PURPOSE (1) To explore the frequency with which humorous behaviour and statements occur in family medicine practice in Israel, and (2) to quantitatively assess the correlation between the subjective perceptions of humour in medical encounters between patients and physicians. METHOD In a cross sectional study, two populations (doctors and patients) were surveyed with paired structured question...

Culture fundamentally shapes how individuals make meaning out of illness, suffering, and dying. With increasing diversity in the United States, encounters between patients and physicians of different backgrounds are becoming more common. Thus the risk for cross-cultural misunderstandings surrounding care at the end of life is also increasing. Studies have shown cultural differences in attitudes...

Colonial medicine is a thriving field of study in the history of nineteenth- and twentieth-century medicine. Medicine can be used as a lens to view colonialism in action and as a way to critique colonialism. This article argues that key debates and ideas from that modern field can fruitfully be applied to the Middle Ages, especially for the early empires of Spain and Portugal (mid-fourteenth to...

The aim of this article is to examine the qualification and mediation of fashionable clothing by fashion buyers at Selfridges, London. The author examines the ‘active and reflexive role of economic agents in the qualification of products’ in their ‘habitual and routine’ working practices, describing how buyers are active in defining, shaping, transforming, qualifying and requalifiying products....

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Background The Sami in Norway have a legal right to receive health services adapted to Sami language and culture. This calls for a study of the significance of language choice and cultural norms in Sami patients' encounters with mental health services. Objectives To explore the significance of language and cultural norms in communication about mental health topics experienced by Sami patients r...

This article deals with the social and cultural dimensions of globalization and uses both qualitative and quantitative methods to analyse the effects of stronger European integration on media production and reception. It combines theories and methods from sociology, anthropology and media studies and looks at the impact of TV drama genres on the forming of social imaginaries. The article examin...

In a world of shrinking habitats and increasing competition for natural resources, potentially dangerous predators bring the challenges of coexisting with wildlife sharply into focus. Through interdisciplinary collaboration among authors trained in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences, we reviewed current approaches to mitigating adverse human-predator encounters and devised a ...

A review of current agent-based systems exemplifies that a Western perspective is predominant in the field. But as conversational agents focus on rich multimodal interactive behaviors that underlie face-to-face encounters, it is indispensable to incorporate cultural heuristics of such behaviors into the system. In this paper we examine some of the pitfalls that arise in developing such

Project Description: Background & Purpose Exploring the Poles is a Barnard College First-Year Seminar. “First-Year Seminars focus on critical reading, writing, and speaking skills in the context of intellectual exploration and social bonding in a shared first-year experience.” They comprise introductory courses taught by faculty from different disciplines. Exploring the Poles is classified acco...