By Martha Cornog In this magical realist fictional tale set in Manila, a young man struggles against a parasitic illness. Conrad’s X-ray shows a tiny bud invading his heart—a parasitic growth that will flourish like a cancer to become full-bloom flower within his body that kills him. But in this folklore-driven urban noir from award-winning speculative fiction novelist Victoria (Dwellers), such fantastic “spontaneous diseases” can be cured only by magical beings. Yet soliciting their help can be even more convoluted than getting Medicare to cover some unusual, deadly condition. And not just convoluted but illegal. Twenty-something Conrad will die… Read More
New Podcast: Representing Mental Health
Use the Quicktime player above to view images along with the audio. If you don’t have Quicktime, you can listen to the audio-only version below. In this week’s episode, three speakers address mental health and comics. First up is An Nguyen with her paper, My Partner Has Depression: Japanese depictions of illness experiences in the day to day. An Nguyen is a Ph.D. candidate in sociocultural anthropology at the University of Western Ontario. She is currently finishing her dissertation on Japanese youth street fashion subcultures and has an interest in the global flow of media and things and their interpretation across cultures. Describing… Read More