Anne Carson’s Autobiography of Red (1998) is inspired by Stesichoros’s epic poem Geryoneis, which describes the killing of the monster Geryon by the mythical hero Herakles. Carson’s take on the story reframes the violence between Herakles and Geryon through metaphors. The bodily injury in the ancient narrative is reworked into emotional harm and mental trauma…
Tag: medicine and literature
Book Review: Dysfluent in Fiction by Riley McGuire
When you watch a period drama set in the nineteenth century, how often does a character stutter? Or have a speech impediment? Or not speak at all? In Dysfluent in Fiction: Vocal Disability & Nineteenth-Century Literature, Riley McGuire explores the “literary history of vocal disability in the nineteenth century” through romance novels, children’s literature, detective…
Coffee with a Colleague
Executive Director of Medicine & the Muse and Memoirist Jacqueline Genovese Sarah Berry // This interview series features educators, scholars, artists, and healthcare providers whose work is vital to the growth of the health humanities. On Tuesday, January 19, I interviewed Ms. Jacqueline Genovese, MFA, MA, about her work as Executive Director of the Medical…
Synapsis in Paris: Is an anachronical approach to medico-literary history possible?
Benjamin Gagnon Chainey // As part of the latest CHCI Alliance Medical Humanities Summer School, held last June at the Columbia Global Center in Paris, I presented a paper entitled “Towards a transhistorical medico-literary deconstruction of empathy,” where I conducted a comparative analysis of the bodily, linguistic and epistemological tensions between the concept of “experience”…
Synapsis in Paris: Allegories in Exit West
Sneha Mantri // In this post, I want to reframe and expand on the provocations I presented at the CHCI medical humanities conference this year. The bulk of my talk was an analysis of Mohsin Hamid’s 2017 novel Exit West,[1] through the lens of medical education and practice. As a physician and educator, I’m deeply…