Author: martina

The research project connects the critical approaches of disability studies and health humanities and focuses on the narrative, cultural and discursive aspect of the concept of disability. In particular the project will develop along two main lines of investigation:

1. Alzheimer’s and cognitive disability narratives,
2. Dis-abiliy narratives in children’s and young adult’s narratives. 

Alzheimer’s and cognitive disability’s narratives (Chiara Battisti): the proposal aims to investigate whether there are any traces of early manifestations of Alzheimer’s and other cognitive disabilities in authors’ writing, by means of a comparative textual analysis of works written before, and during/after diagnosis. The proposal also aims to determine whether the detected changes in style are consistent with age-related changes or Alzheimer’s symptomatology. Some studies have shown that early manifestations of Alzheimer’s can be detected through changes in an individual’s speech and writing. These changes can include a decrease in vocabulary size, a reduction in grammatical complexity, and a decline in the coherence and clarity of the individual’s writing. 

Dis-ability narratives in children’s and young adult’s narratives (Sidia Fiorato): the project aims at investigating the representation and conception of disability in literary and cultural texts, both from a physical/medical and psychilogical/social perspective, in connection with the articulation of identity of the protagonists and readers. The research will focus on the Victorian period, in relation with the codification of childhood as a distinct life phase and the development of child psychology and psychiatry, and the contemporary period, in particular through the re-reading of fairy tales as a metaphor for the articulation of ableness and dis-abled identities, through the analysis of the protaginists and the communication with young readers. The research will be based on a qualitative research design, specifically, comparative textual analysis, integrated with linguistic and stylometrics tools, cultural and medical theories.  

Group leaders: Chiara Battisti and Sidia Fiorato

Internal members:

• Anja Meyer (assegnista Università di Verona) 

Actions: WP 1.1  

References:

Battisti C. (2018) “Am I Still Alice?”: The Quest for “a Sense of Self” and Alzheimer’s Disease in Still Alice by Lisa Genova” in Susan Onega and Jean-Michel Ganteau, The Wounded Hero in Contemporary Fiction. A Paradoxical Quest, Routledge.  
Said, E. (2006) On Late Style, New York: Vintage Book. 
Elizabeth A. Wheeler, “Disability”, in A Companion to Children’s Literature, ed. Karen Coats et al, New York: Blackwell, 2022 
Donna Sayers Adomat, “Exploring Issues of Disability in Children’s Literature Discussions”, Disability Studies Quarterly 34.3 (2014) 

This project aims to develop an innovative research pathway to identify a corpus of literary texts that can be used in medical/healthcare training courses to develop empathy and clinical acumen among medical students and medical and healthcare staff. Narrative Medicine emphasises the importance of understanding the patient’s narrative and of developing empathy as a key component of effective medical care. The critical literature on the use of literary texts in medical training courses is promising in this regard. However, the identification of effective literary texts is still lacking. This project will therefore employ a qualitative research approach- using a combination of content analysis and focus group discussions- to identify such a corpus of texts North American and British literature. The study will begin by identifying a list of potential literary texts-excerpts from novels, short stories, poems, graphic novels, and films-based on their relevance to medical themes and their potential to foster the aforementioned empathy and clinical acumen. The identified literary texts will be subjected to content analysis to evaluate their effectiveness in meeting the objectives of the study.

The results of the content analysis will be used to select the final corpus of literary texts. Focus group discussions will be conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of the identified literary texts. 

The expected outcome of this research will contribute to the growing literature on Narrative Medicine and Medical Humanities, highlighting the importance of incorporating humanistic approaches in medical training and practice.  

Group leader: Chiara Battisti and Sidia Fiorato

Internal members:

• Anja Meyer (assegnista Università di Verona)

External members:

• Emma Aminat Badmus (PhD at Universita’ di Modena) 
• Beatrice Melodia Festa (prof.ssa a contratto Università di Verona) 

Actions: WP 1.1, WP 1.2  

References:

Bleakley, A. (2015). Medical Humanities and Medical Education: How the Medical Humanities.Can Shape Better Doctors. London: Routledge. 
Charon, R. Narrative Medicine. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. Print.Charon, R., & DasGupta, S. (2011). Narrative medicine, or a sense of story, Literature and Medicine, 29(2), vii–xiii. doi: 10.1353/lm.2011.0329 
Kemp, S. J., & Day, G. (2014). “Teaching medical humanities in the digital world: affordances of technology-enhanced learning.” Medical Humanities, 40. 
Kerasidou, A., Horn, R. “Making space for empathy: supporting doctors in the emotional labour of clinical care” BMC Med Ethics 17, 8 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12910-016-0091-7