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Humanities
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Literature and Medicine
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Literature and Medicine

A special issue of Humanities (ISSN 2076-0787). This special issue belongs to the section "Transdisciplinary Humanities".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (1 March 2024) | Viewed by 4306

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Minna Vuohelainen

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Media, Culture and Creative Industries, School of Communication and Creativity, City, University of London, London, UK
Interests: literature, cultural history and popular culture, c. 1880–1920; Print culture, c. 1880–1920; london literatures, urban studies, spatial theory; genre: gothic and crime fiction; ‘Richard Marsh’ (1857–1915); Thomas Hardy (1840–1928); the literature of conflict; the medical humanities: disability, alcoholism

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The medical humanities is a rapidly developing interdisciplinary field of study which explores experiences of health, illness and disability and underscores the role of arts and humanities in healthcare. This Special Issue of Humanities seeks to elicit original essays examining the intersections of medicine and literature (broadly understood). Essays exploring any cultural context from c. 1800 to the present day are welcome. Possible contributions might address, but are not limited to, topics such as:

  • Critical Disability Studies;
  • Neurodivergence;
  • Psychology and psychiatry;
  • Addiction and substance abuse;
  • Disease and decease;
  • Epidemics and pandemics;
  • Medical practitioners and patients;
  • Spaces of illness and recovery;
  • Medical procedures and treatment programmes;
  • Genre and medicine;
  • Medicine and identity;
  • Illness, disability and prejudice.

Please send an abstract of 400–500 words and a biographical paragraph of 100–150 words to Minna Vuohelainen ([email protected]) by 3 April, 2023 for a decision to be made by 31 May. Essays of 6000-8000 words (including references) will be due by 1 March, 2024. 

Dr. Minna Vuohelainen
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Humanities is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

13 pages, 256 KiB  
Article
Early Images of Trauma in George Eliot’s The Lifted Veil
by Melissa Rampelli
Humanities 2024, 13(3), 70; https://doi.org/10.3390/h13030070 - 02 May 2024
Viewed by 362
Abstract
This paper explores George Eliot’s The Lifted Veil (1859) as an early portrayal of traumatic neurosis, providing a fresh perspective to enhance the existing scholarly attention on trauma in Eliot’s Daniel Deronda. To illustrate potential contemporary diagnoses for Latimer, I examine other [...] Read more.
This paper explores George Eliot’s The Lifted Veil (1859) as an early portrayal of traumatic neurosis, providing a fresh perspective to enhance the existing scholarly attention on trauma in Eliot’s Daniel Deronda. To illustrate potential contemporary diagnoses for Latimer, I examine other prevalent mid-nineteenth-century models of mental pathology, including phrenology, mesmerism, and hemispheric brain disunity. Drawing on Pierre Janet’s trauma theories from the late nineteenth century, I argue that Eliot presents an early portrayal of dissociative trauma through Latimer’s psychological experiences. Latimer’s visions, complex dream-like interactions, and involuntary consciousness splitting provide a framework for understanding dissociation in response to his emotionally traumatic loss of his mother. Eliot’s exploration of dissociation anticipates Pierre Janet’s theories, which underpin contemporary understandings of trauma, revealing a remarkable modernity in Eliot’s approach. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Literature and Medicine)
14 pages, 378 KiB  
Article
Parallel Narratives: Trauma, Relationality, and Dissociation in Psychoanalysis and Realist Fiction
by Mona Becker and C. Christina Sjöström
Humanities 2024, 13(3), 69; https://doi.org/10.3390/h13030069 - 01 May 2024
Viewed by 252
Abstract
The reciprocal relationship between cultural trauma studies and psychoanalytic discourse on the one hand, and trauma studies and fictional representations of trauma on the other, has been commented on by scholars within the field of literary studies. What connects the representation of trauma [...] Read more.
The reciprocal relationship between cultural trauma studies and psychoanalytic discourse on the one hand, and trauma studies and fictional representations of trauma on the other, has been commented on by scholars within the field of literary studies. What connects the representation of trauma in cultural trauma theory, trauma fiction, and psychoanalysis is that it is regarded as something that overwhelms an individual’s capacities for processing and functioning. However, while cultural trauma theory has come under scrutiny for prioritizing too narrow a view of trauma and its representations, the considerable critiques of and revisions to Freud’s theories, developed in the 1980/90s, have been mostly ignored by cultural trauma theorists. In this interdisciplinary article, we draw on relational psychoanalytic perspectives to demonstrate how relational revisions to psychoanalytic theory and techniques, as well as views on dissociation, can offer new perspectives for approaching literary works of fiction, such as the realist novel, which engage with the subject of trauma outside of established trauma conventions. We demonstrate that trauma novels by Lisa Appignanesi and Aminatta Forna parallel these revisions to psychoanalytic theory and techniques, allowing for a more pluralistic and nuanced representation of responses to trauma and suffering. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Literature and Medicine)
15 pages, 293 KiB  
Article
A Place to Meet: Community and Companionship in the Magazine of the London School of Medicine for Women, 1895–1905
by Mary Chapman
Humanities 2024, 13(2), 57; https://doi.org/10.3390/h13020057 - 27 Mar 2024
Viewed by 613
Abstract
At the turn of the twentieth century, British women were able to qualify as medical doctors and enter professional practice for the first time. However, they often remained excluded from the specialist journals which were crucial for knowledge exchange during this period. As [...] Read more.
At the turn of the twentieth century, British women were able to qualify as medical doctors and enter professional practice for the first time. However, they often remained excluded from the specialist journals which were crucial for knowledge exchange during this period. As a result, they formed several of their own periodicals, including the Magazine of the London School of Medicine for Women (1895–1947), which this paper discusses. Significantly, the Magazine not only provided female doctors with the opportunity for intellectual communication, but social interaction too. This paper will explore how the periodical regularly published community-building content, which emphasised friendship as a key component of female doctors’ relationships. The Magazine encouraged the sharing of humour, stories, and intimate news which both articulated and generated companionship amongst subscribers. Through this content, the Magazine wove professional connections into personal bonds, telling a story of medical sisterhood and offering a welcoming textual meeting place to a disparate network of female doctors. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Literature and Medicine)
15 pages, 1239 KiB  
Article
Familiar Strangers in the Shrouded Forest: Stigma, Representation and Alzheimer’s Disease in Always
by Andrew Phillip Young
Humanities 2023, 12(5), 121; https://doi.org/10.3390/h12050121 - 17 Oct 2023
Viewed by 1219
Abstract
While literature and popular culture have sought to understand Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) in terms framed by the loss of social relationships and the strain caregivers face, this arrangement articulates AD as “being lost”, a fragmentation of temporal experience, or as irrationality punctuated by [...] Read more.
While literature and popular culture have sought to understand Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) in terms framed by the loss of social relationships and the strain caregivers face, this arrangement articulates AD as “being lost”, a fragmentation of temporal experience, or as irrationality punctuated by moments of self-awareness (which often operate to dehumanize those with AD). This analysis seeks, as Stefan Merrill Block puts it, to “stop looking for the lost person” in our encounter with AD. As a contemporary case study, the interactive experience Always functions as a critical intervention by not prizing moments of clarity as narrative catharsis (which literature and popular culture tend to do in the form of what is known as the “love miracle”). Instead, it serves as an important gesture toward destabilizing these practices and bridging the gap between the representation of AD and its realities. Rather than acting as a simulator of AD, Always is an abstract piece that, through design and game mechanics, opens a space for users to consider the implications of having their senses destabilized. As a result, this analysis considers how design addresses issues of social stigma, representation, storytelling and navigability. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Literature and Medicine)
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