Stella Bolaki
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781474402422
- eISBN:
- 9781474418591
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474402422.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter focuses on a medium that is rarely discussed in relation to the medical humanities by examining the artists’ books of American artist and cancer patient Martha A. Hall. Hall created her ...
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This chapter focuses on a medium that is rarely discussed in relation to the medical humanities by examining the artists’ books of American artist and cancer patient Martha A. Hall. Hall created her books in response to her initial diagnosis of breast cancer in 1989 and the effects of later recurrences until her death in 2003. While art historians and book critics typically describe the handling of artists’ books in terms of a powerful aesthetic experience that emphasises the sensuous pleasures of the book, this chapter shows how the interactive form and content of Hall’s books place a more radical set of demands upon readers. The analysis particularly concentrates on the complex nature of touching and the ethics of responsibility that it generates. It also considers the challenges Hall’s work poses to mainstream breast cancer and the provocations of her artists’ books for medical communities, to whom she attached special importance. The chapter concludes by showing how her work, and artists’ books more broadly, can create spaces for unpredictable and unfinished encounters that can reinvigorate models of empathy in medical education.Less
This chapter focuses on a medium that is rarely discussed in relation to the medical humanities by examining the artists’ books of American artist and cancer patient Martha A. Hall. Hall created her books in response to her initial diagnosis of breast cancer in 1989 and the effects of later recurrences until her death in 2003. While art historians and book critics typically describe the handling of artists’ books in terms of a powerful aesthetic experience that emphasises the sensuous pleasures of the book, this chapter shows how the interactive form and content of Hall’s books place a more radical set of demands upon readers. The analysis particularly concentrates on the complex nature of touching and the ethics of responsibility that it generates. It also considers the challenges Hall’s work poses to mainstream breast cancer and the provocations of her artists’ books for medical communities, to whom she attached special importance. The chapter concludes by showing how her work, and artists’ books more broadly, can create spaces for unpredictable and unfinished encounters that can reinvigorate models of empathy in medical education.
Stella Bolaki
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781474402422
- eISBN:
- 9781474418591
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474402422.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
Illness narratives have become a cultural phenomenon in the Western world but their analysis continues to be framed by the context of biomedicine, the doctor-patient encounter and the demands of ...
More
Illness narratives have become a cultural phenomenon in the Western world but their analysis continues to be framed by the context of biomedicine, the doctor-patient encounter and the demands of medical training. This reductive attitude prevents the inclusion of more formally experimental genres, different themes and interdisciplinary methods within the field. It also perpetuates the view of the medical humanities as a narrow area of study largely serving the needs of medicine. Exploring the aesthetic, ethical and cultural importance of contemporary representations of illness across different arts and media, this book intervenes in current debates in medical humanities/medical education by emphasising more critical as opposed to instrumental approaches. Opening up the category of illness narrative to consider forms beyond literature, Illness as Many Narratives includes chapters on photography, artists’ books, performance art, film, theatre, animation and online narratives. The book examines different physical and mental illness experiences in both autobiographical and collaborative/relational narratives and offers new close readings of diverse works by Jo Spence, Sam Taylor-Wood, Martha A. Hall, Guillermo Gómez-Peña, Wim Wenders, Lisa Kron and others. Approaching illness and its treatments as a multiplicity and situating them in relation to aesthetics, theory, radical pedagogy, politics and contemporary cultural concerns, Illness as Many Narratives demonstrates how bringing in diverse materials and engaging with multiple perspectives can help the arts, cultural studies and the medical humanities to establish critical conversations and amplify the goals and scope of their respective work.Less
Illness narratives have become a cultural phenomenon in the Western world but their analysis continues to be framed by the context of biomedicine, the doctor-patient encounter and the demands of medical training. This reductive attitude prevents the inclusion of more formally experimental genres, different themes and interdisciplinary methods within the field. It also perpetuates the view of the medical humanities as a narrow area of study largely serving the needs of medicine. Exploring the aesthetic, ethical and cultural importance of contemporary representations of illness across different arts and media, this book intervenes in current debates in medical humanities/medical education by emphasising more critical as opposed to instrumental approaches. Opening up the category of illness narrative to consider forms beyond literature, Illness as Many Narratives includes chapters on photography, artists’ books, performance art, film, theatre, animation and online narratives. The book examines different physical and mental illness experiences in both autobiographical and collaborative/relational narratives and offers new close readings of diverse works by Jo Spence, Sam Taylor-Wood, Martha A. Hall, Guillermo Gómez-Peña, Wim Wenders, Lisa Kron and others. Approaching illness and its treatments as a multiplicity and situating them in relation to aesthetics, theory, radical pedagogy, politics and contemporary cultural concerns, Illness as Many Narratives demonstrates how bringing in diverse materials and engaging with multiple perspectives can help the arts, cultural studies and the medical humanities to establish critical conversations and amplify the goals and scope of their respective work.
