Narrative Art and the Politics of Health

(Hardback)

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As countless alterations have taken place in medicine in the twenty-first century so too have literary artists addressed new understandings of disease and pathology. Dis/ability studies, fat studies, mad studies, end-of-life studies, and critical race studies among other fields have sought to better understand what social factors lead to pathologising certain conditions while other variations remain 'normalised.'

While recognising that these scholarly approaches often speak to identities with radically different experiences of pathologisation, this collection of essays is open to all critical engagements with narratives of health in order to facilitate the messiness of cross-disciplinary collaboration and interdisciplinarity. As scientific advances provide insight into a wide range of well-being issues and help extend life, it is vital that we come to question the very categories of 'healthy' and 'unhealthy.'

This collection brings together analyses of cultural productions which probe those categorisations and suggest new psychological and philosophical understandings which will help better apply and guide the knowledge being rapidly developed within the life sciences. 'Right of health' is a widely accepted human right, but in applying a right to healthcare what care and what sort of health are less universally agreed upon. The contributors share an interest in addressing who controls answers to the questions of 'how do we define a healthy body and a healthy life' and 'what are the political forces that influence our definitions of health'

Reviews

This timely book collects a diverse set of essays that examine the stories we tell about our own and others health. The collection sparkles with intellectual curiosity and critique, illuminating myriad ways we have been shaped by cultural narratives about health and well-being. Joel Rodgers, Lecturer, Department of English, University of Toronto Scarborough

In their edited volume, Narrative Art and the Politics of Health(Anthem, 2021), Neil Brooks and Sarah Blanchette aptly argued, as scientific advances provide insight into a wide range of well-being issues and help extend life, it is vital that we come to question the very categories of healthy and unhealthy. I want to address this topic considering one aspect of womens lives and that is the athletic domain. -Dr. Maryam Farahani, Research Associate at the University of Liverpool, Anthem Blog Post, July 2022.

Author Bio

Neil Brooks is Chair of the Department of English and Cultural studies at Huron University College, London, Ontario, Canada.

Sarah Blanchette is a PhD candidate in the Department of English at Western University, London, Ontario, Canada.