Cripademia Book Club Pod (with Long Covid Advocacy)

Join us for a conversation with Amanda Leduc, author of Disfigured: On Fairy Tales, Disability, and Making Space.

We’ll explore disability and difference in fairy tales, the Disneyfication of darker stories, representation, and what happens when disabled people reclaim the stories we’ve been told about our bodies.

📚 Disfigured by Amanda Leduc

🎙️ Cripademia is Long Covid Advocacy’s chronic illness and disability book club.

Chapters

0:00 Introduction
0:39 What inspired Disfigured?
5:33 Fairy tales and disability
9:10 Why are transformations so central to fairy tales?
11:08 Can fairy tales have happy endings without transformation?
14:40 How fairy tales shape attitudes towards disabled bodies
18:09 The “nerd transformation” and beauty conventions
20:36 Disney, fairy tales and what we lose
25:30 Disney as a capitalist empire
29:16 Stories of collective transformation
37:37 Complex embodiment and Long Covid
39:00 The medical model, social model and complex embodiment
43:34 Disability is dynamic
45:22 Surgery, transformation and making space
50:44 Listening rather than measuring
53:52 Who is writing better stories about disability?
56:49 Disability in Star Trek, Pixar and Inside Out
58:41 Can changing stories change culture?
1:01:01 Disability representation and social change
1:01:39 What’s next for Amanda Leduc?
1:02:45 Goodbye

Amanda's website

Cripademia on IG

Cripademia book club on FableLong Covid Advocacy

#Cripademia #AmandaLeduc #Disfigured #FairyTales #DisabilityRepresentation #Bookclub #Disability #LongCovid

Welcome to the Cripademia Book Club.

In this episode, we speak with Dr Elinor Cleghorn, historian of medicine and author of Unwell Women: A Journey Through Medicine and Myth in a Man-Made World.

Together, we explore the long history of women's health being misunderstood, dismissed, and mythologised, and discuss how these historical narratives continue to shape medicine and healthcare today.

For many people living with chronic illness, particularly women and gender minorities, these histories are not confined to the past—they continue to influence diagnosis, treatment, and whose experiences are believed. This conversation examines the roots of medical bias and what it means to build a more equitable future.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction & Elinor Cleghorn’s Story
02:17 Lupus, Misdiagnosis & Medical Dismissal
08:40 The History of “Hysteria” in Medicine
15:30 Women’s Pain & Diagnostic Bias
21:45 Autoimmune Disease & Gender
30:55 Why Chronic Illness Is So Often Disbelieved
34:42 Medicine’s Problem With Complexity
35:31 Falling Through the Cracks of Specialisms
37:52 Medical Education & “It’s Anxiety”
39:46 What Medical Misogyny Actually Means
41:49 Endometriosis & Systemic Failure
43:01 The NHS, Chronic Illness & Structural Problems
44:38 Why Doctors Need Time to Sit With Uncertainty
46:04 ME/CFS, Incline Village & “Yuppie Flu”
49:54 Psychologising ME & “Myalgic Nervosa”
51:05 Long Covid, ME & Chronic Illness Stigma
53:15 Why Medicine Must Change for Chronic Disease
55:14 Exploitation, Blame & “Fairy Tale Diagnoses”
56:18 Reimagining Healthcare Around Patients
58:10 Elinor’s New Book: A Woman’s Work
58:29 Reclaiming the Radical History of Mothering

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Thank you for listening and supporting sick and disabled-led work

In this special episode for Long Covid Awareness Day, Dr Rupert Higham, lecturer in Learning and Leadership from the Institute of Education at UCL speaks with Professor David Putrino, neuroscientist and rehabilitation specialist at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai - and general legend!

Professor Putrino is also the Nash Family Director of the Cohen Center for Recovery from Complex Chronic Illnesses (CoRE), where his team researches and treats infection-associated chronic illnesses (IACI) including Long Covid, ME, and chronic Lyme disease.

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Professor Putrino has become a leading voice in both the clinical care and research of Long Covid. He is also helping to develop medical education programmes for clinicians on infection-associated chronic illness as part of the Long Covid Open Medical Education Program with Polybio and at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

0:00 Introduction
1:32 What drew David Putrino to Long Covid
4:53 How medical education has failed Long Covid and ME patients
14:19 Medical textbooks and patient experience in books
21:52 The problem with ‘medically unexplained symptoms’
27:09 Why we see optional educational programs
33:10 How to embed Long Covid in under/post-grad training
33:30 Putrino's top three changes for medical education
41:01 How to reduce infection risk
44:27 How patients can navigate difficult doctor visits
55:16 How Long Covid education is spreading internationally
1:00:21 Q&A PEM vs Fatigue
1:02:51 Q&A Relationship between Long Covid and ME
1:05:32 Q&A Dysautonomia, Gut Problems and Nutrition
1:09:12 Q&A Help for diagnosis for MCAS

Cohen Centre Living Clinical Guidelines for Infection-Associated Chronic Conditions and Illnesses on the HSS Website

Download Infection-Associated Chronic Illnesses Provider Manual

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Thank you for listening and supporting sick and disabled-led work

Welcome to the Cripademia Book Club.

In this episode, we speak with Laura Elliott, writer, researcher, and author of Awakened, a powerful exploration of the science, history, and lived experience of myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME).

Together, we discuss Awakened and the realities of living with a misunderstood illness, tracing the history of ME, the impact of medical and societal neglect, and the growing movement towards scientific recognition and change.

For people living with ME and Long COVID, these stories are deeply personal. This conversation explores what it means to be heard, believed, and represented, while examining how medicine can move beyond decades of misunderstanding towards a more compassionate and evidence-based future.

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Thank you for listening and supporting sick and disabled-led work

Welcome to the Cripademia Book Club.

In this episode, we speak with Dr Rageshri Dhairyawan, NHS Consultant in Sexual Health and HIV Medicine, researcher, and science communicator.

We discuss her book Unheard: The Medical Practice of Silencing, which explores how medicine has historically failed to listen to patients and the consequences this has for healthcare, knowledge, and health equity.

For people living with chronic illness, feeling unheard is often a defining part of navigating healthcare. This conversation explores why medical silencing persists, how it shapes patient experiences, and what it would take to build a healthcare system where listening is recognised as an essential part of good medicine.

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Thank you for listening and supporting sick and disabled-led work

Welcome to the first Cripademia Book Club episode.

In this episode, we speak with Dr Jonathan Stea, psychologist and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Calgary.We discuss his book Mind the Science: Saving Your Mental Health from the Wellness Industry, and explore the rise of pseudoscience in mental health and wellness culture.

For many people living with chronic illness, pseudoscience is not abstract — it is something they encounter directly in care, advice, and public discourse. This conversation looks at how and why that happens, and what a more evidence-based approach could look like.

🪶⁠Author Website⁠

📚 ⁠Cripademia Book Club on Fable⁠

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💙 ⁠Long Covid Advocacy⁠

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Thank you for listening and supporting sick and disabled-led work