Reading Bodies: Narrating Illness in Spanish and European Literatures and Cultures (1870s to 1960s)
Katharine Murphy, AHRC Research, Development and Engagement Fellowship
The interconnections between literature and medicine have been the focus of increasing scholarly interest. Building on recent studies in this field of Modern Languages and transnational Medical Humanities, the Fellowship will analyse cultural narratives of illness in Europe from the late-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century. Drawing together specialists across language disciplines (foregrounding Hispanic Studies alongside French, German and Italian), the Fellowship will trace the development of narratives of ill-health from the 1870s to the 1960s, with particular attention to gendered representations of psychological and physical conditions. This transnational approach seeks to foster collaboration and shared insights. The project will examine the importance of cultural representation for the dissemination and legitimisation of ideas about health and illness, and the ways in which literary and other cultural texts express societies’ fears and preoccupations, including during periods of crisis and change. A key strand of the Fellowship is to encourage discussion about the legacy and ongoing echoes of cultural narratives of the sick body up to the present day.
Planned activities include two academic workshops to bring together specialists across languages and other Humanities disciplines; a creative workshop on narrating burnout and resilience in micro-fiction, poetry, prose poems and visual art; and a speaker event with authors of health fiction. The project website will disseminate academic perspectives and engagement activities. Key outputs will include a monograph on narratives of illness in early twentieth-century Spanish fiction, an edited volume arising from the academic workshops, and a volume of creative writing co-edited with Dr Sally Flint for publication with Riptide.
