Tag: Elaine Scarry
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On beauty and medical ethics
John Eberly Jr.Anderson, South Carolina, United StatesLydia DugdaleNew York, United States Philosophers know that beauty is moving, arresting, enrapturing. It captures the attention and then calls the viewer to action—pursuing, partaking, creating. Beautiful things invite participation; we find ourselves lingering and listening long. We leave inspired and moved to respond. As artists and poets have…
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Ahab’s gift: Herman Melville’s Moby Dick and the meaning of pain
Xi ChenRochester, New York, United States In the summer months before my first year of medical school, I unfurled the pages of Moby Dick. Immersed in the novel’s adventurous spirit and Shakespearean prose, I followed the narrator from the piers of Nantucket into the Atlantic and waded through Captain Ahab’s quest for the legendary white…