Recalibrating Stigma Gareth Thomas, Tanisha Spratt, Oli Williams, and Amy Chandler reflect on the 2023 symposium: Recalibrating Stigma, Sociological Perspectives on Health and Illness.

2 years ago @the-polyphony.bsky.social kindly invited me @gmthomas.bsky.social @amychandler.bsky.social & Tanisha to write about the book we were putting together on stigma (see ⬇️). Now it's out @brisunipress.bsky.social they've let us do a mini-takeover! 1/5

thepolyphony.org/2023/09/11/r...

Reproductive norms: stigma and disruptions in family-building In the final of our ‘Recalibrating Stigma’ mini-takeover, Caroline Law and Harriet Cooper explores how stigma operates in relation to reproductive norms.

Lastly Caroline Law and @harrietcooper.bsky.social pull together their respective analyses of male infertility and parenting disabled children to consider how stigma is involved in shaping and maintaining reproductive norms and idealised notions of family. 4/5

thepolyphony.org/2025/12/05/r...

"When anti-stigma campaigns shift away from acting on the wider determinants of health [..] they tend to [..] reproduce inequalities."

#RecalibratingStigma

@oliwilliams.bsky.social @gmthomas.bsky.social @amychandler.bsky.social
Tanisha Spratt

@brisunipress.bsky.social

Petition:

Join our board — Just Treatment We’re recruiting new Board members to help guide the next chapter of Just Treatment’s fight for health justice.

💊✨ JOIN OUR BOARD ✊💊

We’re looking for new Board members to help guide the next chapter of Just Treatment’s fight for health justice.

Find out more and apply by 26 October ⬇️
justtreatment.org/news/2025/10...

Fundraising Manager: Trusts & Grants - Medact Apply now to be Medact's Fundraising Manager.

Medact is recruiting a Fundraising Manager: Trusts & Grants! Join the fight for health justice. This is a part-time, fixed term contract, to help Medact secure essential funding over the next year. Applications close on 10th November. www.medact.org/2025/blogs/f...

Hoping to come along to some of these if I can! Thanks for organising :)

Lauren Berlant: A Michaelmas Reading Group - CRASSH In an early talk about Cruel Optimism, Lauren Berlant describes their critical object: namely, the “desire”, which they perceive as endemic to capitalism, “to have a cluster of feelings in lieu of hav...

www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/48078...
I will be hosting a reading group on the work of Lauren Berlant Oct.-Nov. @crasshlive.bsky.social. Berlant's writing on sentimentality and the public sphere has lots to say to the current moment we're living through + anyone in Cambridge should please join us!

Visa oversubscription at UCL may be more than just a PR problem Jim Dickinson explores how UCL’s oversubscription crisis has left hundreds of international students in limbo - raising fresh questions about whether UK universities are operating within consumer law

"In many ways, UKVI and Home Office policy pushes universities towards the sorts of risk management practices that consumer law was designed to rule out.

But [universities may also over-recruit] on terms that attempt to ensure they are protected, while students are not."
wonkhe.com/blogs/visa-o...

10 days until the #CFP deadline for the online workshop *Object Stories in Health and Medicine 1700-1900*.

We invite proposals for 15-minute talks on a single object related to health or medicine during the 18th & 19th centuries #histmed #histpsych #medhums

www.birmingham.ac.uk/events/objec...

Kafka-land at UC Berkeley The 160 members of the university notified that their names were forwarded to the DOE’s Office for Civil Rights were not informed of any specific allegations against them.

"[Kafka's] parables [..] [ask] whether [..] we can still expect justice from the law, or whether legal process diverges so dramatically from the path of justice that we can only now tell stories about how the expectation of justice is vanquished by legal proceeding"
www.thenation.com/article/soci...

This looks great!

Sounds great - is there a link to the job advert, Angela?

Our Sociology of Health & Illness editorial team is advertising for a PGR RA to drive our social media strategy. Apply with a CV + 1 page letter outlining your skills and approach by 26th September 5pm to Prof. Janice (dot) McLaughlin (at) Newcastle (dot) ac (dot) uk.
Come join us!
#medsoc #medhums

@dismatters.bsky.social

Really like Christina's interrogation of the terms "town hall" and "circus" in this piece on listening exercises and the question of who is able to speak / who can be heard #DisabilityMatters

Israel not committing genocide in Gaza, but casualties and destruction are 'utterly appalling', says UK government Israel has strongly denied that its actions in Gaza amount to genocide, but is being challenged on the issue in a case at the International Court of Justice in The Hague.

A brief 🧵on the UK's cynical and conveniently shifting position on this.

news.sky.com/story/israel...

Such a cool CfP! #MedHums

These Russell Group unis are letting in way more students - and other unis aren't happy One London uni is accepting 65 per cent more students than it did five years ago

And the winner is …. UCL that increased its u/g offers by 65%. Where are you going to put all these students, UCL?!

SRO is still accepting proposals for their next special issue! The proposed special issue can be on any theme and should offer an exciting contribution to emerging sociological debates. Submit by 24 September 2025. Details below. https://www.britsoc.co.uk/media/26923/sro_si_cfprop2025_dl240925.pdf

SRO is still accepting proposals for their next special issue!

The proposed special issue can be on any theme and should offer an exciting contribution to emerging sociological debates.

Submit by 24 September 2025. Details below.
www.britsoc.co.uk/media/26923/...

Congratulations, Harriet!

Hi Laura, sorry - just seen this as I've been logged out for several weeks. I think the booking link is open now :)

I'm reading it too! It's so good. And there's a reading group on it coming up in September: www.feministduration.com

No doctor today is worth less than they were 17 years ago, as Dr Melissa Ryan told Newsnight.

That’s why resident doctors in England have voted for industrial action.

There’s still time for the Government to listen and avert the strikes.

Children queuing for supplements killed in Israeli strike in Gaza, hospital says Eight children were among 15 people reportedly killed when a queue for nutritional supplements was hit in Deir al-Balah.

Massacre after massacre, day after day - the deliberate annihilation of an entire civilian population.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Call for Applications: Editorial Fellowships at History Workshop, 2025 History Workshop is advertising two part-time, paid Editorial Fellowships in 2025, open to early career historians.

Join us! We are advertising two part-time, paid Editorial Fellowships at History Workshop in 2025-27.

Our fellowships support early career historians to develop expertise in public, radical and digital history & to gain experience of working in an editorial team.
www.historyworkshop....

BREAKING: Zeteo has released, globally, the film the BBC so controversially refused to air.

"Gaza: Doctors Under Attack" is now available to watch in full at gazadoctors.film and zeteo.com.

Here's the trailer:

Labour MP explains why welfare costs are really rising (and why he's voting against cuts) YouTube video by Clive Lewis

In Parliament today I spoke about the truth behind rising welfare costs - and why I cannot support the Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill, which does not address these roots causes.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ap3x...

Delighted to be speaking at this symposium today, and to see my chapter for 'Recalibrating Stigma' in print!

Thank you Angela!