Institute of English Studies
Medical Humanities
Medical Constellations
Neurology, Music, and Time
This paper aims at exploring the narratological notions in Oliver Sacks’s Reminiscence problematized by Bakhtin’s theory of narratology. Olivers Sacks is one of the pioneers of medical humanities. He has narrativized many of the interesting cases that came across him during his career as a neurologist. Rita Charon article, “Remembering Oliver Sacks, A Pioneer of Narrative Medicine” reflects on Sacks’s epistemology: “Dr. Sacks developed an epistemology, not of knowledge alone but of an artist’s means of seeing. In Sacks, seeing became knowing, and knowing encompassed caring. The knowledge base was prodigious, not only of neurology but of musicology, literature, marine biology, and chemistry.” Charon’s exploration of Sacks’s epistemology points towards the necessity of narrative medicine, on the one hand, and on the other, all inclusivity of Sacks’s approach towards knowledge and life. Dr Sacks wanted his readers to enter the world of his patients through his narrations of their ailment. His accounts are vivid in detail, stylistic in structure, literary in semantics and scientific in appropriation. He amalgamates his knowledge of science with the personal experience of his patients.
Conceptualising Feminist Medical Humanities
This research focuses on Nawal El-Saadawi’s The Hidden Face of Eve to navigate the ways in which women’s reproductive health is controlled and regulated by cultural and political discourses. This study has a three-fold significance. First, this perusal investigates how the intersection of the two diametrically opposed disciplines of medicine and humanities fosters a subversive space to reflect on and question systemic misogyny in medical and cultural practices. Second, it examines the role of female autonomy and agency in gendered experiences of physical and mental illness. Third, this research problematizes body politics in Saadawi’s work by examining the female body as a site for exercising political, social and discursive power. Building upon The Hidden Face of Eve, this research argues that feminist medical humanities leads to generate human-centric and equitable perspectives in response to gender politics.
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Exploring the Transformative Power of Narrative Therapy
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is a heartrending tale of resilience and individual agency, showcasing the transformative and cathartic power of narrative therapy. Bauby inscribes his tale of a massive stroke by blinking his left eyelid, projecting his emotions, distress, and agitation through a detailed narration of everyday experiences. The given study investigates gradual changes and shifts in Bauby’s outlook as the memoir progresses. The study argues that Bauby externalizes disability as he regains individual agency through narrative therapy, seizing control over his condition and refusing to be defined synonymously with the disease. Through an imaginative butterfly-like mind, Bauby reincorporates a new identity, characterized by a phenomenal will. The research uses White and Epston’s concepts of Narrative Means to Therapeutic Ends, locating various stages of narrative therapy in Bauby’s autopathography, and investigating each stage with respect to Bauby’s emotional state of mind and physical disability. The research argues that Bauby moves from denial to an eventual recognition of his disability, attaining the ultimate goal of asserting his identity against the constraints.
Transforming the Representation of Disability in Children’s Literature
With the rise of medical humanities, however, and its privileging of “the patient’s experience and the human condition”, the focus of literary art and criticism has also shifted. Now that a link has been established between storytelling and “all thoughtful caregiving” (198), what is at stake is representation of disease and disability, not as metaphors or symbols that serve the higher purpose of moral instruction, but the development of a culture of inclusivity and understanding. Taking these insights from research in the medical humanities as a theoretical point of departure, this paper aims to illustrate through close textual analysis the ways in which the aforementioned shift in priorities can be seen in literature, specifically literature aimed at children. The texts selected for this purpose are What Katy Did, a 19th century classic work of children’s literature by Susan Coolidge, and, Katy, a retelling of the same by Jacqueline Wilson, published in 2015.
Unweaving the Social Fabric
This research aims to analyze Derek Walcott’s epic poem, Omeros through the lens of Critical Disability Studies. This research falls under the paradigm of medical humanities. The goal of this research is to unravel the social fabric to study the set of beliefs about diseased individual particularly in the character of Philocete whose wound is of particular significance in the text. The medical term ‘aetiology’ which refers to the cause and origin of the disease and ‘epithelialization’ which refers to the healing process are carefully selected. These terms are not only used here to refer to medical conditions but also to the emotional condition of the diseased individual. Towards this individual, the society begins to adopt a critical attitude and identifies the individual to be socially unacceptable. Critical Disability Studies brings into discussion the tormented self of the sick person and aims to heal the emotional wound.
A Study in Graphic Medicine
In the postdigital age, our ways of communication have altogether changed. COVID-19 was a global problem which needed the dissemination of health information at the global level. World Health Organization (WHO) used infographics to convey public health information during COVID-19 for the understanding of the world. Using Kress and van Leeuwen’s visual grammar within the framework of graphic medicine, the present study aims to analyse the effectiveness of the medium of infographics in the communication of public health awareness infographics by WHO. It has been found that WHO communicated public health information through multimodal discourse of infographics in an effective and efficient manner. Based on the principles of equality and inclusivity of graphic medicine, WHO infographics address the whole human race through the use of stereotypes, such as skin colour or symbolic figures. Captions have effectively kept the polysemous nature of visual elements at a specific level of interpretation. Even those who cannot understand English are able to comprehend the visual part of the infographic.