humanities limits who has cultural capital
• Feeling or unfeeling among minoritised groups
• How researching literature from the past can teach us about the present
• The relationship between humanities and social justice
• Why we can’t turn to the humanities unproblematically
• Bringing humanities research to the public
• The different types of teaching and learning that happen in STEM/A&H classrooms
• Why do people in pubs demand that we explain our research, and then criticise it when we do?!
• The need for solidarity across STEM/A&H

Content note: this episode contains some discussion about racism and homophobia.
Find Bryony @BF_Armstrong
Find Xine @XineYaoPhD
Artwork: Riduwan Molla https://www.canva.com/p/riduwanmolla/
Music: Madaan Mansij https://www.pond5.com/artist/mansij_tubescreamer
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Sensory historian Dr William Tullett joins Bryony Armstrong to discuss:

• Using smell to engage with the present
• The impact of smell research on political choices and environmental justice
• Using smell to learn about historical experience
• Changing up the hierarchies of senses and historical sources
• Why we need to tackle myths about “bad smells”
• Why connecting with heritage matters
• The impact of the humanities on other disciplines
• What you can really do when you study history
• The point of humanities in Covid-19 research

Content warning: this episode contains some discussion about racism.
Credit notes:

• Sophia Stamatopoulou-Robbins, 'Scratch-and-sniff Palestine: How olfaction shapes nonsovereign infrastructural spaces': https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/02637758221118572
• Alex Rhys-Taylor, Food and Multiculture: A Sensory Ethnography of East London: https://www.routledge.com/Food-and-Multiculture-A-Sensory-Ethnography-of-East-London/Rhys-Taylor/p/book/9781472581150
• Sentimental Garbage: Costume Dramas with Dr Emma Southon: https://podcasts.apple.com/pl/podcast/costume-dramas-with-dr-emma-southon/id1444729607?i=1000566596029
• The artist mentioned is named Michael Pinsky: https://www.capefarewell.com/pollution-pods/

Find Bryony @BF_Armstrong
Find William @WillTullett

Artwork: Riduwan Molla https://www.canva.com/p/riduwanmolla/
Music: Madaan Mansij https://www.pond5.com/artist/mansij_tubescreamer
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.