Tag: Illness and Society

Categories
Events News

Reading Bodies Exeter Workshop – 23 May 2024

We’re looking forward to our second international workshop, hosted by the University of Exeter on 23 May 2024. All are welcome to attend – please reserve your place here.

Highlights include speakers across 4 languages, a keynote by Prof. Nicolás Fernández-Medina (Chair of Romance Studies at Boston University), an interdisciplinary Reading Bodies Roundtable, and a Stage Rehearsal of Multilingual Medical Humanities (with Ants!). There will also be a short talk about Bibliotherapy by Exeter City of Literature. For more information about the programme, please visit our events page.

Categories
Articles Reviews

#MultilingualMedHums: A Thematic Series for The Polyphony

By Dr Jordan McCullough, Associate Editor at The Polyphony and Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of St Gallen, Switzerland

Established in 2023, The Polyphony’s ‘Multilingual MedHums’ series seeks to challenge ‘the Anglocentric nature of much medical humanities scholarship by showcasing the work of scholars based in and working on non-anglophone countries.’[1] The series encourages readers and contributors to engage with the rich entanglement of language and culture, as the media through which health and illness are lived and communicated, and to reflect on the significance of this intersection for their own research agendas and those of the wider field. Following the recent trajectory of other multilingual scholarship in the field, calling us in the direction of a global Medical Humanities,[2] the series seeks to push beyond the boundaries of the Anglosphere; introduce new research trajectories developing across the world; and demonstrate the value of multilingual and translational approaches for the future of the Medical Humanities. The ‘Multilingual MedHums’ series thus resonates with the ‘Reading Bodies’ project on multiple levels.

Continue reading “#MultilingualMedHums: A Thematic Series for The Polyphony”
Categories
News

Reading Bodies Research Network

The Reading Bodies Research Network has met regularly since November 2023 to discuss our project research questions, updates on our chosen topics, and development of shared interests which are grouped into 3 themes: gender and the body; society, illness and representation; transnational and decolonial perspectives. For more information, please visit our Network and People pages.

Continue reading “Reading Bodies Research Network”
Categories
Articles

The ‘Sick Girl’ Film and Italian Teen Female Audiences

By Danielle Hipkins, Professor of Italian Studies and Film, University of Exeter

Drawing connections with the AHRC-funded project A Girl’s Eye View 2021-2024, Prof. Danielle Hipkins reflects on audience responses to the genre of the ‘sick girl’ film.

The romantic film depends on the obstacle. Otherwise, what happens? Two people meet, fall in love, and live happily ever after. That is the outcome we want, but it’s not the story we want. It’s far too short, and likely boring.

Serious, terminal even, illness presents a narratively rich obstacle, and the canon of romantic films is strewn with lovers lost, slowly and painfully, or sometimes recovered through the sheer power of love alone. There are variations in outcome, and also in the distribution of illness: maybe he’s ill, maybe she’s ill, maybe they’re both ill. Sometimes they both survive, but usually it’s just one of them.

Continue reading “The ‘Sick Girl’ Film and Italian Teen Female Audiences”
Categories
Articles

Considering Female Mental Illness in Novas Cartas Portuguesas (1972): The Hysterical Woman and her Dog

By Dr Olivia Glaze, AHRC Post-Doctoral Research Associate, University of Exeter

References to madness, insanity, melancholia, and hysteria have long plagued the diagnoses of female mental illness. The crazed, raving, and unstable woman is a prevalent trope that has long persisted within Western literature, from Ophelia in Shakespeare’s Hamlet (1599-1601) and Bertha Mason in Brontë’s Jane Eyre (1847) to Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper (1892) and Flaubert’s Madame Bovary (1856). Historically, madness, hysteria, and melancholia have been considered female afflictions due to an assumed inherent feminine proximity to wrecked nerves and sexual disorders – indeed, the word hysteria is derived from the Greek word “hysteron” or womb. In the late nineteenth century, understanding the ‘female’ illness of hysteria was a central focus of studies, led by the French neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot at his infamous Parisian asylum, Salpêtrière. Charcot transformed the hospital into an internationally renowned site of neurological teaching, with Sigmund Freud and Pierre Janet amongst his students.

Continue reading “Considering Female Mental Illness in Novas Cartas Portuguesas (1972): The Hysterical Woman and her Dog”