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Culture Shift is a weekly newsletter curated by the HuffPost Culture writers and editors.
This week we're talking about terms of endearment from around the world, what medical students can learn from art museums, the forumla behind power ballads, "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies," and the world of French erotic films.
What Medical Students Can Learn From Art Museums
As part of their humanistic curriculum, residents at Brigham and Women's Hospital are mandated to attend what are called Art and Medicine workshops at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts, located less than a mile away. The program of study is designed to help doctors treat their patients as people, not just symptoms.
"We focus on the human side of being a doctor," Brooke DiGiovanni Evans, the MFA's head of gallery learning, told HuffPost. Using artwork as a jumping off point, the residents converge to discuss the challenges of both treating patients and coping with the demanding lifestyle of a medical practitioner.
Often the discussion will begin with a close reading of a work of contemporary art coupled with a single question: how does this work of art relate to your current life situation? In the neutral environment of the museum, doctors can discuss their pressures, fears, and hopes, exposing vulnerabilities that remain concealed during school and work hours. (Read more here)
62 Pet Names Your Honeycake Deserves To Hear On Valentine's Day
Take your little cauliflower on an international voyage of sweet endearments, like:
-Gordita (Spanish for "fatty"")
-حياة قلبي/hayat alby (Arabic for "my heart's life")
-Ma puce (French for "my flea/louse")
-Kapara (Hebrew for "atonement," but used in the same way as "babe") -Polpetto (Italian for "meatball")
-Kullanmuru (Finnish for "crumb of gold"; basically means "darling" or "sweetie")
- Лисичка/lisichka (Russian for "little fox")
(Read more here)
What 'Pride and Prejudice and Zombies' Tells Us About Women And Marriage
"PPZ" reveals to us that just as much as the zombie apocalypse is a story of survival, so is the marriage plot, especially for women during the early 19th century. As stressed in the novel, this was a time period when women could not inherit property, only male heirs. And without property, a single woman was defenseless in the world.
So when Jane Bennet, the most beautiful of the Bennett sisters, rides a horse to visit the wealthy and handsome Mr. Bingley, she is making a conscious decision to traverse the zombie-infested land between their estates. But an engagement to her prized potential suitor Bingley is worth it.
If this sounds ridiculously dangerous, we should remember that women in the Regency era were no strangers to risk. Valued for their ability to produce offspring, women who married took on the real risk of dying in childbirth.
With their zombie-slaying skills, the Bennett sisters aren't weak physically -- the bloody carnage they leave behind them at a ball gone horribly awry proves that. Financially, however, they still come from a middle-class family that can't afford to take care of them for the rest of their lives. Even with the modern addition of zombies, this movie hasn't time-traveled to the age of liberal feminism and women making their own paper, as Beyoncé strongly advises. (Read more here)
Here's Why You Can't Get That Top 40 Song Out Of Your Head
Adele, Barry Manilow and Poison all use this powerful musical trick. (Read more here)
20 Young Writers Of Color Share Their Favorite Poems
These 20 individuals are unapologetically taking up space and making noise as writers, activists, performers, educators, literary editors, students, and so much more. Learn about their favorite poems, and the stories behind them. (Read more here)
The French Erotic Films You Should Know About This Valentine's Day
What makes an erotic film an erotic film?
The distinction between pornography and today's romantic dramas, like "Fifty Shades of Grey" or "Nymphomaniac," can be slight. Erotic films could be viewed as the bridge between porn and romance, offering fans a "safer" viewing experience -- fit with not just sex, but a plot and well-developed characters, too -- than we might get from their soft-core cousins. Still, the genre remains pretty broad, expanding and condensing over the years to reflect the prevailing attitudes toward sex and love at the time.
"I would say that, overall, erotic films are most akin to the horror genre," Caryn Coleman, senior film programmer at Nitehawk Cinema in Brooklyn, New York, explained to The Huffington Post, "in that they are taboo, corporeal, and often subversively dealing with socio-political issues. Erotic film can be violating and liberating at the same time." (Read more here)
Books to Read This Week!
Rebelling against the traditions tied to Feb. 14 seems to have become as popular as reveling in Russell Stover's-fueled giddiness. To help you out with your iconoclasm -- or at least your assertion of hard-won independence, we've compiled our very favorite fictional characters who are more than OK with striking out on their own. (Read more here)
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