Main description:

This collection of original chapters gives center stage to the concept of 'narrative' in medical contexts. The contributors come from the disciplines of literary and cultural studies, linguistics, psychology, and medicine and work with texts as diverse as autobiographies, graphic novels, Renaissance medical treatises and reports, short stories, reflective writing, creative writing, and online narratives. The interdisciplinary dialogue shows the richness and scope of the concept 'narrative' and demonstrates how crucial it is for practices in the medical context as well as in the contributing disciplines. The collection raises awareness of the great variety and multivocality of narratives on the experience of illness besides paying heed to the many different positions and angles from which these narratives can be perceived, read, and analyzed. The wide range of approaches assembled in this collection provides a comprehensive view on illness and health and on the multiple ways in which they are represented in narrative.

Contents:

1. Acknowledgments; 2. Introduction to narrative matters in medical contexts across disciplines (by Gygax, Franziska); 3. Narrative texts on illness and medicine; 4. Autism and the American dream: Progress and recovery in the American autie-biography (by Kern-Stahler, Annette); 5. "Woundable, around the bounds": Life (beyond) writing and terminal illness (by Gygax, Franziska); 6. Pox pain and redeeming narratives in Renaissance Europe (by Brancher, Dominique); 7. Narrative practices in health contexts; 8. Illness narratives in the psychotherapeutic session (by Boothe, Brigitte); 9. Narratives that matter. Illness stories in the 'third space' of qualitative interviewing (by Lucius-Hoene, Gabriele); 10. "I would suggest you tell this ^^^ to your doctor": Online narrative problem-solving regarding face-to-face doctor-patient interaction about body weight (by Gordon, Cynthia); 11. A genre analysis of reflective writing texts by English medical students: What role does narrative play? (by Locher, Miriam A.); 12. Narratives and the medical humanities; 13. Against compassion: Attending to histories and methods in medical humanities; Or, doing critical medical studies (by Diedrich, Lisa); 14. Applying narrative to medical education: Medicine and storytelling (by Oyebode, Femi); 15. Bionotes; 16. Subject Index; 17. Name Index