The Poetics and Politics of Alzheimer’s Disease Life-Writing

Abstract

Palgrave Studies in Literature, Science and Medicine is an exciting new series that focuses on one of the most vibrant and interdisciplinary areas in literary studies: the intersection of literature, science and medicine. Comprised of academic monographs, essay collections, and Palgrave Pivot books, the series will emphasize a historical approach to its subjects, in conjunction with a range of other theoretical approaches. The series will cover all aspects of this rich and varied field and is open to new and emerging topics as well as established ones.

Interactions between Medicine and the Arts

“…The texts under consideration here highlight that caregivers of family members with dementia may testify to caring about them, but find it impossible to care for them. Yet they do so by departing from well-known care scripts, as part of which dementia caregivers frequently describe the burden of caring for family members [154] and instead take up what Lucy Burke has identified as S38 "the correlation between caring, dementia and abuse in a range of novels and life narratives written in the wake of the current Alzheimer's epidemic" [155]. However, in emphasizing that these texts explore the affective dimension of violence in care, this article is less concerned with exploring the specificity of dementia care-even if, as Burke has pointed out, dementia constitutes "a key element in the transformation of the meaning of care" [155].…”

Dementia and the Paradigm of the Camp: Thinking Beyond Giorgio Agamben’s Concept of “Bare Life”

“…There are many very suggestive and illuminating analyses of aging and care in Ernaux’s work and of the literary rendering of her complex and often troubled relationship with her mother (Motte 1995; Miller 1999; Jordan 2011; Zimmermann 2017). However, what I want to draw attention to here are some of the ethical implications of the analogical mediation of dementia via Holocaust metaphors and the correspondences between the aged care facility and the spatiotemporal characteristics of the concentration camp.…”

Untitled

“…Overcoming this fear can only come from those who confront it. There is a new wave of patient advocacy in dementia [124] promoted by emerging researchers [125][126][127][128][129] based on disability advocacy movements and people living with dementia.…”