Heart Of The Matter - A Health Humanities Podcast

In this episode, we sit down with Vicki Wade, First Nations Heart Health Lead with the Heart Foundation, and Associate Professor Glenn Pearson, Director First Nations Strategy and Leadership at the Telethon Kids Institute, to discuss the disproportionate impact of Rheumatic Heart Disease (RHD) on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People in Australia.

This episode was recorded on the 5th of September 2023, in the leadup to a key historical moment in Australia. On Saturday, 14 October 2023, Australians will have their say in a referendum about whether to change the Constitution to recognise the First Peoples of Australia by establishing a body called the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice. This is an invitation from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People for us all to listen, so that we can work together to address difficult but solvable problems like RHD.

The team behind the Heart of the Matter are strongly in support of saying 'Yes' to an Indigenous voice, and we invite you to listen to this podcast to learn more about why this is such an important moment in Australian history.

Join with us to learn more about:

For more information on the topics covered in this episode, please see the links below (or visit the main podcast page here https://tinyurl.com/mtt9cstc): 

Mummification! Pyramids! Book of the Dead! Ancient Egypt is such a fascinating period of history, and still so pervasive in our consciousness today. Fortunately for us, ancient Egyptians were also fascinated in the human heart!

On this episode, we interview two brilliant academics: Dr Camillia Di Biase-Dyson and PhD Candidate Madeleine Jenkins from Maquarie University. We learn all about how ancient Egyptians perceived the heart in the context of the human body. Stay tuned to the end to hear when we delve into the accuracy of ancient Egyptian language in the Brendan Fraser Hollywood Blockbuster, "The Mummy"....

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Claire Hansen

Brid Phillips

Michael Stevens

Camillia Di Biase-Dyson⁠

Madeleine Jenkins

On this episode of our HOTM podcast, we sit down with Professor Anna Greenwood from the University of Nottingham, to discuss her role as the first Professor of Health History. Professor Greenwood was a visiting fellow at the Humanities Research Centre at The ANU in early 2023, which enabled us to sit down with this amazing academic for an interview about her work. She has an amazing track record in the history of health, which overlaps significantly with a our work at HOTM. She also provided us with some great tips on successful interdisciplinary collaborations for humanities studies.

Apologies for the small amount of echo/reverb on the sound. We're trying out a few different techniques for recording via zoom, and I think we'll have it sorted for the next recording.

Welcome to our first episode for 2023! For this episode, we're dressed in our best post-apocalyptic clothing, taken stock of our non-perishable food supplies and kept someone on look-out as we dive into the 2013 zombie film "Warm Bodies". 

We discuss the representation of hearts in this modern, zombie-filled, adaptation of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Join us for a fascinating analysis of how this film links hearts with life and humanity. 

This episode draws on a recent film screening, which was part of the SCIENCE. ART. FILM. series presented by the National Film and Sound Archive, Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science and ANU Humanities Research Centre. Our thanks to organiser Dr Anna-Sophie Jurgens (ANU, Popsicule) and panellists Dr Katharina Bonzel (ANU) and Dr Nicole Freene (University of Canberra, ACT Heart Foundation Local Advisory Board).

If you want more information, you can find more information of our website, or reach out to us on Twitter:

Claire Hansen

Brid Phillips

Michael Stevens

In 2022, the Heart of the Matter team were invited to present at the Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence for History of Emotions (CHE). We jumped at the chance, to share our novel interdisciplinary research with the wider Australian humanities field. 

In this episode, we share with you our presentation at the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for History of Emotions. We also introduce our newest member, Dr Katherina Bonzel from the ANU. 

You can always ask us questions via our social media links below. Bríd also mentions the Good Health, Good Mental Health Survey - you can access that survey using the link here!

Dr Katherina Bonzel

Dr Claire Hansen

Dr Bríd Phillips

Dr Michael Stevens

In this episode, the Heart of the Matter team sit down with Australian artist Vic McEwan. Vic is the founder of the CAD Factory and is an interdisciplinary artist working with sound, video, installation and performance with a particular interest in site-specific work. 

We talk about Vic's work, Harmonic Oscillator, a collection of work developed during his placement as artist-in-residence at Alder Hey Children's Hospital, with a focus on his work The Longest Heartbeat. We strongly recommend checking out Vic's work before or after you listen to the show, we found it to be incredibly moving.

Links

The Longest Heartbeat

The CAD Factory

Harmonic Oscillator

Textures of Absence 

Orchestra of Tears

In this episode, the team sit down with philosopher Pat McConville from Monash University Bioethics Centre to discuss his research into using Phenomenology to help understand and articulate the lived experience of people living with an artificial heart. 

Links to papers discussed in the podcast:

McConville, P. Toward a phenomenology of congenital illness: a case of single-ventricle heart disease. Med Health Care and Philos 24, 587–595 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11019-021-10026-3  https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11019-021-10026-3

Hansen C, Stevens MC. Be still, my beating heart: reading pulselessness from Shakespeare to the artificial heart. Medical Humanities 47:344-353 (2021). https://mh.bmj.com/content/47/3/344

In this episode, we are joined by Associate Professor Katie Barclay (University of Adelaide) and Dr Bronwyn Reddan (Deakin University) to talk about their book, The Feeling Heart in Medieval and Early Modern Europe: Meaning, Embodiment, and Making. Join us as we discuss the heart as battlefield, the porous heart, fairytales, and find out what a cardiotaph is...!

* Apologies for the distortion on the introduction music, some technical gremlins on this one! *

In this episode, we discuss Nikki Stamp's book, "Can You Die of a Broken Heart?"  

Find out more here: https://www.murdochbooks.com.au/browse/books/health-fitness/health-fitness-1/Can-You-Die-of-a-Broken-Heart-Dr-Nikki-Stamp-9781760631666.  

Dr Stamp's website is available here: http://www.drnikkistamp.com/ .  

Heart Foundation resources on women and heart disease: https://www.heartfoundation.org.au/conditions/heart-conditions-in-women 

Articles referenced in the podcast include: 

Dawson, D. K. "Acute Stress-Induced (Takotsubo) Cardiomyopathy." Heart (British Cardiac Society) 104, no. 2 (2018): 96-102.  

Kaptein, A.A., van der Meer, P.B., Florijn, B.W. et al. "Heart in art: cardiovascular diseases in novels, films, and paintings." Philos Ethics Humanit Med 15, 2 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13010-020-0086-3. https://peh-med.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13010-020-0086-3#Tab1   

Sato, H., H. Tateishi, T. Uchida, K. Dote, M. Ishihara and K. Sasaki. “Takotsubo-Type Cardiomyopathy Due To Multivessel Spasm.” In Clinical Aspect of Myocardial Injury: From Ischemia to Heart Failure, edited by K. Kodama, K. Haze and M. Hon, 56-64. Tokyo, Japan: Kagakuhyouronsha, 1990.

This episode discusses a recent journal article which investigates patient names for their mechanical circulatory support devices, and what role emotion plays in the naming and identification process.

You can find the article here: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34438307/. 

Wrigley PC, Peel DS, Ko KKH, Straker DK. Patient names for mechanical circulatory support devices: Developing emotional insights. Heart Lung. 2021 Nov-Dec;50(6):953-967. doi: 10.1016/j.hrtlng.2021.08.003. Epub 2021 Aug 23. PMID: 34438307.