Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Great Famine

  • Starvation as metaphor

    Michael Shulman Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States The mystery of FoodIncreased till I abjured itAnd dine without Like God— Emily Dickinson Susan Sontag’s 1978 essay Illness as Metaphor,1 published in serial form in The New York Review of Books, was a cultural event that continues to stimulate reflection and analysis forty years later. Based on an examination…