This book examines the ways that various syndromes, disorders and diseases appear in modern literature and film. What is especially interesting is that rather than be portrayed as an insurmountable handicap, limitation becomes the hero of the novels and films under discussion. What once would have been rejected as flawed, ill, diseased or unworthy has now earned the opportunity to be included into mainstream society. By accepting the other, these works of art allow previous outcasts of society into the mainstream to affirm their moral worth, skill and intelligence. Representations of Illness in Literature and Film analyzes the deconstruction of the above mentioned syndromes, disorders and diseases to describe their reception in the 21st-century, postmodern world.
This ground-breaking study examines visual and literary responses to, and representations of, illness, dying and death from the perspective of the chronically ill, their families and carers, medics, artists, photographers, authors, and academics. It encourages a re-examination of cultural taboos and visual and literary practices that engage with illness and death. Focusing upon a wide range of creative and critical engagements, this book makes a significant contribution to the medical humanities via its exploration of medical practice, literature and film, digital media studies, graphic design, and both contemporary and historical attitudes towards illness, death (including infant mortality), mourning and bereavement. For some, the experience of illness provokes feelings of exile, crisis or social critique, whilst for others it instigates utopian discourses predicated upon personal reflection, communication or connectivity, wherein the “self” is redefined beyond the parameters and constraints of the “body”.
Whether in movies, cartoons, commercials, or even fast food marketing, psychology and mental illness remain pervasive in popular culture. In this collection of new essays, scholars from a range of fields explore representations of mental illness and disabilities across various media of popular culture. Contributors address how forms of psychiatric disorder have been addressed in film, on stage, and in literature, how popular culture genres are utilized to communicate often confusing and conflicted relationships with the mentally ill, and how popular cultures around the world reflect mental illness and disability. Analyses of sources as disparate as the Batman films, Broadway musicals and Nigerian home movies reveal how definitions of mental illness, mental health, and of psychology itself intersect with discourses on race, gender, law, capitalism, and globalization. Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.
How are men represented on the printed page, the stage and the screen? What do these representations say about masculinity in the past, the present, and the future? The twelve essays in this volume explore the different ways in which men and masculinity have been represented, from the plays of William Shakespeare to the science fiction of Richard K. Morgan, passing through classic fiction by Emily Brontë and Charles Dickens, and popular favourites by Terry Pratchett and Isaac Asimov, without forgetting the Star Wars saga. Collectively, these essays argue that, although much has been written about men, it has been done from a perspective that does not see masculinity as a specific feature in need of critical appraisal. Men need to be made aware of how they are represented in order to alter the toxic patriarchal models handed down to them and even break the extant binary gender models. For that, it is important that men distinguish patriarchy from masculinity, as is done here, and form anti-patriarchal alliances with each other and with women. This book is, then, an invitation to men’s liberation from patriarchy by raising an awareness of its crippling constraints.
Performing Bodies: Female Illness in Italian Literature and Cinema (1860-1920) explores the variations in the portrayal of female illness in Italian fin de siècle literature and early cinema. Catherine Ramsey-Portolano begins her study with an overview of nineteenth-century theories on female inferiority and nervous disorders, especially hysteria. 19th-century European scientific and philosophical discourse on women’s bodies, which focused on female biological functions and malfunctions, accompanied an abundant fin de siècle literary representation of female illness, a theme which also carried over into the cinematic genre of diva films of the 1910s. Ramsey-Portolano’s analysis of fin de siècle Italian literary texts first discusses those novels in which illness represents the consequence and at times punishment for women who transgressed traditional societal roles and norms of behavior. Ramsey-Portolano also demonstrates, however, that there also existed within a portrayal of female illness which suggested sickness as a form of agency for women. Rather than depicting women as powerless victims who succumb to illness due to the pressures and limitations of patriarchal society, this second group of novels posits illness as a means for women to take control of their bodies and demonstrate self-mastery through illness as a chosen form of behavior. Performing Bodies: Female Illness in Italian Literature and Cinema (1860-1920) concludes with a discussion of the role of female illness in Italian cinema of the 1910s. Ramsey-Portolano analyzes the films Tigre reale (1916) and Malombra (1917), featuring the divas Pina Menichelli and Lyda Borelli, to show how illness granted centrality to the female character. By placing the diva and her point of view at the center of the film’s action, these films posit the female character as the active one in advancing the story, thus providing a progressive model for female Italian viewers and an early example of the female gaze in Italian cinema. Performing Bodies: Female Illness in Italian Literature and Cinema (1860-1920) examines how in Italian literature and film, as well as in society, women were confined to traditional roles and illness often represented the consequence for transgressing those roles. Feigning illness offered women a way to “own” the illness and become manipulators and masters not only of their bodies but of their stories and destinies.
Illness narratives have become a cultural phenomenon in the Western world. In what ways can they be seen to have aesthetic, ethical and political value? What do they reveal about experiences of illness, the relationship between the body and identity and the role of the arts in bearing witness to illness for people who are ill and those connected to them? How can they influence medicine, the arts and shape public understandings of health and illness? These questions and more are explored in Illness as Many Narratives, which contains readings of a rich array of representations of illness from the 1980s to the present. A wide range of arts and media are considered such as life writing, photography, performance, film, theatre, artists' books and animation. The individual chapters deploy multidisciplinary critical frameworks and discuss physical and mental illness. Through reading this book you will gain an understanding of the complex contribution illness narratives make to contemporary culture and the emergent field of Critical Medical Humanities.
Contemporary Hollywood films commonly use mental disorders as a magnifier by which social, political, or economic problems become enlarged in order to critique societal conditions. Cinema has a long history of amplifying human emotion or experience for dramatic effect. The heightened representations of people with mental disorder often elide one category of literal truths for the benefit of different moral or emotional reasons. With films like Fight Club, The Silence of the Lambs, The Dark Knight, and Black Swan, this book address characters identified by film or media as people who are crazy, mentally ill, developmentally delayed, insane, have autism spectrum disorder, associative personality disorder, or who have other mental disorders. Despite the vast array of differences in people’s experiences, film often marginalizes people with mental disorders in ways that make it important to be inclusive of these varied experiences. These characters also commonly become subject to the structures of hierarchy and control that actual people with mental disorders encounter. Cinematic patterns of control and oppression heavily influence the narratives of those considered crazy by the outside world.
Virginia Woolf’s daring essay on how illness transforms our perception, plus an essay by Woolf’s mother from the caregiver’s perspective: “Revelatory.” —Booklist This new publication of “On Being Ill” with “Notes from Sick Rooms” presents Virginia Woolf and her mother, Julia Stephen, in textual conversation for the first time in literary history. In the poignant and humorous essay “On Being Ill,” Woolf observes that though illness is part of every human being’s experience, it is not celebrated as a subject of great literature in the way that love and war are embraced by writers and readers. We must, Woolf says, invent a new language to describe pain. Illness, she observes, enhances our perceptions and reduces self-consciousness; it is “the great confessional.” Woolf discusses the taboos associated with illness, and she explores how it changes our relationship to the world around us. “Notes from Sick Rooms,” meanwhile, addresses illness from the caregiver’s perspective. With clarity, humor, and pathos, Julia Stephen offers concrete information that remains useful to nurses and caregivers today. This edition also includes an introduction to “Notes from Sick Rooms” by Mark Hussey, founding editor of Woolf Studies Annual, and a poignant afterword by Rita Charon, MD, founder of the field of Narrative Medicine. In addition, Hermione Lee’s brilliant introduction to “On Being Ill” offers a superb overview of Woolf’s life and writing. “Woolf’s inquiry into illness and its impact on the mind is paired with her mother’s observations about caring for the body. Julia Stephen . . . had no professional training but took to heart Florence Nightingale’s precept that every woman is a nurse and emulated Nightingale’s best-selling Notes on Nursing with her own “Notes from Sick Rooms.” In this long-overlooked, precise, and piquant little manual, Stephen is compassionate and ironic, observing that everyone deserves to be tenderly nursed while addressing the small evil of crumbs in bed. This unprecedented literary reunion of mother and daughter is stunning on many fronts, but physician and literary scholar Rita Charon focuses on the essentials in her astute afterword, writing that Woolf’s perspective as a patient and Stephen’s as a nurse together illuminate the goal of care—to listen, to recognize, to imagine, to honor.” —Booklist “Woolf and Stephen will certainly change the way readers think of illness.” —Publishers Weekly
This volume is a timely and necessary intervention as it provides a rich, multifaceted approach to the study of cinema and visual representation. It presents a lucid and intelligent account of twentieth century film criticism essential for students in the fields of media studies and cultural studies. It leads the reader through the major contemporary philosophical and sociocultural theories of appreciating cinematic signs and themes. The book also gathers together informed discussions about the nature and principles of literary adaptation that will greatly benefit anyone interested in this field of study.
In this groundbreaking collection, twelve international scholars – with backgrounds in disability studies, English and world literature, classics, and history – discuss the representation of dis/ability, medical "cures," technology, and the body in science fiction.
