Literature and Health: Viable Convergences

  • Isabel Fernandes
Keywords: Medical Humanities, Narrative Medicine (NM), Literary studies, close reading, reflexive/creative writing

Abstract

This paper aims at showing: 1) how the emergent areas of Medical Humanities and Narrative Medicine (NM) are related to the convergence movement of the academic fields of knowledge, where the humanities have been called upon to play a relevant role; 2) how the challenge posed by such interfaces in terms of method, has led to the recognition of the role played by close reading as the central method of literary studies and literary criticism, as recently revised and revaluated not only as a creative and dialogical reading practice but also as a creative and dialogical writing practice and adopted by Narrative Medicine as its ‘signature method’; 3) how, in the fields of health care and education, close reading and the attendant reflexive or creative writing contribute to develop attention, representation and affiliation (the tripod of NM) and thus promote and improve therapeutic practices that are ethically aware

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Published
2021-07-24
How to Cite
Fernandes, I. (2021) “Literature and Health: Viable Convergences ”, Rivista Italiana di Filosofia del Linguaggio, 15(1). doi: 10.4396/20210604.