Each day over the next week I'll post up an abstract for a paper being presented by a member of the Critical Physiotherapy Network at the In Sickness and In Health conference in Mallorca in June 2015. (You can find more information on the conference here.) Bodies, voice and change: exploring the construction of fat bodies in health. By Jenny Setchell, Michael Gard and Irmgard Tischner Recognising the body as a colonised space brings up the question of who has the right to speak about the body. Who determines how it should look, what will make it healthy? Using the fat body within a health care context as an example, I discuss the dominant voice of health professionals in negotiating and … [Read more...] about Bodies, voice and change: exploring the construction of fat bodies in health
Words banned in Italy
This article appeared in the New Zealand Herald in 1932 (Vol LXIX, Issue 21296, 24 September 1932, Page 9) Fascist Italy has officially banned about fifty words of foreign origin now in common use in the Italian language. The list issued by the Confederation of Fascist Professionals and Artists includes the words "omelette," "roughly," "taxi," "parvenu," "dancing," and "masseuse." Italian equivalents have been coined to replace them. Thus, "masseuse" becomes massaggiatrice and the once universal "charm" is now "fascino." Many more words will eventually be added to this "black list." They will include "racing," terms borrowed from the English; and many sporting terms for which proper … [Read more...] about Words banned in Italy
Some meditations on education and intelligence
“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.” — F. Scott Fitzgerald “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” — Aristotle “Education enables you to express assent or dissent in graduated terms.” — William Cory “Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.” — Robert Frost “To change an opinion without a mental process is the mark of the uneducated.” — Geoffrey Madan “To have doubted one’s own first principles is the mark of a civilized man.” — Oliver Wendell Holmes “There … [Read more...] about Some meditations on education and intelligence