Download or read book Reconsidering Dementia Narratives written by Rebecca Bitenc and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-07-05 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reconsidering Dementia Narratives explores the role of narrative in developing new ways of understanding, interacting with, and caring for people with dementia. It asks how the stories we tell about dementia – in fiction, life writing and film – both reflect and shape the way we think about this important condition. Highlighting the need to attend to embodied and relational aspects of identity in dementia, the study further outlines ways in which narratives may contribute to dementia care, while disputing the idea that the modes of empathy fostered by narrative necessarily bring about more humane care practices. This cross-medial analysis represents an interdisciplinary approach to dementia narratives which range across auto/biography, graphic narrative, novel, film, documentary and collaborative storytelling practices. The book aims to clarify the limits and affordances of narrative, and narrative studies, in relation to an ethically driven medical humanities agenda through the use of case studies. Answering the key question of whether dementia narratives align with or run counter to the dominant discourse of dementia as ‘loss of self’, this innovative book will be of interest to anyone interested in dementia studies, ageing studies, narrative studies in health care, and critical medical humanities.
Download or read book Contemporary Narratives of Dementia written by Sarah Falcus and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-01-15 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines narratives of dementia in contemporary literary texts, studying what is now a pressing issue with deep political, economic, and social implications for many ageing societies. As part of the increasing visibility of dementia in social and cultural life, these narratives pose ethical, aesthetic, and political questions about subjectivity, agency, and care that help us to interrogate the cultural discourse of dementia. Contemporary Narratives of Dementia is a seminal book that offers a sustained examination of a wide range of literary narratives, from auto/biographies and detective fiction, to children’s books and comic books. With its wide-reaching theoretical and critical scope, its comparative dimension, and its inclusion of multiple genres, this book is important for scholars engaging with studies of dementia and ageing in diverse disciplines. Sarah Falcus is a Reader in Contemporary Literature at the University of Huddersfield, UK. She has research interests in contemporary women’s writing, feminism and literary gerontology. She is the co-director of the Dementia and Cultural Narrative (DCN) network. Katsura Sako is an Associate Professor of English, at Keio University, Japan. Her main field of research is in post-war/contemporary British literature, and she has particular interests in gender, ageing and illness. She is a member of the steering committee of the DCN network.
Download or read book The Bloomsbury Handbook to Ageing in Contemporary Literature and Film written by Sarah Falcus and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2023-06-29 with total page 475 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Across more than 30 chapters spanning migration, queerness, and climate change, this handbook captures how the interdisciplinary and intersectional endeavor of Age(ing) studies has shaped contemporary literary and film studies. In the early 21st century, the literary study of age and ageing in its cultural context has 'come of age': it has come to supplement and challenge a public discourse on ageing seen mainly as a political and demographic 'problem' in many countries of the world. Following a tripartite structure, it looks first at literary and film genres and how they have been shaped by knowledge about age and ageing, incorporating both narrative genres as well as poetry, drama and imagery. The second section includes chapters on key themes and concepts in Age(ing) Studies with examples from film and literature. The third section brings together case studies focussing on individual artists, national traditions and global ageing. Containing original contributions by pioneers in the field as well as new scholars from across the globe, it brings together current scholarship on ageing in literary and film studies, and offers new directions and perspectives.
Download or read book Fictions of Dementia written by Susanne Katharina Christ and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2022-09-20 with total page 540 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Taking its cues from both classical and post-classical narratologies, this study explores both forms and functions of the representation of dementia in Anglophone fictions. Initially, dementia is conceptualised as a narrative-epistemological paradox: The more those affected know what it is like to have dementia, the less they can tell about it. Narrative fiction is the only discourse that provides an imaginative glimpse at the subjective experience of dementia in language. The narratological modelling of four ‘narrative modes’ elaborates how the paradox becomes productive in fiction: Depending on the narrative perspective taken, but also on the type of narration, the technique for representing consciousness and the epistemic strategy of narrating dementia, the respective narrative modes come with different prerequisites and possibilities for narrating dementia. The analysis of four contemporary Anglophone dementia fictions based on the developed model reveals their potential functions: Fiction allows readers to learn about the challenges of dementia, grants them perspective-taking, it trains cognitive flexibility, and explores the meaning of memory, knowledge, narrative and imagination, and thus also offers trajectories of a cultural coping with dementia.
Download or read book On Vanishing written by Lynn Casteel Harper and published by Catapult. This book was released on 2020-04-14 with total page 126 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice An essential book for those coping with Alzheimer’s and other cognitive disorders that “reframe[s] our understanding of dementia with sensitivity and accuracy . . . to grant better futures to our loved ones and ourselves” (The New York Times). An estimated fifty million people in the world suffer from dementia. Diseases such as Alzheimer's erase parts of one's memory but are also often said to erase the self. People don't simply die from such diseases; they are imagined, in the clichés of our era, as vanishing in plain sight, fading away, or enduring a long goodbye. In On Vanishing, Lynn Casteel Harper, a Baptist minister and nursing home chaplain, investigates the myths and metaphors surrounding dementia and aging, addressing not only the indignities caused by the condition but also by the rhetoric surrounding it. Harper asks essential questions about the nature of our outsized fear of dementia, the stigma this fear may create, and what it might mean for us all to try to “vanish well.” Weaving together personal stories with theology, history, philosophy, literature, and science, Harper confronts our elemental fears of disappearance and death, drawing on her own experiences with people with dementia both in the American healthcare system and within her own family. In the course of unpacking her own stories and encounters—of leading a prayer group on a dementia unit; of meeting individuals dismissed as “already gone” and finding them still possessed of complex, vital inner lives; of witnessing her grandfather’s final years with Alzheimer’s and discovering her own heightened genetic risk of succumbing to the disease—Harper engages in an exploration of dementia that is unlike anything written before on the subject. A rich and startling work of nonfiction, On Vanishing reveals cognitive change as it truly is, an essential aspect of what it means to be mortal.
Download or read book Alzheimer s Disease in Contemporary U S Fiction written by Cristina Garrigós and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-07-28 with total page 205 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book The Politics of Dementia written by Irmela Marei Krüger-Fürhoff and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2021-11-22 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Memory loss is not always viewed purely as a contingent neurobiological process present in an ageing population; rather, it is frequently related to larger societal issues and political debates. This edited volume examines how different media and genres – novels, auto/biographical writings, documentary as well as fictional films and graphic memoirs – represent dementia for the sake of critical explorations of memory, trauma and contested truths. In ten analytical chapters and one piece of graphic art, the contributors examine the ways in which what might seem to be the individual, ahistorical diseases of dementia are used in contemporary cultural texts to represent and respond to violent historical and political events – ranging from the Holocaust to postcolonial conditions – all of which can prove difficult to remember. Combining approaches from literary studies with insights from memory studies, trauma studies, anthropology, the critical medical humanities and media, film and comics studies, this volume explores the politics of dementia and incites new debates on cultures of remembrance, while remaining attentive to the lived reality of dementia.
Download or read book Unforgotten written by Bianca Brijnath and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2014-07-01 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As life expectancy increases in India, the number of people living with dementia will also rise. Yet little is known about how people in India cope with dementia, how relationships and identities change through illness and loss. In addressing this question, this book offers a rich ethnographic account of how middle-class families in urban India care for their relatives with dementia. From the husband who wakes up at 3 am to feed his wife ice-cream to the daughters who gave up employment for seven years to care for their mother with dementia, this book illuminates the local idioms on dementia and aging, the personal experience of care-giving, the functioning of stigma in daily life, and the social and cultural barriers in accessing support.
Download or read book Contemporary Narratives of Ageing Illness Care written by Katsura Sako and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-12-24 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of essays explores cultural narratives of care in the contexts of ageing and illness. It includes both text-based and practice-based contributions by leading and emerging scholars in humanistic studies of ageing. The authors consider care not only in film (feature and documentary) and literature (novel, short story, children’s picturebook) but also in the fields of theatre performance, photography and music. The collection has a broad geographical scope, with case studies and primary texts from Europe and North America but also from Hong Kong, Japan, Australia, Argentina and Mexico. The volume asks what care, autonomy and dependence may mean and how these may be inflected by social and cultural specificities. Ultimately, it invites us to reflect on our relations to others as we face the global and local challenges of care in ageing societies.
Download or read book Memory s Last Breath written by Gerda Saunders and published by Hachette Books. This book was released on 2017-06-13 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A "courageous and singular book" (Andrew Solomon), Memory's Last Breath is an unsparing, beautifully written memoir -- "an intimate, revealing account of living with dementia" (Shelf Awareness). Based on the "field notes" she keeps in her journal, Memory's Last Breath is Gerda Saunders' astonishing window into a life distorted by dementia. She writes about shopping trips cut short by unintentional shoplifting, car journeys derailed when she loses her bearings, and the embarrassment of forgetting what she has just said to a room of colleagues. Coping with the complications of losing short-term memory, Saunders, a former university professor, nonetheless embarks on a personal investigation of the brain and its mysteries, examining science and literature, and immersing herself in vivid memories of her childhood in South Africa. "For anyone facing dementia, [Saunders'] words are truly enlightening . . . Inspiring lessons about living and thriving with dementia." -- Maria Shriver, NBC's Today Show
Download or read book The Things We Keep written by Sally Hepworth and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2016-01-19 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With huge heart, humor, and a compassionate understanding of human nature, Sally Hepworth delivers a page-turning novel about the power of love to grow and endure even when faced with the most devastating of obstacles. You won’t forget The Things We Keep. Anna Forster is only thirty-eight years old, but her mind is slowly slipping away from her. Armed only with her keen wit and sharp-eyed determination, she knows that her family is doing what they believe to be best when they take her to Rosalind House, an assisted living facility. But Anna has a secret: she does not plan on staying. She also knows there's just one another resident who is her age, Luke. What she does not expect is the love that blossoms between her and Luke even as she resists her new life. As her disease steals more and more of her memory, Anna fights to hold on to what she knows, including her relationship with Luke. Eve Bennett, suddenly thrust into the role of single mother to her bright and vivacious seven-year-old daughter, finds herself putting her culinary training to use at Rosalind house. When she meets Anna and Luke, she is moved by the bond the pair has forged. But when a tragic incident leads Anna's and Luke's families to separate them, Eve finds herself questioning what she is willing to risk to help them. Eve has her own secrets, and her own desperate circumstances that raise the stakes even higher.
Download or read book The Poetics and Politics of Alzheimer s Disease Life Writing written by Martina Zimmermann and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-06-07 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license. This is the first book-length exploration of the thoughts and experiences expressed by dementia patients in published narratives over the last thirty years. It contrasts third-person caregiver and first-person patient accounts from different languages and a range of media, focusing on the poetical and political questions these narratives raise: what images do narrators appropriate; what narrative plot do they adapt; and how do they draw on established strategies of life-writing. It also analyses how these accounts engage with the culturally dominant Alzheimer’s narrative that centres on dependence and vulnerability, and addresses how they relate to discourses of gender and aging. Linking literary scholarship to the medico-scientific understanding of dementia as a neurodegenerative condition, this book argues that, first, patients’ articulations must be made central to dementia discourse; and second, committed alleviation of caregiver burden through social support systems and altered healthcare policies requires significantly altered views about aging, dementia, and Alzheimer’s patients.
Download or read book New Essays on Life Writing and the Body written by Christopher Stuart and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2009-03-26 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In light of materialist revisions of the Cartesian dual self and the increased recognition of memoir and autobiography as a crucial cultural index, the physical body has emerged in the last twenty-five years as an increasingly inescapable object of inquiry, speculation, and theory that intersects all of the various subgenres of life writing. New Essays on Life Writing and the Body thus offers a timely, original, focused, and yet appropriately interdisciplinary study of life writing. This collection brings together new work by established authorities in autobiography, such as Timothy Dow Adams, G. Thomas Couser, Cynthia Huff, and others, along with essays by emerging scholars in the field. Subjects range from new interpretations of well-known autobiographies by Edith Wharton, Gertrude Stein, and Lucy Grealy, as well as scholarly surveys of more recently defined subgenres, such as the numerous New Woman autobiographies of the late 19th century, adoption narratives, and sibling memoirs of the mentally impaired. Due to their wide, interdisciplinary focus, these essay will prove valuable not only to more traditional literary scholars interested in the classic literary autobiography but also to those in Women’s Studies, Ethnic and African-American Studies, as well as in emerging fields such as Disability Studies and Cognitive Studies.
Download or read book Traces of Aging written by Marta Cerezo Moreno and published by transcript Verlag. This book was released on 2016-05-31 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection consists of eight essays that examine the way narratives determine our understanding of old age and condition how the experience is lived. Contributors to this volume have based their analysis on the concept of »narrative identity« developed by Paul Ricoeur, built upon the idea that fiction makes life, and on his definition of »trace« as the mark of time. By investigating the traces of aging imprinted in a series of literary and filmic works they dismantle the narrative of old age as decline and foreclosure to assemble one of transformation and growth.
Download or read book There But For The written by Ali Smith and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2011-09-13 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the acclaimed, award-winning author—when a dinner-party guest named Miles locks himself in an upstairs room and refuses to come out, he sets off a media frenzy. He also sets in motion a mesmerizing puzzle of a novel, one that harnesses acrobatic verbal playfulness to a truly affecting story. Miles communicates only by cryptic notes slipped under the door. We see him through the eyes of four people who barely know him, ranging from a precocious child to a confused elderly woman. But while the characters’ wit and wordplay soar, their story remains profoundly grounded. As it probes our paradoxical need for both separation and true connection, There but for the balances cleverness with compassion, the surreal with the deeply, movingly real, in a way that only Ali Smith can.
Download or read book The Diseased Brain and the Failing Mind written by Martina Zimmermann and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2020-06-25 with total page 347 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. It is funded by The Wellcome Trust. The Diseased Brain and the Failing Mind charts changing cultural understandings of dementia and alzheimer's disease in scientific and cultural texts across the 20th Century. Reading a range of texts from the US, UK, Europe and Japan, the book examines how the language of dementia – regarding the loss of identity, loss of agency, loss of self and life – is rooted in scientific discourse and expressed in popular and literary texts. Following changing scientific understandings of dementia, the book also demonstrates how cultural expressions of the experience and dementia have fed back into the way medical institutions have treated dementia patients. The book includes a glossary of scientific terms for non-specialist readers.
Download or read book Literature and Disability written by Alice Hall and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-08-11 with total page 157 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Literature and Disability introduces readers to the field of disability studies and the ways in which a focus on issues of impairment and the representation of disability can provide new approaches to reading and writing about literary texts. Disability plays a central role in much of the most celebrated literature, yet it is only in recent years that literary criticism has begun to consider the aesthetic, ethical and literary challenges that this poses. The author explores: key debates and issues in disability studies today different forms of impairment, with the aim of showing the diversity and ambiguity of the term "disability" the intersection between literary critical approaches to disability and feminist, post-colonial, and autobiographical writing genre and representations of disability in relation to literary forms including novels, short stories, poems, plays and life writing This volume provides students and academics with an accessible overview of literary critical approaches to disability representation.
