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Dr Jackie Dent

@jackiedentwrites

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PhD in "The Pleasures of War" with a focus on war theory + Author of "The Great Dead Body Teachers" + journalist + writer www.jackiedent.com

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Is this too much for an author pic? I'm reading about author branding and it says to have a pic that will build an authentic connection to readers. Yes or no? #authorlife #bloodybrandingugh by @jackiedentwrites

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3 years ago

I got on at Roseville earlier today and there were two birds on the train. They seemed very relaxed and at home; there was no edgy fluttering about. Two other ladies and I were admiring them but also unsure of what to do. I got off at Chatswood to change trains and spoke to a lovely train guard to raise the alert that two birds were stuck on the train.

"They always catch the train," she remarked.

Incredibly, I was told the birds catch the train everyday between Lindfield and Artarmon scrounging food - and then they take the train back!
The birds apparently know when to get on and off because of the announcements. The guard said they do a pretty good job of cleaning up food.

Apparently the birds travel in groups of two or a few more. There is also a set known to do the North Sydney to Milsons Point run. There was a well-known bird at North Sydney who caught the trains known as Archie.

I have never seen them - and indeed the older lady who caught my train also remaked that in all her years she had never seen such a thing.

The birds usually travel non peak hour .... I suppose its quieter and tickets are cheaper.

Has anybody else seen them?! Gotta love Sydney public transport. by @jackiedentwrites

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2 months ago

The Great Dead Body Teachers is now available globally via ebook and audio! Hard copies are on the horizon too.

The book is the story of how my grandparents — Ruby and Julie — gave their bodies to science when they died decades ago. No one in my family seemed to know why they did it or what really happened with them afterwards. Were they avid science buffs? Was it to save on cremation costs? And once in the labs, were they dissected, sketched, put in a museum or used for research? Were they respected?

Weaving the personal with the truly wild history of dissection, embalming, medical museums and A LOT MORE, I fell down a few hundred rabbit holes writing the book — all the while looking for answers as to what happened to my grandparents.

I interviewed anatomists, artists, technicians, wannabe donors, old surgeons, forensic scientists and many other wonderful characters along the way. I went to a body farm and a head and neck dissection workshop, and watched a lot of dissection on Youtube - yes it's a thing!

The book has been longlisted for the for the Mark and Evette Moran Nib Literary Award and the Walkley Book Award.

#cadaverlab #anatomy #bookstagram by @jackiedentwrites

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3 years ago

I have been hanging around Gordon and Lindfield train stations staking out the birds, watching, waiting and following them to see what they get up to. I was curious to see if they really are catching trains and getting around. They definitely are!

I watched pigeons and the common mynas—yes I know they are loathed in Australia— jump on empty carriages looking for food. Sometimes they darted in and out while other times they stayed on board. It was, however, quite tricky tracking them as they tended to walk along the floor looking for crumbs, and were hard to spot. I certainly have a newfound respect for film makers who document the natural world!

I think a lot of us on Sydney trains don’t realise there are birds at our feet—they are very surreptitious. One pigeon I travelled with was quite nonplussed I was there; a bit like the mynas I captured last week.

At the stations, I spoke to a lovely train driver and a friendly customer service staffer who both confirmed they regularly see the birds travelling to and fro on the trains, and snacking. The customer service lady said the pigeons are particularly busy on the Gordon trains at lunch. “They seem to know it’s lunchtime and that there is more food around,” she said, adding she had even seen them fly between trains. A train will pull up at a station and they'll fly straight through the open doors, across the platform, into the open doors of the train opposite.

A friend who works for a local council as an environmental educator says bird watching is "hot" right now and their bird watching walks are very busy. Have I become a twitcher? I kind of get the fascination now.... xx by @jackiedentwrites

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a month ago

Death Inc on Netflix is such a brilliantly written, acted, styled and FUNNY show. Set in a Madrid funeral parlour, it follows a cast of characters — embalmers, the funeral car driver, the marketer, the guy who runs the cremator, the managers — who each have their own ridiculous obsessions and are thoroughly unlikeable. The lead anti-hero, funeral director Dámaso Carrillo, wants to run the business but is consistently thwarted. The writers clearly had some insight into the Madrid funeral scene and are having a lot of fun with the very un PC content. FIVE STARS. xoxo. by @jackiedentwrites

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2 months ago

Loved the precision, fun, wit, neatness, calming tones, use of words and paintingness of Mitch Cairns' show at the National Art School....

I thought it went for ages but alas, it is over so you cannot visit IRL. by @jackiedentwrites

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2 months ago

These little books (8 x 9 cm) were published by Whitman Publishing and the artwork outside and inside is gorgeous. Sadly, none of the staff illustrators are credited. This dates from 1968. by @jackiedentwrites

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2 months ago

We have World PDF Day, Dry July and Year of the Periodic Table. As it seems celebrating a random month, day or year is a thing, I thought I could join in by launching Backstab Free September (BFS).

It began a few years ago when my friend and I tried not to backstab in September and it became a curious experiment. The main lesson was that people were not keen on the idea—they wanted to backstab! As one person remarked: "Backstabbing brings people together." Another lesson was definition; people wanted to know what a backstab was. What was the difference between backstabbing and bitching? I always feel guilty when I have a backstab so I suppose BFS was a way for me to focus on being good. Some will say why bother? Others might feel similarly bad as me or just enjoy the sense of self-control.

So what is backstabbing? According to US human communication studies scholars Patty Malone and Janette Hayes, "there is no explicit definition for backstabbing" in the academic literature—in fact, backstabbing as a workplace issue has been surprisingly understudied. They draw on layperson definitions, including "one who attacks (a person) behind his or her back," "to attack (someone) unfairly, especially in an underhanded, deceitful manner," and "betrayal by a false friend." I'll draw on these descriptions.

Their 2012 study of 227 American graduate students at a university found a complex world of types of backstabbing and motivations for it. The most common "active" backstab included talking behind someone's back and sabotage, and the main motivation was self-interest.

A 2022 study of 414 office workers at 19 Iranian companies by Davood Heidari Azim and Seyedeh Leila Hakemzadeh found eight different backstabbing techniques. They all have pretty good names actually: simple destruction, combined destruction, two-way destruction, bad defense, performance barrier, trapping, press on the hot spot, and machine gun. I worked in an office once where one colleague was definitely getting machine gunned. I've never been involved with a trapping situation.

Anyway, what do you think about the logos? Which one? Perhaps you can raise cash for a charity during BFS or just do it! by @jackiedentwrites

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3 months ago

For centuries, philosophers and anatomists have searched for the soul in the human body. The ancient Egyptians thought it was in the heart while the French philosopher René Descartes targeted the pineal gland.

I am not a particularly spiritual person but when I was researching my book, I would ask friends where they thought their soul was. They either pointed to their heart or their head—it was never in their foot or tummy. If you think you have a soul, where does it live?

The soul continues to play a huge role in the dissecting room and is the major reason why there are no body donors in many parts of the world, particularly the Middle East and Africa.

To learn more and go on a wild ride into the history of anatomy, check out my book “The Great Dead Body Teachers”,

Link in bio. ✨📚 #anatomy by @jackiedentwrites

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3 months ago

I gave my first talk on "The Pleasures of War" to the Military History Society of NSW!

I am pictured with the lovely vice president Ron Lyons.

I was pretty nervous tbh. Not only was there a large crowd that had rocked up to the Australian War Memorial on a Saturday morning for the double bill, they were also people who seriously engage with the history of war.

Giving a talk on new material was exciting yet equally strange as my voice wobbled for a wee bit with nerves before slowly settling. It's so mammal in a way isn't it? Having a natural response to a new situation ...

All was well. The comments and questions at the end were so passionate and thoughtful! Quite a few people came up afterwards and had the most curious insights. I am always amazed at how we all react so differently to the stories we hear, and the endless tangents they trigger.

The best part was a few veterans passed me their contact details. I am so keen to continue exploring war experience.

If we want to understand war better, we need to keep documenting the trauma but also explore what other experiences people are having, which include many "good" pleasures, alongside the "bad”. #war by @jackiedentwrites

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3 months ago

There is so much more to war than trauma.

It is fascinating that research into workers' experiences of war, whatever the data, tends to zoom in on trauma or the problems.

Take a 2022 study of ICRC workers, which compares a 2003–2004 survey with one conducted among field staff between 2016 and 2018 and concludes that going on mission is associated with worsening health outcomes due to exposure to violence, accidents, and risky behaviours.

However, if you look more closely at the figures, the majority do not encounter violence (88% ) or have accidents or injuries (92.5%).

In terms of risky behaviour, the majority (63%) do not engage in any. For those that do, the behaviours considered risky could be described by some as pleasurable— having more than one sexual partner, unprotected sex, driving fast, getting drunk and smoking cigarettes.

To hear more, I am giving a talk on “The Pleasures of War” this Saturday at the Australian War Memorial in Hyde Park.

The topic of the talk is based on interviews I conducted with noncombatants who worked in Afghanistan between 2001 and 2019 during the prolonged U.S. conflict, as well as memoirs by soldiers, war journalists, and humanitarians, alongside poetry and interdisciplinary scholarship from conflicts over the past century.

You can register here: https://lnkd.in/gq6tV8bK by @jackiedentwrites

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3 months ago

"Knowing what you don't want is just as useful as knowing what you do... Maybe more."

.... from the very clever novel "The Great Circle" by Maggie Shipstead @shipstead. by @jackiedentwrites

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3 months ago