Scholars from a range of disciplines, along with practitioners in medicine, psychology, and other forms of healing or therapy, have turned their attention in recent years to intersections between experiences pain or trauma and the creation of narratives to describe and grapple with these experiences. More broadly, scholars in the humanities, and increasingly the social sciences as well, are engaging with personal narratives (such as memoirs, diaries, and oral histories) as objects of study or sources of evidence. Personal narratives are of interest as literary genres and as sources of insight into the relationship between the individual and the social. Our research collaborative centers on interdisciplinary work with such narratives, specifically on the production and analysis of personal narratives of illness and trauma. Our scope has broadened somewhat as a result of our first year of presentations and discussions. Along with our examination of narratives recounting experiences of illness, we are now also engaging with narratives that recount the experiences of medical practitioners and educators, historically and in the present. Some participants have also workshopped works of fiction, literature and art at the intersection of narrative and medicine.

CONVENERS:

Mary Jo Maynes, History, CLA, TC
Leslie Morris, German, Nordic, Slavic & Dutch, CLA, TC