Diseases And Disorders In Contemporary Fiction

The essays in this collection address the current preoccupation with neurological conditions and disorders in contemporary literature by British and American writers. The book places these fictional treatments within a broader cultural and historical context, exploring such topics as the two cultures debate, the neurological turn, postmodernism and the post-postmodern, and responses to September 11th. Considering a variety of materials including mainstream literary fiction, the graphic novel, popular fiction, autobiographical writing, film, and television, contributors consider the contemporary dimensions of the interface between the sciences and humanities, developing the debate about the post-postmodern as a new humanism or a return to realism and investigating questions of form and genre, and of literary continuities and discontinuities. Further, the essays discuss contemporary writers’ attempts to engage the relation between the individual and the social, looking at the relation between the "syndrome syndrome" (referring to the prevalence in contemporary literature of neurological phenomena evident at the biological level) and existing work in the field of trauma studies (where explanations tend to have taken a psychoanalytical form), allowing for perspectives that question some of the assumptions that have marked both these fields. The current literary preoccupation with neurological conditions presents us with a new and distinctive form of trauma literature, one concerned less with psychoanalysis than with the physical and evolutionary status of human beings.

Examines tourists' aesthetic responses in the context of US nation formation.

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.

An amazing and fascinating look at neurological conditions in fiction and film Classical and modern literature is full of patients with interesting neurological, cognitive, or psychiatric diseases, often including detailed and accurate descriptions, which suggests the authors were inspired by observations of real people. In many cases these literary portrayals of diseases even predate their formal identification by medical science. Fictional literature encompasses nearly all kinds of disorders affecting the nervous system, with certain favorites such as memory loss and behavioral syndromes. There are even unique observations that cannot be found in scientific and clinical literature because of the lack of appropriate studies. Not only does literature offer a creative and humane look at disorders of the brain and mind, but just as authors have been inspired by medicine and real disorders, clinicians have also gained knowledge from literary depictions of the disorders they encounter in their daily practice. This book provides an amazing and fascinating look at neurological conditions, patients, and doctors in literature and film in a way which is both nostalgic and novel.

The traditional and lively interest in Meinong’s philosophy and related topics among Italian philosophers gives rise to this volume of MEINONG STUDIES. As more than an introduction, Venanzio Raspa presents an enlightening historical presentation of Meinong’s reception in Italy from his lifetime to the present day. Riccardo Martinelli offers a reconstruction of the Meinongian theory of musical objects of higher order. Francesca Modenato gives the outlines of Meinong’s object theory as a theory of the pure object, separating it from ontology and associating it rather with gnoseology. From a less historical than systematic-analytic perspective, Andrea Bottani deals with incomplete objects, Mario Alai investigates the problem of propositions concerning non-existent objects, and Carola Barbero proposes a realistic theory of the emotions aroused by reading literary texts. As themes related to Meinongian ones, Alberto Voltolini discusses the concept of existence as a property, Francesco Orilia validates an intuition of Meinong by adopting an approach called 'fact infinitism', and Guido Bonino deals with Gustav Bergmann’s interpretation of Meinong’s ontology. Das traditionelle und lebhafte Interesse italienischer Philosophen an Meinongs Philosophie und damit zusammenhängenden Themen gibt Anlaß für diesen Band der MEINONG STUDIEN. Weit über die Anforderungen an ein Eineitung hinausgehend, präsentiert Venanzio Raspa eine erhellende Studie der Rezeption Meinongs in Italien von seinen Lebzeiten bis zum heutigen Tag. Riccardo Martinelli rekonstruiert Meinongs Theorie musikalischer Objekte höherer Ordnung und Francesca Modenato umreißt Meinongs Objekttheorie (als Theorie reiner Objekte), welche sie eher der Gnoseologie denn der Ontologie zuordnet. Aus einer weniger historischen als systematisch-analytischen Perspektive befassen sich Andrea Bottani mit unvollständigen Objekten, Mario Alai mit der Frage nicht-existierende Objekte betreffender Aussagen, und Carola Barbero präsentiert eine realistische Theorie von Emotionen, die durch die Lektüre literarischer Texte erweckt werden. Als Meinong-bezogene Themen diskutiert Alberto Voltolini den Begriff der Existenz als Eigenschaft, Francesco Orilia bestätigt in seinem 'Fakteninfinitismus' genannten Zugang eine Meinongsche Intuition, und Guido Bonino befaßt sich mit Gustav Bergmanns Interpretation der Meinongschen Ontologie.

This volume seeks to bring readers to a deeper understanding of contemporary cultural and social configurations of Alzheimer’s disease by analyzing 21st-century U.S. novels in which the disease plays a key narrative role. Via analysis of selected works, Garrigós considers how the erasure of memory in a person with Alzheimer’s affects our idea of the identity of that person and their sense of belonging to a group. Starting out from three different types of memory (individual, social and cultural), the study focuses on the narrative strategies that authors use to configure how the disease is perceived and represented. This study is significant not only because of what the texts reveal about those with Alzheimer’s, but also for what they say about us - about the authors and readers who are producing and consuming these texts, about how we see this disease, and what our attitudes to it say about contemporary U.S. society.

The studies of the human being in health and illness and how he can be cared for is concerned with more than the biological aspects and thus calls for a broader perspective. Social sciences and medical humanities give insight into the context and conditions of being ill, caring for the ill, and understanding disease in a respective socio-cultural frame. This book brings together scholars from various countries who are interested in deepening the interdisciplinary discourse on the subject. This book is the outcome of the 4th global conference on "Making Sense of: Health, Illness and Disease," held at Mansfield College, Oxford, in July 2005. This volume will be of interest to students in the medical humanities, researchers as well as health care provider who wish to gain insight into the various perspectives through which we can understand health, illness and disease. It has been brought to our attention that in a chapter in this volume "Media Treatment of Organ Donation: A Case Study in Switzerland" By Peter J. Schulz direct reference and citation of the works of other scholars is often inconsistent and in some cases totally lacking. While we do not believe that it was the intention of the author of the article to misappropriate other persons' material, we do admit that the chapter does not meet standards currently expected of an academic publication. We regret any misappropriation of another author's language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions in our publications and will remain vigilant to prevent this recurring in the future. We give notice that the chapter has been retracted and will not appear in any future editions of the book. Brill, February 2016

Includes section, "Recent book acquisitions" (varies: Recent United States publications) formerly published separately by the U.S. Army Medical Library.